The Folk Belief and Religious Folklife Section Awards the 2022 DonYoder Prize to Daisy Ahlstone

Daisy Ahlstone (Ohio State University) won the 2022 Don Yoder Prize for the Best Graduate Student Paper in Religious Folklife and Folk Belief.

The Don Yoder Prize, awarded by the Folk Belief and Religious Folklife section, is given to recognize an outstanding paper submitted by a graduate student on a topic in religious folklife or folk belief, broadly construed.

Ahlstone’s paper, “Giving Life to Legends: Material Representation of Ostensive Behavior” is innovative in its attempt at bringing ostension and material behavior together. The committee appreciated its style and description of how Tasmanian artists use the image of thylacine –an already extinct animal—as an ostensive behavior in expressing their identity.