Department of Folk Studies and Anthropology News

This week, October 13^th through October 17^th, students, faculty, and staff in the Department of Folk Studies and Anthropology will be attending the American Folklore Society’s 2020 Annual Meeting. In years past, meetings have been held in various cities around the United States, but the 2020 meeting that was scheduled to be in Tulsa, Oklahoma, is being hosted virtually due to COVID-19.

Several WKU Folk Studies graduate students and faculty members will be presenting their research at this year’s meeting, the theme of which is "Centers/Peripheries: Connecting Beyond the Binaries." Presenters include graduate students Camille Acosta, Taylor Dooley Burden, Ellie Dassler, Azadeh Najafian, and Joshua Niedwick, along with undergraduate Folk Studies student Lamont Pearley, as well as Dr. Tim Evans, Dr. Ann Ferrell, and Dr. Tim Frandy.

The department is particularly proud to share that Dr. Tim Frandy has won the inaugural Folklore and Science Prize, a $750 award offered by the Folklore and Science Section of the American Folklore Society. The annual prize honors the scholarly paper that best investigates relationships among folklore and science, whether those domains are conceived as academic fields, worldviews, practices, or discursive framings. Scholars selected for this honor explore how folklore and science inform, maintain, contest, and complement each other. Dr. Frandy’s paper “Mas amas diehtá maid oarri borrá?’: Contesting Sustainability in Sápmi,” will be shared in a roundtable with experts who combine indigenous knowledges and scientific method.

The Folk Studies program will host a virtual gathering for alumni attending the conference on Friday evening. Keeping the tradition of an Annual Alumni Advisory Dinner alive in a modified form, attendees will socialize, share the latest updates and news, and discuss long term strategies to continue to keep the program’s alumni network strong.

The AFS annual meeting provides folklorists an opportunity to interact with and learn from colleagues, artists, and community partners. This meeting is especially helpful for WKU students learning more about the field and making professional connections.