CFP: 2023 WSFS Annual Conference

Western States Folklore Society will host their 81st Annual Meeting in person at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, April 14-15, 2023. The theme for this year’s conference is “Folklore, Time, and Temporality.” The deadline for submitting abstracts for presentations has been extended to  February 20, 2023.

Recent events in the world, ranging from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic to geopolitical conflicts to the ever worsening climate crisis, have brought heightened attention to previously taken-for-granted notions of time. Amidst disruptions in everyday temporalities, perceived relationships between past and present, and shared visions for the future, we have seen the ways in which folklore can serve as a resource for creating, enacting, and mediating alternative temporalities that lay bare the limits of conventional notions of time, as well as our individual and collective relationships with them.

Of course, the clear relationship between time and folklore (both the “stuff” and the field of study) is certainly not unique to this moment. With this theme, WSFS encourages presentations that consider the rich, dynamic relationship between folklore and time. Possible topics addressing this theme could include, but are certainly not limited to, cultural temporalities (cyclical, linear, etc.), queer temporalities, longue durée, deep time, ephemerality, “time out of time” in festival and ritual, life cycles, calendar customs, objects of memory, eschatologies, temporal contexts of performance, temporal elements of narration, and aesthetic dimensions of temporality.

While presentations on this theme are encouraged, they are not required: WSFS welcomes all presentations on folklore-related topics for this conference. Participants may submit proposals for individual papers, forums, workshops, media presentations, or to propose new presentation formats. This year, participants also have the opportunity to submit individual proposals to be part of panels with more specific themes (though this is not required).

Abstract guidelines are available on the Meetings page on the WSFS website. Registration fee information is available on the Registration page.

The 2023 Archer Taylor Lecture will be given by Amy Shuman, Professor at the Center for Folklore Studies at The Ohio State University.

Submit a short (100-150 word) abstract by email to [email protected].

Learn more on the WSFS website.