Negotiations of the Sacred (University of Hawai'i Press) offers a fresh perspective on one of Japan’s most famous festivals and will be welcomed by students and scholars of Japan, particularly those interested in religion, festivals, folklore, political and social structures, and cultural heritage.
Recent Releases
In Once upon a Time There Was Truth (Yale University Press), Jack Zipes argues in a collection of essays that fairy tales remain relevant and powerful, that they still speak truth to power in the contemporary world.
The Spring 2026 JAF: A Global Quarterly includes essays proposing an “ethnography of singing” and new classifications for Persian folk poetry, Perspectives on Crisis and Action Part II, and obituaries and reviews of recent work in the field.
Only Girls Bleed (Legend Times Publishing), a debut novel by AFS Past President Elaine Lawless, will be released this June and September. A special session about this book is planned for the 2026 AFS Annual Meeting.
The latest issue of the Journal of Folklore Research (JFR) has been released.
Sweet, Tart, and Golden (University of Illinois Press) blends food history with on-the-ground exploration to tell the multifaceted story of the apple.
Menachem Kipnis was a Jewish eastern European ethnomusicologist, folklorist, and photographer. This book brings his photographs and stories into dialogue with one another, bridging the Jewish communities in Poland and in America during the interwar period.
In Heroes of the Gael (Princeton University Press), Natasha Sumner traces the evolution of the Fenian tradition of story and song over 1,400 years.
The latest volume of TFH: The Journal of History and Folklore published by the History and Folklore Section of the American Folklore Society has been released. The volume is devoted to a 40-year index of the journal covering its run since being launched in 1983.
Literary scholar and author Jack Zipes publishes Alex in the Land of Liars (Vanguard Press), a modern political fairy tale intended for young adults.