Corona maker Genoveva Castellanoz of Oregon. Castellanoz has received a National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. Photograph courtesy of the Oregon Folklife Program. From the Masters of Traditional Arts DVD-ROM, produced by Alan Govenar and published by ABC-CLIO.
 

The American Folklore Society is an association of people who study and communicate knowledge about folklore throughout the world. Our more than 2,200 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 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
  • 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 some 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, such as the H-Folk international folklore scholarship listserv and the development of an ethnographic thesaurus, and in international deliberations concerning folklore, intellectual property, and intangible cultural heritage

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