Justine Orlovsky-Schnitzler Receives 2022 Women’s and Independent Folklorists’ Sections Annual Meeting Award

Justine Orlovsky-Schnitzler (graduate student of Folklore, UNC-Chapel Hill; writer, reproductive justice worker, freelance folklorist) received one of the two 2022 Women’s and Independent Folklorists’ Sections Annual Meeting Awards.

The Women’s and Independent Folklorists’ Sections Annual Meeting Award supports costs such as transportation, registration, lodging, and/or per diem expenses to aid an independent folklorist who is working on women’s issues in attending and presenting at the annual meeting. This award is sponsored by the Women’s section and Independent Folklorists’ section.

Emerging after the pandemic with an M.A. in Folklore from UNC–Chapel Hill, Justine presented at her first in-person conference at theTulsa meeting. Her post-degree commitment to continue the study of women’s and Jewish folklore, both separately and where they overlap, is impressive. Her record of publications in the Journal of Jewish Folklore, Lilith Magazine, and the Jewish Women’s Archive shows sustained focus as a writer and freelance folklorist on exploring the multivalent experience of girls and women.

Justine presented at the Annual Meeting about the role of American Girl dolls in personal legend development for millennials, encompassing both their popularity among the financially privileged in the 1980s and their more accessible current life in memes, posts, and the resale market. The prize was announced at the October 3^rd business meeting of the Women’s Section and the business meeting of the Independent Folklorists’ Section.