Notable Folklorists of Color - The AFS African American Folklore Section

Jack Dappa Blues Heritage Preservation Radio

In this episode, Todd Lawrence, Maria Lewis, and Lamont Pearley will host a live stream event offered by the AFS African American Folklore Section, the African American Folklorist and Jack Dappa Blues featuring Notable Folklorists of Color creators and curators, Phyllis May-Machunda, Sojin Kim, and Olivia Cadaval. The conversation will detail the inspiration, vision, purpose, and work of creating such a monumental installment. We will also discuss the follow-up project called, "Notable Folklorists of Color: Expanding the Frames ."

Notable Folklorists of Color is a website that features profiles of BIPOC ancestor scholars of color and their contributions to folklore studies. The 2019 exhibition, Notable Folklorists of Color: Remembering Our Ancestral Legacies, marked the 25th anniversary of AFS’s Cultural Diversity Committee by honoring 25 BIPOC ancestors, and the 2022 Notable Folklorists of Color: Expanding the Frames exhibition highlights the scholarship of approximately another 135 African American, Indigenous, Latino and Hispano, Asian American and Native Hawaiian ancestor scholars. Combined, the two exhibitions feature more than 160 BIPOC folklore ancestors.

The Notable Folklorists of Color: Expanding the Frames exhibition extends the examination of the contributions of BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and people of color) ancestor scholars to folklore studies that was begun in the AFS Notable Folklorists of Color: Remembering Our Ancestral Legacies exhibition in 2019. Remembering Our Ancestral Legacies marked the 25th anniversary of AFS’s Cultural Diversity Committee by honoring 25 BIPOC ancestor scholars of color and their contributions to folklore studies. Our 2022 exhibition, Expanding the Frames, highlights the scholarship of approximately another 135 African American, Indigenous, Latino and Hispano, Asian American and Native Hawaiian ancestors scholars whose work, in what is now the United States and its territories, spans the 19th century through 2021, bringing the combined total number of BIPOC ancestors featured in these two exhibitions to more than160.

Expanding the Frames recognizes the scholarly contributions of approximately 135 African American, Indigenous, Latino and Hispano, Asian American and Native Hawaiian ancestors scholars whose work in what is now the United States and its territories spans the 19th century through 2021. In contrast to Remembering our Ancestral Legacies (2019), this exhibition, Expanding the Frames, centers BIPOC ancestors—who often have worked within their own communities—as significant producers of scholarly knowledge about the communities and traditions they studied. Although some of these ancestor scholars applied mainstream academic approaches and perspectives in their folklore research, regarding the “folk” as remnants of the past, others alternatively anchored their research in the cultural knowledge frameworks and traditions of their own communities and worked intentionally for the benefit and futures of their living communities. Some of these ancestors’ theories and approaches are resonant with contemporary praxis, while several others are representative of the historical periods and circumstances within which they were conceived.

Be sure to become a member of the American Folklorist Society

https://americanfolkloresociety.org/

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