The following is a guide to the American Folklore Society Annual Meeting in Portland Oregon that features presentations, panels, and events from not only Mid Atlantic Staff, but the many who are researching and working in Folk and Traditional Arts in the Mid Atlantic region. This list features federal cultural workers at the Library of Congress and Smithsonian, scholars from the many Universities, workers of state arts and humanities councils, and much more. If you are in Portland this year and want to network with folks from the Mid Atlantic, this is your guide!
* Note: Each numbered section on this list is concurrent with the American Folklore Society Annual Meeting schedule.
Thursday, November 2, 2023
Research Panels and Roundtable Discussions:
01-02: Talking about Work
8:45 AM
Roots and local identity: belonging, periphery, and street-smarts of local leaders from San Juan de Lurigancho (Lima, Peru)
Jennifer Karen Ponce Cori (University of Pittsburgh)
01-04: Deploying “Grassroots Authenticity”: “Everyday Folk” as Moral Index and Boundary Mechanism Chaired by Danille Christensen
9:30 AM
The Sunshine Family Meets the Star-Spangled Dolls: Envisioning DIY Roots during the US Bicentennial
Danille Elise Christensen (Virginia Tech)
01-08 Mambomania, Birthworks, and Onomastics: Activating Cultural Memory
9:00 AM
Black Birthworkers as Ritual Leaders
Efia Nomalanga Dalili (BBPenda Baltimore Birthing Project, retired)
01-10 Music and Folklore
Chaired by Jim Deutsch (Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage)
8:30 AM
Daca, Mysterious Cowboy Singer of Greenwich Village
Stephen D. Winick (American Folklife Center)
9:30 AM
Oregon’s Outlaw Hero: D.B. Cooper and His Leap to (Im)mortality
James Deutsch (Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage)
01-15 Analyzing Traditions of Naming
Chaired by Charlie Growth (Bucks County Community College PA)
9:15 AM
“An Emily of Transgender Women”: Gender, Generation, and Naming
Charlie Groth (Bucks County Community College PA)
02-01 Tending the Taproot: Opportunities to Support Folk & Traditional Arts in the United States – A Call and Response Forum
10:30 AM
Includes Elizabeth Peterson as a forum participant (American Folklife Center, emerita)
02-02 Time to Work: Drafting Best Practices for Community-Institution Partnerships in Folklore (Hybrid)
10:30 AM
Includes Junious Brickhouse (Urban Artistry), Ashley Minner Jones (Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian) and Nicole Saylor (American Folklife Center) as forum participants.
02-06 Engaging Learners of All Ages: Folk Arts Education@Work
10:30 AM
Incudes Halle Butvin (Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage) as a forum participant.
02-08 Queer Folkloristics across Time and Space
Chaired by Andre L. Glass (University of Delaware and Cory W. Thorne (Memorial University of Newfoundland)
11:30 AM
From Gold Dust Women to Girls against God: Queer Awakenings and Spirituality in Feminist Music and Their Fan Communities
Andrea L. Glass (University of Delaware)
02-14 Religious Beliefs, Symbols, and Rituals
11:30 AM
Inkarri: The Return of the Messianic Native Andean King
Margarita B. Marin-Dale (American University)
03-01 Revisiting “The Land Where the Blues Began”
Chaired by Guha Shankar (Library of Congress)
2:30 PM
Story-mapping archival film footage: The Land Where the Blues Began in the digital domain
Guha Shankar (Library of Congress)
03-02 “Snapshots from a Folklorist en la Frontera”: A Tribute to Norma Cantú (Hybrid)
2:30 PM
Includes Olivia Cadaval (Smithsonian Institution, emerita) and Daniel Sheehy (Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, emeritus) as forum participants.
03-04 Celebrating Dr. Leonard Primiano’s Contributions to the Field of Folklore
2:30 PM
Includes Joseph Sciorra (Queens College, City University of New York) as a forum participant.
03-05 Managing Expectations and Challenging Old Narratives: Administering Public Humanities Programs in Times Like These
2:30 PM
Includes Lydia Warren (Frank and Jane Gabor West Virginia Folklife Center at Fairmont State University) as a forum participant.
03-06 Seeds for New Worlds and Racially-just Futures: The Shared Roots of Folklore, Education, and the Arts
Chaired by Rossina Zamora Liu (University of Maryland, College Park)
2:30 PM
The Blind Educators and the Elephant: REACHing an Understanding of Folklore and Education in a Multi-Year, Multi-Partner Arts Integration Project
Betty J. Belanus (Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage)
3:00 PM
Homegrown Zines and the Making of New Worlds and Futures by Young People of Color
Rossina Zamora Liu (University of Maryland, College Park)
03-11 Folkloristic Perspectives on Culinary Heritage
2:30 PM
The Centre for Folklore and Irish Language in County Mayo, Ireland
Debra Lattanzi Shutika (George Mason University)
03-12 Las Culturas del Sur de Ohio Podcast Collaboration
2:30 PM
Chaired by Naomi Sturm-Wijesinghe (Los Herederos, City Lore & New School) and Cassie Rosita Patterson (American Folklore Society)
03-15 Folklore and the Individual
Chaired by Elinor Levy (Arts Mid-Hudson)
4:15 PM
Peg Leg Bates: The Legacy of the Man and His Catskills Resort
Elinor Levy (Arts Mid-Hudson)
Networking Events, Workshops, Plenary:
Meet the AFS Board
10:00 AM – 10:30 AM
AFS president Marilyn White (NJ) and President Elect Amy Skillman (Goucher College) are both from the Mid Atlantic. AFS board members from the Mid Atlantic include Karen “Queen Nur” Abdul-Malik (NJ), Rossina Zamora Liu (MD), and Junious Brickhouse (MD).
Veteran History Project Workshop
10:30 AM – 12:30 PM
The Veterans Oral History Project of the American Folklife Center
Friday, November 3, 2023
04-02 Folklore Methodologies in Teaching and Learning
8:30 AM
Buy Manhattan for $24? A Lesson Plan for Taking a Closer Look at Lenape History
Sean Galvin (LaGuardia Community College)
9:30 AM
Swipe Right: Creating a Cryptid Dating Profile as an Academic Assessment
Mary Sellers (Penn State University)
04-04 Folklore and Mental Health
8:30 AM
Mental Health in Public Folklore Work
Anne Rappaport Berliner (New York Folklore)
8:45 AM
The Hmong Institute: Culturally Competent Mental Health Services
Anne Pryor (American Scandinavian Foundation)
05-01 “Getting it Right”: The Aesthetics of Representation
10:30 AM
Includes Amanda Dargan Zeitlin (City Lore) as a forum participant.
05-03 Retirement, ReWirement, Refirement (Hybrid)
10:30 AM
Includes Kay Turner (Independent folklorist in NYC) as a forum participant.
05-06 The Roots of Maturity: Pathways to Aging Creatively
10:30 AM
“It’s your quilting time:” Advancing Creativity as We Age
Amy E. Skillman (Goucher College)
05-07 Slow Scholarship and Folklore Futures: A Discussion of Domino Perez’s Fatherhood in the Borderlands: A Daughter’s Slow Approach (2022)
10:30 AM
Includes Norma E. Cantú (Trinity University) as a forum participant.
05-08 Foodways and the Negotiation of Roots, Rootlessness, and Uprooting
11:30 AM
Traditional Ecological Knowledge, Traditional Arts & Women’s Lives
Christine F. Zinni (State University of New York, Brockport)
05-12 Theorizing Global Asian Folklore Studies: Remaking Fluid Boundaries
11:00 AM
Social Landscape on WeChat: An Ethnographic Study of the Sunshine Dance Club of Central Pennsylvania
Anna W. Marshall (The Pennsylvania State University)
05-13 Material Narratives
12:00 PM
Hanna Me/Hana Mie and Onsens in the Snow, an Ethno-graphic Memoir
Hanna Griff-Sleven (Eugene Lang College at the New School)
05-14 Gender, Folklore, and Identity
Chaired by Gavilán Rayna Russom (Goucher College)
11:45 AM
‘They’-ifying the Gender Binary
Angie DiNardo (George Mason University)
12:00 PM
6 months, 3 days: How Voluminous Arts Created Authentic Space for Transgender People Making Experimental Artwork and Music in Gowanus, Brooklyn.
Gavilán Rayna Russom (Goucher College)
05-15 The Importance and Use of Archives in Folklore Studies
10:30 AM
How and Why Archival Folklore Collections Matter: A Case Study of Carey Woofter’s Work in Calhoun County, West Virginia, in the 1930s
Rosemary V. Hathaway (West Virginia University)
06-04 Health, (Dis)Ability, and Justice
3:00 PM
Gender and Foodways in Eating Disorder Twitter
Kathryn Casey (George Mason University)
06-05 United States National Cemeteries – Visual and Sensory Testimonies of the Conflicts that Shape and Affect our History, from Slavery to Today
2:30 PM
Includes Ed Hooker (National Cemetery Administration, Veterans Affairs), Kirsten Pourroy Hebert (U.S. Army Corps of Engineers), Kristina Lynn Whitney (U.S. Army Corps of Engineers) as forum participants.
06-13 Adversity, Advocacy, and the Politics of Vernacular Artistic Expression
3:00 PM
The Dzaleka Art Project: Community-Based Documentation in a Malawian Refugee Camp
Lisa Gilman (George Mason University)
Networking, Workshops and Plenaries:
Middle Atlantic Folklife Association (MAFA) Brown Bag
12:30 PM – 1:30 PM
Francis Lee Utley Memorial Panel: Legacies of Dan Ben-Amos across Folklore’s Fields: Reflections from Students and Mentees
4:45 PM – 6:15 PM
Includes Robert Baron (Goucher College) as a panelist.
Appalachian Studies Happy Hour
6:30 PM – 7:30 PM
Public Programs Meeting
6:30 PM – 7:30 PM
Phillips Barry Memorial Panel: The Practice, Mentorship and the Future of African American Expression: An Evening with Phil Wiggins and Ben Hunter
8:30 PM – 10:00 PM
Chaired by Junious Lee Brickhouse (Urban Artistry Inc.) and Stephen D. Winick (American Folklife Center).
Saturday, November 4, 2023
07-03 How Are We Going to Live Here? Lessons, Visions, and Provocations at the Intersection of Folklife and the Climate Crisis (Hybrid)
8:30 AM
Includes Susan Eleuterio (Goucher College) and Nancy Solomon (Long Island Traditions) as forum participants.
07-04 Supporting At-Risk Folklore Archives (Hybrid)
8:30 AM – 10:00 AM
Chaired by Benjamin Gatling (George Mason University) and includes Greg Adams (Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage) as a forum participant.
07-06 Reading Popular Culture Through Folklore
9:30 AM
Discussant Kim D. Stryker (George Mason University)
07-09 Folklore, Advocacy, and Community Protest
8:45 AM
Rooted in Protest and Uprooted from Folklore: Black Songs of Protest and Lawrence Gellert
Steven P. Garabedian (Marist College)
07-11 Media: Documenting African American Culture
8:30 AM
On The Shellpile
Rita Moonsammy (Goucher College)
9:10 AM
The African Roots of Boldly Printed Kanga Cloths in the Diaspora: Displaying Fashion, Frustration, and Favor
Maureen K. Porter (Institute for International Studies in Education, University of Pittsburgh)
08-04 Ecological Imaginaries (Hybrid)
10:30 AM – 12:30 PM
Includes Rory Turner (Goucher College) as a forum participant.
08-06 Weaving Networks and Growing Roots: Two Regional Arts Organizations Work to Support Folk Arts and Culture in Central Appalachia
Chaired by Ellie Dassler (Mid Atlantic Arts)
10:30 AM – 12:30 PM
Includes Joel Reid Gillis Chapman (Mid Atlantic Arts), Emily Hilliard (Folklorist, Berea College), and Teresa L. Hollingsworth (South Arts) as Forum participants.
08-09 Lies and Exile: The “Uprooted” in Canonical Early Modern Literature
11:30 AM
Uprooting in Oroonoko: The Lies We Tell Ourselves
Barbara E. Hamilton (Mercer County College and William Paterson University)
08-11 Media: Folklore in Music, Sound, and Film
10:30 AM
“I’ve Endured”: The music and legacy of Ola Belle Reed
Bill Shewbridge (University of Maryland, Baltimore County)
09-02 “All good predictions rhyme”: Making and Escaping Family in Adaptations of The Witcher
2:30 PM
Child of Destiny, Child of Surprise: Remaking Family through Fairy Tale in The Witcher
Linda J. Lee (University of Pennsylvania)
09-03 Queering Folkloristics, in Honor of Mickey Weems (Hybrid)
2:30 PM – 4:30 PM
Includes Andrea L. Glass (University of Delaware) as a forum participant.
09-05 From Tradition to Heritage: The Dynamic Practice of Handcrafts in China
2:30 PM
Basket Crafting Practice and Social Process in Contemporary China
Lijun Zhang (George Mason University)
3:00 PM
Adaptation, Engagement and Innovation: The Practice of Mongolian Female Headdress Crafts in Northern China
Lili Zhu (George Mason University)
3:30 PM
Handcrafts & Field: Changes of Alashan Carpet Weaving Tradition in China
Tao Pang (George Mason University)
09-11 From Turntables to Roundtables: Reflecting on the Roots, Rootlessness, and Uprooting of Hip Hop Culture on its 50th Anniversary
2:30 PM
Includes Junious Lee Brickhouse (Urban Artistry Inc.) as a forum participant.
Workshops, Networking Events and Plenaries
In Honor and Memory of Dan Ben-Amos: A Revolutionary Force and Visionary in the Field of Folklore (Part II)
10:30 AM – 12:30 PM
Includes Linda J. Lee (University of Pennsylvania) as a panelist.
AFS Presidential Lecture: Marilyn White (Kean University NY, Retired)
7:00 PM – 8:15 PM
Roots, Rootlessness, and Uprooting: Personal, Ethnographic, and Folkloric Reflections on a Theme.