CFP: Teaching With Ethnographic and Folk Arts Collections: Challenging History

Primary sources from ethnographic and folk arts collections go beyond historical documents and include photographs, recorded interviews, artifacts, recipes, music, maps, and more. The 2023 issue of the Journal of Folklore and Education invites submissions that call upon ethnographic archives with their documentation of diverse life experiences, perspectives, and vantage points as teaching tools for learning.

Submissions may show that folk collections:

• Provide vital entry points for teaching across disciplines through ideas such as memory, meaning, and identity
• Inspire research and new documentation through inquiry-based methodologies
• Offer opportunities for vital engagement—and greater awareness and understanding–of culture, race, religion, and class

What is an ethnographic collection? The Local Learning Teaching with Primary Sources project is employing multi-format documentation of people and traditions, from historic photographs of the Tulsa Race Massacre to Civil Rights Movement recordings, graffiti art, recipes, and migrant farmer interviews. Learn more from the American Folklife Center about primary sources.

For this JFE issue, Local Learning invites submissions that explore learning activities, framework articles, case studies, and research that demonstrate the value of folklore, oral history, and other ethnographic primary source materials in K-12 classrooms, higher education, and museums. They seek submissions of articles, model projects, multimedia products, teaching applications, and student work accompanied by critical writing that connects to the larger frameworks of this theme. 

Link to the full Call for Submissions.

Submissions accepted between January 1, 2023 – April 15, 2023. Publication is scheduled for Fall 2023. Submit an article or inquiry to [email protected].