Apply Now for 2023 AFS and Section Awards and Prizes

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

Deadline: March 1

The Foodways Section of the American Folklore Society invites submissions for the Sue Samuelson Award for best student paper on food and foodways. All entries must be received by March 1.

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

Now is also a good time to plan ahead for other AFS and section prize deadlines. 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
• Leonard Norman Primiano Book Prize on Vernacular Catholicism
• Leonard Norman Primiano Graduate Student Travel Award
• Leonard Norman Primiano Retired Scholar Travel Award

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