Available Now! JAF (Summer 2026)

The Summer issue (v. 139, no. 553) of JAF: A Global Quarterly has been mailed to subscribers and is now available online. The issue includes three research articles, a variety of book, exhibit, film, and sound reviews, and memorial tributes to friends and colleagues.

Mintz Auanda Martínez-Rivera’s “The Cantoya Fest: Festivalization and the Touristification of Security in a Conflict Zone” explores a community’s festival in central Mexico focusing on how tourism and festivals work together in and during a conflict zone. The author argues that, while not devoid of problems nor contradictions, festivals such as the Cantoya Fest create a bubble and feelings of safety and may provide and/or create socio-cultural-political and economic alternatives during and in conflict zones.

CedarBough T. Saeji’s “Dressing Up in the Korean Past: An Analysis of Hanbok Wearing as Play Informed by Popular Culture” looks at the popular practice of the donning of Korean garb, hanbok, by young foreign tourists to Korea to engage in what Saeji calls “citational cultural play.” Arguing that visitors create affective and visual links to both Korea’s historical past and its contemporary media culture, Saeji draws on rental experiences, a multilingual survey of over 900 K-pop fans, close analysis of hanbok’s deployment in K-pop contexts, and interviews with tourists to conclude that hanbok rental is a layered performance of cultural connection.

Retired prison librarian William D. Mongelli and folklorist Claire Schmidt argue in “‘Hey, mister! You wanna rehabilitate my sister?’ Acquired Occupational Humor in Prison Libraries” that humorous expressive culture with staff and inmates, learned and performed via unwritten rules, acknowledges the “soft power” among all in the context of the prison’s library. Within the structure/communitas library construct, transgressive behavior creates synergy between acquired occupational folk humor and prescribed operational procedure.

This issue also presents memorial tributes to our friends and colleagues Chris Goertzen, Joe Hickerson, Jerrilyn Mcgregory, and David E. Whisnant.

As always, the issue includes reviews of recent work in the field, including books, exhibitions, films, and sound recordings.

Many academic institutions and libraries have access through direct subscriptions or via Project MUSE, but if yours doesn’t, please consider filling out our online Library Recommendation Form to let your library know you’re interested in reading all the latest in folklore studies. Find out how to access JAF at “Access the Journal.”

We encourage our readers and potential authors to visit our web page to learn about the types of material we publish and how to submit, including in innovative formats and genres. Please contact the Editorial Collective if you have ideas or questions at jaf.editors@afsnet.org.

Table of Contents

Articles

The Cantoya Fest: Festivalization and the Touristification of Security in a Conflict Zone by Mintzi Auanda Martínez-Rivera

Dressing Up in the Korean Past: An Analysis of Hanbok Wearing as Play Informed by Popular Culture by CedarBough T. Saeji

“Hey, mister! You wanna rehabilitate my sister?” Acquired Occupational Humor in Prison Libraries by William D. Mongelli and Claire Schmidt

Obituaries

Chris Goertzen (1951–2025) by Paul F. Wells

Joe Hickerson (1935–2025) by Stephen D. Winick

Jerrilyn Mcgregory (1949–2025) by Emily Socolov, Simon J. Bronner, Tina Bucuvalas, Marilyn M. White, Amy Skillman, Lamont Jack Pearley, and Nashid Madyun

David E. Whisnant (1938–2025) by Debra Lattanzi -Shutika

Book Reviews

Songs of Earth: Aesthetic and Social Codes in Music. Based on Alan Lomax’s Cantometrics: An Approach to the Anthropology of Music (Wood, et al.) by Giorgio Adamo

Ain’t I an Anthropologist: Zora Neale Hurston Beyond the Literary Icon (Freeman Marshall) by Amelia Ali

Heroes with a Hundred Names: Mythology and Folklore in the Early Fiction of Robert Penn Warren (Butts) by John Burt

The Paganesque and The Tale of Vǫlsi (Kaplan) by Thomas A. DuBois

Rough Music: Folk Customs, Transgression and Alternative Britain (Williams) by Peter Harrop

Drones, Tones, and Timbres: Sounding Place Among Nomads of the Inner Asian Mountain Steppes (Pegg) by Ngọc H. B. Nguyễn and K. David Harrison

Djeha, the North African Trickster (Jones, ed.) by Ali A. Olomi

The Sicilian Puppet Theater of Agrippino Manteo (1884-1947): The Paladins of France in America (Cavallo) by Frank Proschan

Culture Throughlines: Values, Visions and Transformation: African American Music, American Culture, and Society (Banfield, ed.) by John David Short

The Hidden Lives of Taxi Drivers (Finnegan) by Sean Elise Tomlinson

Robin Hood: Legend and Reality (Crook) Stephen D. Winick

Justice in 21st-Century Fairy Tales and the Power of Wonder (Bacchilega and Greenhill) by Summer Shigley 

Featured Exhibit

Bailando con Orgullo—Dancing with Pride by Essy Barroso-Ramirez, Joseph Murillo, and Emily Lopez

Film Review

El secreto del río (The Secret of the River) (Barrera) by Javier Ramírez Franco

Sound Review

Ella Hanshaw’s Black Book (Hanshaw) by Emily West Hartlerode