The following individuals received AFS lifetime achievement prizes for 2017:
- Kathleen Mundell (Maine Arts Commission) received the Benjamin A. Botkin Prize for outstanding career achievement in public folklore.
- José Limon (University of Notre Dame, emeritus) received the Américo Paredes Prize for excellence in integrating scholarship and engagement with the people and communities one studies.
- James P. Leary (University of Wisconsin, retired) received the Kenneth Goldstein Award for Lifetime Academic Leadership for outstanding achievement in the building and strengthening of academic programs in folklore.
- Norma Cantú (Trinity University) received the American Folklore Society Lifetime Scholarly Achievement Award for outstanding accomplishments over a career of scholarship.
The Chicago Folklore Prize for the best scholarly monograph in folklore of the year was awarded to Marsha MacDowell, Mary Worrall, Lynne Swanson, and Beth Donaldson, all of the Michigan State University Museum, for their book Quilts and Human Rights. Steve Zeitlin (City Lore) was awarded a Chicago Folklore Prize honorable mention for his book The Poetry of Everyday Life: Storytelling and the Art of Awareness.
The Fellows of the American Folklore Society named four new members: Galit Hasan-Rokem (The Hebrew University), Diana Baird N’Diaye (Smithsonian Institution), Jo Radner (Lovell, Maine), and Tom Rankin (Durham, North Carolina). The Fellows also named four inaugural Honorary International Fellows: Hermann Bausinger (University of Tübingen, emeritus), Ruth Finnegan (The Open University, emeritus), Ulrich Marzolph (University of Göttingen), and Kwesi Yankah (University of Ghana).
Student Travel Stipends were awarded to: Naki Akrobettoe (The Graham School), Chloe Brown (Western Kentucky University), Sara Cleto (The Ohio State University), Samantha Crain (Minneapolis, Minnesota), Joseph Decosimo(Durham, North Carolina), Cara Forke (Western Kentucky University), Jackson Hall (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill), Hannah Herzog (Texas Civil Rights Project), Elizabeth Howard (Virginia Tech), Robert Hultgren(University of Minnesota), Christofer Johnson (The Ohio State University), Kaitlyn Kinney (George Mason University), Nicole Musgrave (Western Kentucky University), Trista Reis Porter (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill), John Pruszynski (Sunnyvale, California), Amanda Randhawa (The Ohio State University), Caitlyn Rimmer(University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill), Amber Rose (University of Wisconsin), Jared Schmidt (University of Wisconsin), Sallie Anna Steiner (University of Wisconsin), Bethani Turley (The Ohio State University), Maxine Vande Vaarst (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill), and Ali Zimmerman (University of Minnesota).
International Stipends were awarded to: ASM Abu Dayen (Jahangirnangar University), Mustafa Duman (Ege University), and Pinar Donmez Fedakar (Ege University).
Gerald L. Davis Travel Awards were awarded to: Javitta Brockington (community artist), Mintzi Martinez-Rivera(Indiana University), Ashley Minner (Maryland Traditions), Ngo Thanh Nhan (Center for Vietnamese Philosophy, Culture & Society), Veronica Ponce de Leon (community artist), and Phan Gia Anh Thu (Center for Vietnamese Philosophy, Culture & Society).
AFS Section Prizes and Awards:
The Archives and Libraries Section awarded two 2017 Polly Grimshaw Prizes for folklore or ethnomusicology projects with a significant connection to libraries and/or archives: one to Tina Bucuvalas (City of Tarpon Springs, Florida), and the second to Joy Fraser (George Mason University).
The Children’s Folklore Section awarded its lifetime achievement medal to Simon Bronner (Pennsylvania State University).
The Aesop Prize for outstanding illustrated children’s publications utilizing folkloric themes was awarded to Tedd Arnold, Martha Hamilton, and Mitch Weiss for their book Noodleheads See the Future.
Aesop Accolade honorable mentions go to Richard O’Neill and Katherine Quarmby for Yokki and the Pamo Gry, illustrated by Marieke Nelissen; to Lori Don for The Secret of the Kelpie, illustrated by Philip Longson; and to Margaret Read McDonald, Jen Whitmand, and Nat Whitman for The Wishing Foxes, illustrated by Kitty Harvill.
The Newell Prize for the best student essay on children’s folklore was awarded to Alina Mansfield (Oregon Folklife Network) for “Slumber Party as a Rite of Passage.”
The Folk Belief and Religious Folklife Section awarded its new William A. Wilson Undergraduate Student Prize in Folk Belief and Religious Folklife to Ben Bridges (Indiana University) for his paper “Navigating Tourism Through Myth in Quechua Communities of Southern Peru.”
The section’s Don Yoder Prize for the Best Graduate Student Paper in Folk Belief and Religious Folklife was awarded to Amanda Randhawa (The Ohio State University) for her paper “A Goddess and a Panchayat President: Narrative, Sanctity, and Authority in Rural Tamil Nadu.”
The Folklore and Education Section awarded its 2017 Dorothy Howard Folklore and Education Prize for work that effectively encourages K-12 educators or students to use or study folklore and folkloristic approaches to the Folk Arts-Cultural Treasures Charter School in Philadelphia for its Yoga and Folk Tales project, developed by Daisy Ling and Nisha Arya.
The Foodways Section awarded its 2017 Sue Samuelson Award for Foodways Scholarship, which recognizes the best student paper on food and foodways, to Kylie Schroeder (Utah State University) for her paper “Identity and Gozitan Culinary Tourism: Two Case Studies.”
The History and Folklore Section awarded its 2017 Richard Reuss Prize for Students of Folklore and History, recognizing the best student paper on a subject dealing with historical approaches to the study of folklore or the history of folklore studies, to Mary Sellers (State College) for her essay “A Revolutionary, Urban Legend: Charlotte Temple.”
The Independent Folklorists’ Section has joined with two other sections to provide a pair of travel awards to support presentations at this meeting. The first, given by the Independent Folklorists’ and the Women’s Section, goes to Jodine Perkins (University of British Columbia) for her paper “’Inside of Each Story Was a Piece of My Story’: Applied Folklore Addressing Stigma Around Perinatal Mood and Anxiety Disorders.” The second, given by the Independent Folklorists’ and the Public Programs Section, goes to independent folklorist Josh Chrysler (independent) for his participation in “A Critical Forum on the Concept and Practice of Conducting Folklife Surveys.”
The Music and Song Section awarded the 2017 Bertrand Bronson Paper Prize for the best student paper on a music or song topic during the previous school year to Amy F. Aiyegbusi (Indiana University) for her paper “‘Surrounded by Beautiful People’: A Study of Cultural Affirmation in German Rap.”
The New Directions in Folklore Section awarded its 2017 Bill Ellis Prize for the best graduate student essay that combines research and analysis on folklore, broadly construed, and digital culture, popular culture, or new media to Saeedeh Niktab Etaati (Memorial University of Newfoundland) for her paper “‘I Repeat–Vote for All Individuals in Both the Lists’: Digital Hybridity in the Telegramic Elections in Iran.”
The Nordic-Baltic Section awarded its 2017 Boreal Prize for an outstanding article-length student essay on a folklore topic having to do with Northern Europe and/or the diasporas of its various peoples to Amber Rose (University of Wisconsin) for her paper “Thinking with Wolves on the Icelandic Frontier.”
The Public Programs Section awarded its 2017 Archie Green Student Travel Awards to Sarah Craycraft (The Ohio State University), Jessica Cushenberry (Utah State University), and Nicole Musgrave (Western Kentucky University).
The Transnational Asia-Pacific Section awarded the 2017 Jonathan T.Y. Yeh Memorial Student Prize for the best undergraduate or graduate student paper that contributes to Asian or Asian American folklore studies through research and analysis to Shakthi Nataraj (University of California at Berkeley) for her paper “Legal ‘Lore’: The Co-Constitution of Legend and Law in Colonial Contemporary India.”
The Women’s Section awarded its 2017 Elli Köngäs-Maranda Professional/Non-Student Prize for outstanding work on women’s traditional, vernacular, and local culture and/or work on feminist theory and folklore to Lucy Fraser (The University of Queensland) for her paper “The Pleasures of Metamorphosis: Japanese and English Transformations of The Little Mermaid.”
The 2017 Elli Köngäs-Maranda Student Prize for the best student paper or production on women’s traditional, vernacular, and local culture and/or work on feminist theory and folklore was awarded to Nic Campeotto for “Reclaiming the Lesbian Vampire: Carmella the Series Fandom and LGBTQ Identities.”
The section has also awarded Polly Stewart travel stipends to Sallie Anna Steiner (University of Wisconsin) and Mariah Marsden (University of Missouri at Kansas City).