Centering the Margins is an free online gathering series designed for participants to process, learn, find one another, and find joy in camaraderie. Centering the Margins serves BIPOC arts professionals and emerging creatives in Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Texas. It’s a space thoughtfully designed so people can candidly talk, process their experiences, and learn new things about navigating as a creative professional together—inviting those who feel they are on the outside to share their experiences, moving the margins to the center. The COALESCE session takes place June ..read more

TourWest is a competitive grant program funded by the National Endowment for the Arts that provides subsidies to arts and community organizations in the 13 states and 3 jurisdictions in the WESTAF region for the presentation of touring performers and literary artists. Through TourWest, WESTAF and the National Endowment for the Arts aim to encourage the presentation of performing arts programming to culturally diverse audiences and those that do not typically enjoy ready access to the performing arts. WESTAF serves organizations and individuals in the following states and U ..read more

Thanks to generous funding from the Tarbell Family Foundation, the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, and the Endowment Fund of the Greek Orthodox Church of the Annunciation of Sacramento, the University Library at California State University, Sacramento is pleased to offer the continuation of the Hellenic Research Fellowship Program (HRFP) for a 12th year. The HRFP, the only residential fellowship program west of the Mississippi in Hellenic studies broadly conceived, enables visiting scholars to conduct research using the Tsakopoulos Hellenic Collection in Sacramento, CA. This year they are ha ..read more

Folklorists Brandon Barker and Jasper Waugh-Quasebarth were featured in webcasts, podcasts, and news interviews about the solar eclipse on April 8. Brandon Barker (Assistant Professor of Folklore and Affiliate Faculty in the Cognitive Science Program at Indiana University) was featured on an Indiana University College of Arts and Sciences’ Food for Thought livestreaming series analyzes the similarities and variations in folktales across diverse geographical areas, highlighting the universal aspects of human perception and storytelling in response to a total solar eclipse. Barker’s presenta ..read more

Year after year, hundreds of proposals for the AFS annual meeting are submitted in the last two days before the deadline for submissions; in the last hours, proposals typically come in by the minute. 99% of them will come through successfully and without incident. Still, we stay alert in these last days to solve problems that may arise—but we’re only there during business hours. This year, the deadline is midnight on Wednesday, April 10. Be assured that we will take time Thursday, April 11, as necessary, to resolve remaining problems with all good-faith efforts to meet the deadline. If you enc ..read more

Erie Arts & Culture is looking for a summertime intern. The Folk Art Intern will work closely with Erie Arts & Culture Folklorist in Residence on a project where 10-15 different folk artists provide a total of 45 – 50 summertime workshops and/or demonstrations at public libraries in Erie, Warren, Mercer, Venango, Lawrence, and Crawford Counties. The internship will involve planning, administration, and working with a wide variety of folk and traditional artists and library staff in coordinating artists’ workshops during the summer of 2024. This internship will be funded by a grant and ..read more

Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador’s Folklore and Language Archive (MUNFLA) is offering a postdoctoral fellowship for a Community Engaged Research Specialist. The fellow will work closely with MUNFLA staff and the Folklore Archive Committee, under the direction of Dr. Kelley Totten, to assist in the restructuring and development of collections policies, new program initiatives, grant writing, and archival research. They are seeking a postdoctoral fellow with expertise and/or interest in the following: Archival/Collections-based research Archival/Collections-based management Indi ..read more

Poster sessions return to the AFS annual meeting this year! Thanks to added functionality with our new conference platform, we will be able to accommodate poster sessions as an online interactive experience in our virtual Poster Hall. Poster presenters will be named in the program and will have designated times for live engagement.  Posters are a great option for: first-time presenters to dip their toe into AFS (and get a CV line!);  seasoned presenters to debut early works-in-progress, without a large burden of responsibility during the meeting itself;  and for presenters ..read more

South Arts announced the inaugural recipients of the In These Mountains: Infrastructure Grants. Three organizations—The Southeast Kentucky African-American Museum and Cultural Center in Hazard, KY; Quilt Alliance in Asheville, NC; and The Appalachian Rekindling Project in Knoxville, TN—are receiving $30,000 grants to advance their work in supporting the folk arts and traditional culture of Central Appalachia. Established in 2018, the In These Mountains initiative supports the work of traditional artists and culture bearers as well as organizations located in the Appalachian Regi ..read more

Dr. Sandra Bartlett Atwood, an Indigenous Studies instructor at Lethbridge College and founding member of the AFS Folklore & Science Section, received the Environment & Society publication of the year award from Utah State University for her article titled “Níksókowaawák as Axiom: The Indispensability of Comprehensive Relational Animacy in Blackfoot Ways of Knowing, Being, and Doing,” which was published in Society and Natural Resources in April 2023.  One nominator noted that “this publication looks to move beyond traditional methods to create an Indigenous-focused methodology fo ..read more