Folklore in the Public Square (Utah State University Press) brings together folklorists working in the humanities and the social sciences committed to applying their research to help solve contemporary social challenges, formalizing an undercurrent of thought that has gained growing attention.
Recent Releases
Classical Myth and Literature in Parody (Bloomsbury Publishing) examines the evolution of classical parody, from its origins in ancient Greece and Rome to its resurgence in modern times.
Telling Other Tales (Routledge) presents Balinese masked dance–drama as a living, plural tradition—one whose meaning is co-created by Balinese and non-Balinese performers, scholars and other observers alike. Open Access content is available for this title.
Whispers from Celtic Seas (Reaktion Books) revisits coastal traditions from the Celtic fringes of northwest Europe, showing how they preserve memories of dramatic environmental change—floods, land loss and shifting shorelines—carried forward through oral storytelling for generations.
In A Singing Game (University Press of Mississippi), Jeanne Pitre Soileau traces “When I Was a Baby” through its many permutations, from its earliest appearance in folklore to variations uploaded to YouTube, and introduces the varied folklorists who collected it through its history.
Vernacular Religion in the Iranian Diaspora (University of Wisconsin Press) is a detailed, respectful ethnography that reaches beyond the binary of piety and resistance and offers new and nuanced understandings of Iranian American lived religion.
The Folklore of Democracy (University Press of Mississippi) explores how cultural practices serve as both a foundation for democratic engagement and, at times, tools for division.
In The Village Project (University of Wisconsin Press), Sarah Craycraft uses ethnographic and folkloristic methods to study the Bulgarian responses to Europeanization, carried out through neoliberal folklife projects as they collide with ongoing efforts to build a revitalized rural Bulgaria in the ruins of the past.
Narrative Knows No Boundaries (University Press of Mississippi) is a collection of essays that explores the expanding use and study of “narrative”.
The latest JAF includes essays on a Mexican conflict zone as a site for a festival and tourism, Korean tourists dressing in rented traditional dress, occupational folk humor in a prison library, and obituaries and reviews of recent work in the field.