2015 Annual Meeting Offers Opportunities Especially for Students
Friday, August 21, 2015
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Posted by: Lorraine Cashman
There are several opportunities that are designed
specifically for students:
1. AFS Graduate Student Section business
meeting, Saturday, 12:15--2:00 pm, Shanghai. The Graduate Student section
is the home for all students within AFS, and is one important body through
which students from any university can plan AFS projects and activities, get to
know students from other universities, and make their voices heard within the
Society and the field. The section welcomes new members!
2. Student
Mixer. The only student-only event at the meeting, the mixer gives students a chance to find friends and make new connections with peers from other
programs. Cash bar. Federal Bar, 102 Pine Avenue, Thursday, 5:00–7:00 pm.
3. AFS Fellows Reception for Students. The Fellows
offer this reception as a way to welcome students to the meeting, to create
opportunities for networking with senior members of the field, and to make
clear how important students are to the health and vitality of folklore
studies. The reception, featuring food provided by the Fellows and a cash bar,
will be held immediately after the Fellows' Utley lecture. The reception is at the
Centennial Terrace, Friday, 5:45-7:00 pm.
4. AFS Public Programs Section Mixer for
Students and Young Professionals. This mixer is an opportunity for graduate
students to meet with public folklorists in an informal, casual setting. The
Public Programs Section provides food, a cash bar, and a warm welcome. Centennial
Terrace, Thursday, 8:00—8:30 pm.
5. The Breakfast of (Folklore) Champions: Senior
folklorists have breakfast with students, talking about a designated topic, as
well as students’ questions and interests. The Fellows participating in this
year’s breakfast, and their topics, are:
- Barbro Klein (Swedish
Collegium for Advanced Studies), folkloristics, Europe, and beyond
- Sabina Magliocco (California
State University, Northridge), creativity in folklore studies
- Leonard Norman
Primiano (Cabrini
College), vernacular religion
- Timothy
Tangherlini (University of California, Los Angeles), digital
humanities; legend and storytelling
This Fellows-sponsored program, now in its seventh
year, is a response to numerous requests that the Society create ways for
senior members of the field to engage and mentor students directly. Based in
part on your evaluations of this event, the Fellows look forward to
strengthening it, and creating other such opportunities, in future years.
There is no fee, but since seating is limited, advance
registration is required; the eight seats per table will be assigned on a
first-come, first-served basis. To register, email Associate Director Lorraine
Walsh Cashman at lcashman@indiana.edu, indicating your
top two preferences, in order, for the conversation in which you want to
participate, and which school you currently attend. Please be aware when you
make your request that we will not seat students with Fellows from their own
institutions.
The Breakfast is Saturday, 7:30—9:00 am, in Shoreline.
6. Volunteer
Shifts at AFS Registration: Every year, AFS requires some student
assistance during the busiest hours at the meeting registration desk; in return
for working a full shift at registration, students will have their meeting
registration fee refunded or waived. These shifts involve distributing nametags
and programs to those who have preregistered, taking registrations and payments
for those who register onsite, and any other duties as requested.
Sign up is on a first-come, first-served basis, until
all slots are filled. If you are interested, please email Lorraine at lcashman@indiana.edu, indicating up
to three shifts that you could cover, in order of preference.
Registration
Wednesday, 3:00-7:00 pm:
1. 2.
Thursday, 7:15-11:15 am:
3. 4.
Thursday, 11 am--3 pm:
5. 6.
We also encourage you to participate in:
1. AFS Section Business Meetings:
There are more than thirty AFS Sections, serving as gathering places and forums
within the Society for people with common interests in the field. All Sections
welcome new members, and invite prospective members to attend their annual
business meeting to learn more about the interests and activities of the
Section. See the AFS Annual Meeting program for specific meeting times and
locations.
2. AFS Cultural Diversity Committee sessions:
The Cultural Diversity Committee’s ongoing concern is to diversify the
Society's membership and to keep the Society engaged with diverse communities. The
CDC is organizing three sessions at the Long Beach Public Library:
- "Folklore
101: Foundation, Community and Inclusion," is specifically aimed to bring
new-comers to the field or to the meeting into a discussion of foundational ideas, concepts, and
approaches important to folklore studies (i.e. authenticity, power, appropriation,
community, racism, privilege, representation, etc.), with a critical focus on
how our practices and approaches to folklore engage notions of community and
inclusion within our own scholarly community, between those we work with and
ourselves. Thursday, 12:15—2:00 pm.
- "Antidiscrimination and Undoing
Ecologies of Power: A Discussion" aims to foster a conversation on how
anti-racism, antidiscrimination, social justice, and other radical theories,
practices, and approaches relate to AFS’s mission and to the integrity, health,
and promise of the field in general, with reference to episodes from AFS and
folklore studies history. Thursday, 2:45—4:45 pm.
- "Cultural Diversity and Local
Realities: AFS and Community Engagement" will ask questions such as: What
is AFS’s responsibility to the communities in which it holds its annual
meeting? Are there ways that engagement with those communities can enhance our
cultural diversity? How could we work to effect positive change in these
communities? The CDC hopes to explore such questions in this open
forum—questions requiring us to interrogate the purpose and nature of our
organization as well as its relationship to the communities we interact with.
Thursday, 5:00--6:30 pm.
3. AFS
Mentoring Program: This ongoing project initiated by the AFS Executive
Board arranges mentoring opportunities for students at the annual meeting; see http://www.afsnet.org/?AM15Mentorship for more
information.
Contact Carolyn Ware at cware1@lsu.edu as soon as
possible, since space in the program is filled on a first come, first-served
basis.
In
general, we also encourage students to be fearless in striking up conversations with
established scholars at this year's meeting!
For those attending our meeting for the
first time, please see "How to Make the AFS Meeting Work Best for You"
by former AFS Board member Carole Carpenter of York University at https://afsnet.site-ym.com/?page=AMHowTo.We also invite you to attend the Welcome Breakfast
for First-Time Attendees, International Participants, and
Stipend Recipients on
Thursday, 7:00—8:00 AM, Centennial Terrace.
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