The Only True Folksongs in English (University Press of Mississippi) uncovers how nineteenth-century American scholars including the children of farmers, sail makers, and ministers set out to prove that a young republic could, in fact, have its own folk tradition.
Recent Releases
Volume 63, issue 2 of the Journal of Folklore Research (JFR) is now available in print via Indiana University Press and in electronic form on Project MUSE. This special issue focuses on the topic of conspiracy theories.
The History of Cornish Tradition (University of Exeter Press) examines the rich tradition of the West Country, providing a definitive historical analysis of how the region’s legends, language, and customs have transformed over the last four centuries.
Dissenting Through Dance (University of Michigan Press) examines how femme activists in contemporary Turkey deploy folk dance as a powerful tool of political resistance and collective solidarity. Open Access content is available for this title.
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.
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.