Register Now for Vernacular Knowledge Production and Cross-Kingdom Kinship in Medicinal Mushrooms

Join the American Folklore Society Folklore & Science Section on January 29th from 9:00 AM – 11:00 AM (ET) as the 2025 winner of the American Folklore Society’s Folklore & Science Prize Antti Lindfors (University of Helsinki) presents his prize-winning study, “Vernacular Knowledge Production and Cross-Kingdom Kinship in Medicinal Mushrooms.” Lindfors’ talk will address the complex relationship between scientific and embodied knowledges, noting how differing ontological orientations are intertwined within vernacular medical discourse. Lindfors’ study highlights “analyzes how contemporary accounts of medicinal mushrooms combine both experiential, symbolic, pharmacological, monetary, and environmental values while reifying and recirculating certain privileged bodily qualia of late modernity, e.g., immunity and adaptability” through the trope of cross-kingdom kinship with the fungi. This interdisciplinary panel will be joined by two experts from public health fields as discussants. 

This truly interdisciplinary panel will also feature discussion from experts in public health and Indigenous-led biotechnology: Jon-Patrick Allem, Ph.D., M.A., associate professor in the Department of Health Behavior, Society, and Policy at the Rutgers School of Public Health, associate professor of general internal medicine in the Division of General Internal Medicine at the Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, and a core member of the Institute for Nicotine & Tobacco Studies (INTS) and WarīNkwī Flores, first-generation PhD student in Natural Resources at the University of Arizona, Kara Anadean & Kichwa Andean-Amazonian data sovereignty & governance scholar, and Chichup’mp’ ancestral territory trustee, Kūtakachī, Ecuador. He is also a translational consultant and trans-system FPIC designer of Kinray Hub.

This lecture will be recorded and shared on the AFS website for future viewing.