Apply Now for 2023 AFS and Section Prizes With Deadlines from June – September

Prize application season continues! The AFS Newsletter will alert you to new calls for applications, but you can check anytime on our round up of all AFS prizes and news, including new calls for applications that are posted as they are released.

Extended Deadline: June 1

The AFS African American Folklore Section sponsors the annual John Wesley Work III Award, which honors and spotlights applied folklorists, ethnographers, and ethnomusicologists who actively focus on the research, documentation, recording, and highlighting of African American culture through performance, written word, and music in their scholarly works.

The Folk Belief and Religious Folklife Section of AFS offers the following awards and prizes that have extended deadlines of June 1:

Elaine J. Lawless Travel Award

This award offers a travel stipend in honor of distinguished folklorist, religious folklife scholar, and professor, Elaine J. Lawless, of up to $500 to be awarded to a graduate student to participate in the Society’s annual meeting.

Leonard Norman Primiano Graduate Student Travel Award

The award is given to a graduate student to deliver an AFS annual meeting conference presentation on vernacular Catholicism and to participate in the Society’s annual meeting in person.

Leonard Norman Primiano Retired Scholar Travel Award

The award is given to a graduate student to deliver an AFS annual meeting conference presentation on vernacular Catholicism and to participate in the Society’s annual meeting in person.

Deadline: June 1

The Folk Belief and Religious Folklife Section of the American Folklore Society invites submissions for the Don Yoder Prize for the Best Graduate Student Paper in Folk Belief or Religious Folklife, with an honorarium of $500. 

The Folk Belief and Religious Folklife Section of the American Folklore Society invites submissions for the William A. Wilson Prize for the Best Undergraduate Student Paper in Folk Belief or Religious Folklife, with an honorarium of $250.

The History and Folklore Section has awarded the Wayland D. Hand Prize for an outstanding book that combines historical and folkloristic perspectives on a biennial basis since 2006. Prize consideration includes books in two categories: (1) single or co-authored book and (2) edited volume(s). A work submitted for consideration would have been published between June 1, 2022, and May 31, 2023.

Deadline: July 1

The Mediterranean Studies Section of the American Folklore Society invites submissions for the Fernand Braudel Prize for an Outstanding Student Research Paper in Mediterranean Folklore with an honorarium of $500.

AFS offers a limited number of travel stipends for international participants on a competitive basis for folklorists and other cultural specialists from outside the United States and Canada. Stipends vary between $500 and $800, depending on the availability of funds and the number of applicants.

Deadline: July 15

The AFS Independent Folklorists’ Section and the Women’s Section offer an Annual Meeting Award of $1,000 to attend the AFS Annual Meeting. The award supports costs such as transportation, meeting registration, lodging and/or per diem expenses) for an independent folklorist who is working on women’s issues to attend the annual meeting and present their work.

Deadline: August 1

Each year, the Women’s Section awards the Polly Stewart Student Travel Stipend to one or more students to attend the American Folklore Society meeting. The Section awards a First Place Prize of $1,000 and a Second Place Prize of $600 to facilitate participation in the annual meeting by emerging scholars who show promise of furthering the study of women’s folklore, gender issues in folklore, and/or feminist approaches to the study of folklore. The award supports travel costs (transportation, meeting registration, lodging and/or per diem expenses) for students or recent graduates who are members of the AFS Women’s Section and who plan to attend the annual meeting and present her/his work.

Each year, the Women’s Section of the American Folklore Society awards two prizes in honor of pioneering scholar Elli Köngäs-Maranda. The prizes recognize superior work on women’s traditional, vernacular, or local culture and/or feminist theory and folklore. The content of the nominations must focus on some aspect of women’s folklore. Prize recipients do not have to be members of the American Folklore Society. The Elli Köngäs-Maranda Student Prize carries an award of $250 for an undergraduate or graduate student paper (up to 30 pages in length), produced as part of a degree program, and the Elli Köngäs-Maranda Professional/Non-Student Prize carries an award of $500 for publications, films, videos, exhibitions or exhibition catalogues, or sound recordings published/produced between August 1, 2022, and August 1, 2023.

Deadline: September 15

The Barbro Klein Prize in Nordic and Baltic Folklore is awarded by the Nordic and Baltic Folklore Section to a student for an outstanding conference paper, article-length essay, or research-based media production on a folklore topic having to do with Northern Europe and/or the diasporas of its various peoples.

Find out more about AFS and AFS Section awards and prizes.