The American Folklore Society congratulates all the honorees and prize recipients named in 2022. For more information on prizes and honors awarded by AFS and its sections, please click here.
American Folklore Society Honors
The following individuals received AFS lifetime achievement awards for 2022:
- Prof. emerita Charlotte Wilson Heth received the American Folklore Society Lifetime Scholarly Achievement Award.
- Anand Prahlad received the Américo Paredes Prize for excellence in integrating scholarship and engagement with the people and communities one studies.
- Simon Lichman (Director of the Centre for Creativity and Education in Cultural Heritage) received the Benjamin A. Botkin Prize for lifetime achievement in public folklore.
- Bill Ivey received the Judith McCulloh Award for Lifetime Service to the Field for extraordinary contributions in service that advance the visibility and success of the American Folklore Society or the field of folklore studies, making it possible for other folklorists to do their best work.
Other AFS honors went to:
- Jerrilyn McGregory (professor in folklore in the Department of English, Florida State University) received the Chicago Folklore Prize, honoring the best book of folklore scholarship of the year, for One Grand Noise: Boxing Day in the Anglicized Caribbean World (2022).
- Jessica Cushenberry (Independent Folklorist) and Jaime Elizabeth Johnston (Louisiana State University) received the Zora Neale Hurston Prize, for Cushenberry’s thesis from Utah State University: “Home to Harlan: African American Miners’ Children Celebration of Homecoming” and Johnston’s thesis from Louisiana State University: “My Mother Read My Dreams: Dream Interpretation in the African Diaspora.” The prize is given to a graduate or undergraduate student for the best work in any medium—including but not limited to papers, films, sound recordings, or exhibitions—on African American folklore.
- Iryna Voloshyna (Indiana University Bloomington) received the inaugural Presidential Award for Meritorious Service for her exceptional service to the discipline and going above and beyond her usual research, documentation, presentation, or conservation.
International Stipends were awarded to: Hüseyin Aksoy (Karamanoglu Mehmetbey University) and Zeme Haidamteu (Indian Institute of Technology Delhi).
Fellows of the American Folklore Society
The following individuals were named to the Fellows of the American Folklore Society:
- Lisa Gilman
- Andrea Kitta
- David Todd Lawrence
- Lucy Margaret Long
- Phyllis M. May-Machunda
- Maida Owens
- Rachelle H. Saltzman
- Patricia Sawin
- Guha Shankar
- Stephen D. Winick
The following individuals were named Honorary International Fellows:
- Veronique Campîon-Vincent
- Sharif Kanaana
- Owe Ronström
- Simon Lichman
AFS Section Prizes and Awards
The Transnational Asia/Pacific Section awarded the 2022 Saboohi I. Khan Award for Student Scholarship in Asian and Asian American Folklore to Lei Ting, a Ph.D. Candidate in the department of Area Studies at the University of Tokyo.
The 2022 Folklore and Science Prize – Senior Winner was awarded to Claiborne Rice, Associate Professor of English in Louisiana State University. The co-recipients of the 2022 Folklore & Science Junior Prize are Daisy Ahlstone (Ph.D. student and a Graduate Research Associate at the Ohio State University) and Nicholas Miller (Teaching Assistant and a PhD candidate at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee)
The Women’s Section awarded the 2022 Polly Stewart Student Travel Stipend to Millie Tullis, a graduate student at the Utah State University.
The Women’s Section also awarded the Professional/Non-student portion of the 2022 Elli Köngäs-Maranda Prize to Carrie Hertz, the Curator of Textiles and Dress, Museum of International Folk Art, for editing the collection of essays Dressing with Purpose: Belonging and Resistance in Scandinavia (Indiana University Press, 2021), with an honorable mention of Mary Magoulick (Georgia College) for her book The Goddess Myth in Contemporary Literature and Popular Culture: A Feminist Critique (University Press of Mississippi 2022). The 2022 Elli Köngäs-Maranda student paper prize was awarded to Alina Cash Oprelianska, a Doctoral student at University of Tartu, Estonia, with an honorable mention of Molly McBride, a doctoral student at University of Oregon.
The 2022 Women’s and Independent Folklorists’ Sections Annual Meeting Award was awarded to Justine Orlovsky-Schnitzler, an MA student of Folklore at UNC-Chapel Hill, writer, reproductive justice worker, freelance folklorist and Crystal Good, culture worker, artist, advocate, publisher, and entrepreneur.
The 2022 John Wesley Work III Award was awarded to Karen Collins (African American Miniature Museum).
The Children’s Folklore Section awarded the 2022 Aesop Prizes to A Bedtime Full of Stories, by Angela McAllister and Anna Shepeta, and Blancaflor, The Hero with Secret Powers, by Nadja Spiegelman and Sergio Garcia Sanchez. This section also awarded 2022 Aesop Accolades to awarded to The Man of the Moon, by Gunvor Bjerre and Miki Jacobsen and Across the Rainbow Bridge, by Kevin Crossley-Holland and Jeffrey Alan Love.
The Children’s Folklore Section also awarded the 2022 Iona and Peter Opie Prize to Margaret Bennett (Professor, Royal Conservatoire of Scotland), author of Dundee Street Songs, Rhymes and Games: The William Montgomerie Collection, 1952 (Grace Note Publications, 2021) and Jeanne Pitre Soileau (teacher), author of What the Children Said: Child Lore of South Louisiana (University Press of Mississippi, 2021).
The Children’s Folklore Section also awarded the 2022 W. W. Newell Prize was awarded to Nikki Christensen (Utah State University) and Stephen Lochetto (Penn State University Harrisburg).
The Folk Belief and Religious Folklife Section awarded the 2022 Elaine J. Lawless Graduate Student Travel Award to Millie Tullis (Utah State University). This section also awarded the 2022 Don Yoder Prize for the Best Graduate Student Paper in Religious Folklife and Folk Belief to Daisy Ahlstone (The Ohio State University and Folkwise), and the 2022 William A. Wilson Prize for the Best Undergraduate Student Paper in Religious Folklife and Folk Belief to Joelle Jackson (Indiana University).
The History and Folklore Section awarded the 2022 Wayland D. Hand Prize to Tyler D. Parry, the assistant professor of African American and African Diaspora Studies, University of Nevada–Las Vegas.
The Public Programs Section awarded the 2022 Archie Green Student Travel Award to Micah Ling (a PhD candidate at the Indiana University Bloomington) and Sylas Alvarez (student at the Western Kentucky University). The Public Programs Section and the Independent Folklorists’ Section awarded the 2022 Independent and Public Folklorist Sections Travel Award to Phoebe Millerwhite, an independent folklorist, artist, and educator.
The 2022 Barbro Klein Prize in Nordic and Baltic Folklore was awarded to Mirva Johnson, a PhD Candidate in the department of German, Nordic, and Slavic at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
The Foodways Section of the American Folklore Society awarded the 2022 Sue Samuelson Award to Anna Reepschlager, a master’s student at Memorial University.
The West Virginia Folklife Collection housed at the West Virginia University Libraries is the recipient of the 2022Brenda McCallum Prize, which is awarded to an individual or institution for producing an exceptional work related to archival collections of folklife materials. Since 1994, the AFS Archives and Libraries Section has awarded a prize honoring the late folklife archivist Brenda McCallum.
The 2022 Warren E. Roberts prize for best student paper, sponsored by the Folk Arts and Material Culture Section, was awarded to Ben Bridges (PhD Candidate, Department of Folklore & Ethnomusicology, Department of Anthropology, Indiana University, Bloomington).