Folklore: A Journey through the Past and Present (Manchester University Press) conveys the message that folklore is more than the fossilised remains of a distant, rural past. Folklore is and always has been ubiquitous, dynamic and political. It is a living tradition that draws from many sources and is forever being renewed and updated.
Recent Releases
Migrants' and refugees' stories have become an essential part of the public debate around immigration. In Migration Stories (University of Illinois Press), Benjamin Gatling edits interdisciplinary essays that bring together the distinct perspectives of researchers, activists, and policymakers to emphasize how these often-siloed communities can use stories as social science data and advocacy tools.
Worth a Thousand Words (University Press of Mississippi) brings traditional proverbs into the modern era, analyzing proverbs under four headings: American proverbs, proverbs in politics, proverbs in literature, and proverbs in culture. Wolfgang Mieder received the AFS Lifetime Scholarly Achievement Award in 2012.
The Summer 2025 JAF: A Global Quarterly is coming soon, featuring essays about gender, performance, and power, and perspectives on complex issues of practice that demonstrate the impactful work of public folklorists—plus an obituary for Bernice Johnson Reagon and fifteen reviews of recent work in the field.
Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Chinese and Chinese American Women (Indiana University Press) examines how Chinese and Chinese American women in the U.S. experienced and responded to the double threat of the COVID-19 virus and anti-Asian racism from 2020 to 2021. Ziying You is Associate Professor of Comparative Literature and Intercultural Studies at the University of Georgia and an AFS Executive Board member.
Syaman Rapongan is one of the Indigenous Tao people of Orchid Island near Taiwan. His works blend Tao folklore and accounts of maritime life with keen critique of the social, psychological, and ecological harms of colonialism. Eyes of the Ocean (Columbia University Press) is his literary autobiography, both a story of survival in a settler state and a portrait of the Indigenous artist as a young man.
Folklorist Jasper Waugh-Quasebarth's work was recently featured in an episode of the podcast channel New Books in Folklore hosted by fellow folklorist Rachel Hopkin, who is also calling for new hosts for the channel.
Creating Culture, Performing Community (Indiana University Press) explores the ways in which the people of Santo Santiago de Angahuan create and curate their cultural practices and how, by doing so, they perform what it means to be an active member of their community. This book is freely available as an Open Access monograph.
Performing Vulnerability (University of Washington Press) by Emily Hue delves into the complexities of vulnerability as both a personal and a performative act through her study of diasporic Burmese artists.
Drawing on classic theories of ritual and performance, Facing the Fire, Taking the Stage (Indiana University Press) explores how Buryat shamanism and state-sanctioned performing arts have allowed Buryats to negotiate and express different kinds of belonging to people and land. This book is freely available as an Open Access monograph.