Apply Now for 2023 AFS and Section Prizes

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.

Deadline: April 15

The following AFS prizes have deadlines of April 15:

Chicago Folklore Prize

First awarded in 1904, the Chicago Folklore Prize, awarded to the author(s) of the best book-length work of folklore scholarship for the year, is the oldest international award recognizing excellence in folklore scholarship. 

AFS Lifetime Scholarly Achievement Award

This award is bestowed every year (and before 2012, every other year) on a living senior scholar in recognition of outstanding scholarly achievement over the course of a career.

Judith McCulloh Award for Lifetime Service to the Field

The AFS Executive Board recognizes extraordinary contributions in service that advance the visibility and success of the American Folklore Society or the field of folklore studies. The Board intends the award to foreground the critical importance to the health and sustenance of our field of those folklorists who, in addition to their personal accomplishments, make it possible for other folklorists to do their best work.

Kenneth Goldstein Award for Lifetime Academic Leadership

This award is named for Kenneth Goldstein (1927-1995), chair and for many years the guiding force behind the Department of Folklore and Folklife at the University of Pennsylvania. It recognizes outstanding abilities and achievement by a living scholar in academic leadership relating to folklore. “Leadership” includes folklore program development, organizational and center development, teaching, and advising.

AFS Graduate Fieldwork Grant

The American Folklore Society offers these grants in support of field research by graduate students pursuing careers in folklore. The main purpose of the grant program is to foster excellence in folklore research by allowing students to develop ambitious projects grounded in long-term ethnographic engagement.

Deadline: May 1

The Folk Belief and Religious Folklife Section of AFS offers the following awards and prizes that have deadlines of May 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 Book Prize on Vernacular Catholicism

All submissions must be focused on vernacular Catholicism, broadly construed. Works submitted must be book-length monographs in English published in the 16 months prior to the annual submission deadline. A cash award is made to the winner or winners of the prize.

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.

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.

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.

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: 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.