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.
Recent Releases
Folklorist Joseph Sciorra has published an online article about Italian American folklore for the City University of New York's Italian American Studies Open Syllabus.
Southern Appalachia has a fly fishing culture that combines the contemplative nature of the sport with a focus on the region's ecology, folklore, and storytelling. Tight Lines and Tall Tales (The University of North Carolina Press) draws on archival research, personal experiences, and oral histories to uncover the hidden history of Southern Appalachian fly fishing.
The Ballad of Fiddling Tom Freeman (University of Alabama Press) is a raw, firsthand account of feuds, fiddling, moonshining, and survival in a small Alabama town, told by its most colorful chronicler and shaped through careful historical insight.
Treasures on Earth (Reaktion Books) uncovers the deep folklore of Britain’s buried riches, fears, and desires.
Alexander Girard’s Imagined Worlds (Hirmer Publishers) examines a modern design luminary whose collection of global folk art and vernacular forms informed his expansive design practice.
Music and the Staged Veillée in Quebec (University of Illinois Press) reveals the music, dancing, call-and-response songs, and extramusical associations winding through century-long conversations about nation, culture, and identity in Quebec.
Comprising more than 300 folktales and legends from Northern Norway, Sámi Folktales from the Near and Far Worlds (University of Minnesota Press) is the most extensive compilation of Sámi narratives recorded from Sámi storytellers ever published in English translation.
Wide Branches, Deep Roots (West Virginia University Press) is a collection of over thirty pieces that explores the connections between Appalachia’s stories, traditions, and modern events and the pathway to regional sustainability.
Our Common Life: Folksong from the Front Porch to the Concert Hall (University of Illinois Press) by Stephen Wade illuminates the truth that creative freedom within informal tradition, fundamental to the artists and their processes, speaks to a resourcefulness inscribed in America’s founding charter and expressed in its common life.