Register for Online Lectures about Fieldwork during the Pandemic

The American Folklife Center is happy to announce a two-part series, “Occupational Folklife and Fieldwork in the Post-Pandemic World: Adaptation, Innovation, and the Future, Parts 1 & 2” on July 13 and 20.

Each with live Q&A will feature recent and current Archie Green Fellows Each of the program’s two hour-long online Zoom panels  will feature live 15-20 minute presentations by two Archie Green Fellows (AGF) discussing the impact of the pandemic on their fieldwork experiences, with Nancy Groce serving as moderator.  Nancy is an AFC staff folklorist and director of the AGF program, as well as the host of the AFX America Works podcast. The discussions will be on two successive Tuesdays, July 13 and July 20.

Prior to the pandemic, Archie Green Fellows’ research, like so much folklife research, was predicated on in-depth in-person interviews documenting the experiences of contemporary American workers. The in-person aspect of the documentation process was, of course, severely disrupted by the pandemic. This two-part series will explore these researchers’ adaptation to virtual research, describing what worked or didn’t work as they were forced to modify their methodologies and change to virtual online interviewing, as well as how they addressed or are addressing the challenges. Presentations will be followed by a short moderator-led discussion among participants, after which the speakers will respond to questions from pre-registered attendees.

The Archie Green Fellows for part 1 on July 13 at 3:00 p.m. EST will include oral historian Sarah Filkins, who interviewed prominent women architects, and folklorist Ed Millar, who is in the midst of interviewing dirt track workers at western New York’s Ransomville Speedway. Visit Part 1 to register. 

Part 2 on July 20 at 3:00 p.m. EST will feature oral historian Alana Glazer, who is interviewing nurses working at Veterans Administration hospitals; and folklorists Josephine McRobbie and Joseph O’Connell, who documented midwives, doulas and other birth workers in North Carolina. To register,  visit Part 2. For more information, including speakers’ biographies, browse Folklife Today.