The American Folklore Society has been holding meetings since 1889, one year after the Society’s founding. We have met every year except for 1942 and 1943, in the midst of World War II, when many activities of all kinds were curtailed.
Past Annual Meeting Material
1889-1974, 2004-2010
As part of the Open Folklore effort, AFS has been working with the Indiana University-Bloomington Library toward the goal of assembling a complete set of programs from past annual meetings, which as a group contain a remarkable on-the-ground history of the field, its people, and their ideas. PDFs of AFS annual meeting program books from 1949 to 1974 and from 2004-2010, and of reports on AFS annual meetings from 1889 to 1948 that appeared in the JAF, are all available through the Indiana University institutional repository, and their contents can be searched through Open Folklore search. See the whole AFS collection in Open Folklore.
2004-2020
You can find material from the 2004-2020 meetings in the AFS website archive in Open Folklore.
Past Meeting Dates, Themes, and Locations
2022 Annual Meeting: “Re-centering the Periphery” (October 12-15, 2022, Tulsa, Oklahoma)
2021 Annual Meeting: “Natural States: Environment, Politics, and Tradition” (October 18-20, 2021, virtual meeting, and October 21-23, 2021, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania)
2020 Annual Meeting: “Centers/Peripheries–Connecting Beyond the Binaries” (October 13-17, 2020, virtual meeting)
2019 Annual Meeting: “Community Driven” (October 16-19, 2019, Baltimore, Maryland)
2018 Annual Meeting: “No Illusions, No Exclusions” (October 17-20, 2018, Buffalo, New York)
2017 Annual Meeting: “Community: Resistance, Reclamation, and Re-Creation” (October 18-21, 2017, Minneapolis, Minnesota)
2016 Joint Meeting with the International Society for Folk Narrative Research: Unfinished Stories: Folklife and Folk Narrative at the Gateway to the Future” (October 19-22, 2016, Miami, Florida)
2015 Annual Meeting: “Ecologies, Encounters, and Enactments” (October 14-17, 2015, Long Beach, California)
2014 Annual Meeting: “Folklore at the Crossroads” (November 5-8, Santa Fe, New Mexico)
2013 Annual Meeting: “Cultural Sustainability” (October 16-19, Providence, Rhode Island)
2012 Annual Meeting: “The Continuity and Creativity of Culture” (October 24-27, New Orleans, Louisiana)
2011 Annual Meeting: “Peace, War, Folkore” (October 12-15, Bloomington, Indiana)
2010 Annual Meeting: “Lay and Expert Knowledge” (October 13-16, Nashville, Tennessee)
2009 Annual Meeting: “Examining the Ethics of Place” (October 21—24, Boise, Idaho)
2008 Annual Meeting: “The Commons and the Commonwealth” (October 21—26, Louisville, Kentucky)
2007 Joint Annual Meeting with the Association canadienne d’ethnologie et de folklore/Folklore Studies Association of Canada: “Le patrimoine immatériel: Problématiques, enjeux et perspectives”/”The Politics and Practices of Intangible Cultural Heritage” (October 17—21, Québec, Canada)
2006 Annual Meeting: “Homelands and Diasporas” (October 18—22, Milwaukee, Wisconsin)
2005 Annual Meeting: “Folklore, Equal Access, and Social Justice”(October 19—23, Atlanta, Georgia)
2004 Annual Meeting: “Folklore and the Cultural Landscape” (October 13—17, Salt Lake City, Utah)
2003 Annual Meeting: “Folk Culture and the Public Domain” (October 8—12, Albuquerque, New Mexico)
2002 Annual Meeting: “Image, Object and Processes of Documentation” (October 16—20, Rochester, New York)
2001 Annual Meeting: “Partners in Knowledge” (October 17—21, Anchorage, Alaska)
2000 Annual Meeting: “Contesting Concepts of Culture” (October 25—29, Columbus, Ohio)
1999 Annual Meeting: “Dialogues Across Differences” (October 20—24, Memphis, Tennessee)
1998 Annual Meeting: October 28—November 1, Portland, Oregon
1997 Annual Meeting: “Folklore and Memory” (October 29—November 2, Austin, Texas)
1996 Annual Meeting: “Crossing the Borders: Folklore and Its ‘Others?'” (October 17—20, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania)
1995 Annual Meeting: “Creolization of Cultures,” (October 11—15, Lafayette, Louisiana)
1994 Annual Meeting: Milwaukee, Wisconsin
1993 Annual Meeting: “Folklore, Civil Rights and Social Justice” (October 28—31, Eugene, Oregon)
1992 Annual Meeting: Jacksonville, Florida
1991 Joint Annual Meeting with the Folklore Studies Association of Canada/Association canadienne d’ethnologie et de folklore: October 17—20, St. John’s, Newfoundland
1990 Annual Meeting: October 18—21, Oakland, California
A complete list of AFS Annual Meeting locations can be found at the end of 100 Years of Folklore: A Conceptual History, by William M. Clements, available as a downloadable pdf through IU Scholarworks.