Wednesday Lunch –Grab and Go Interest Because of the tight turnaround on Wed. (10/28) and Thurs. (10/29), AFS is arranging for grab-and-go lunches to be available for purchase at the hotel on both days. We’d love to know if you’re interested! Name(Required)
News from the Field
The Ohio Valley Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences awarded the film "Jonesville: When Sunflowers Fall" an Emmy to a group of Kentucky-based folklorists, community scholars and media professionals in the historical documentary category this July.
AFS President Jason Baird Jackson sent a letter to Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie Bunch on behalf of the many AFS members who had expressed their admiration for Bunch’s leadership and dismay at his resignation from the Smithsonian. The full letter can be accessed on the members-only AFS Community Hub.
The members of the Journal of American Folklore’s Editorial Collective are delighted to announce that Ziying You has joined the team in editing the journal.
AFS is deeply saddened to share the news of folklorist Joseph Sciorra’s sudden passing on Monday, October 5, 2026.
Son of the late Albanian folklorist Dr. Ibrahim Krosi started an initiative to preserve and continue the scholarly work of his father whose research focused extensively on Albanian oral tradition and the folklore of the Balkans.
The Library of Congress has opened “Alive in Many Hands: The American Folklife Center at 50,” a new exhibition showing how living traditions carry memory, identity and community across generations. The exhibition is on view through January 8, 2028 and can also be explored online.
This year, Indiana University's Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology has been hosting a series of events that highlight its intellectual core. A crowdfunding campaign is ongoing and a symposium focusing on the foundations of the disciplines will be held on October 9, 2026.
The Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage seeks AFS members to write 1,600 to 2,500 word festival features or big-picture essays about their Of the People: The Smithsonian Festival of Festivals. Writers are paid $500 for a completed article. Story pitches are due Sunday, August 16, 2026.
AFS agrees with many other arts and humanities organizations that the Office of Management and Budget’s proposed Regulation for Federal Financial Assistance threatens academic freedom, imposes a political litmus test for federal funding of research, and introduces damaging instability to the American research enterprise.