The American Folklore Society is an association of folklorists: people who study and communicate knowledge about folklore throughout the world.

Our 2,000 members and subscribers are scholars, teachers, and libraries at colleges and universities; professionals in arts and cultural organizations; and community members involved in folklore work. Many of our members live and work in the US, but their interests in folklore stretch around the world, and today about one in every eight AFS members is from outside the US.

A collective of university-based humanities scholars, museum anthropologists, and private citizens--including author Mark Twain and US President Rutherford B. Hayes--founded the Society in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1888.

Today, the Society:

• Publishes the quarterly Journal of American Folklore, begun in 1888 and one of the oldest and most respected folklore journals in the world (and now including a multimedia site for audio and visual supplements to JAF articles and reviews)
• Publishes 5 special-interest journals or annuals (Children’s Folklore Review, Digest, The Folklore Historian, Jewish Cultural Studies, New Directions in Folklore); the AFS Review newsletter and opinion/essay venue, embedded in the AFS web site; and the AFS Annual Report
  
• Maintains (in partnership with other institutions in the field) several scholarly communications web sites and tools, including the AFS Ethnographic Thesaurus, the H-Folk listserv for international folklore scholarship, the folklore volume of the MLA International Bibliography, and the Open Folklore portal
• Maintains an official institutional archives and an oral history project in partnership with the Utah State University Library
• Produces an annual meeting each October that brings together more than 700 folklorists from around the world to exchange work and ideas, and to create and strengthen friendships and working relationships
• Maintains the AFS web site as a means for communication among Society members and between folklorists and the world at large
• Serves as the hub of our diverse field, developing means of communication and offering professional development opportunities not offered by other organizations
• Prepares position statements on a variety of cultural, educational, and professional issues as part of an ongoing program of advocacy for traditional cultural expression and the work of folklorists
• Supports the work of 6 committees and more than 30 interest-group sections
• Awards prizes, travel stipends, and other forms of recognition and support for outstanding work and best practices
• Maintains active partnerships with other societies in the American Council of Learned Societies and the National Humanities Alliance
• Takes a leading role in national and international folklore projects
• Offers a variety of membership categories and benefits for those who wish to participate in the Society

This part of our site will introduce you to the Society and its work. If what you see here raises questions you’d like to discuss, or doesn’t answer your questions, please contact us.