Benjamin A. Botkin, former head of the Archive of American Folk Song, Library of Congress. Photo courtesy of the National Council for the Traditional Arts.

Benjamin A. Botkin Folklife Lecture Series

Through the Benjamin A. Botkin Folklife Lecture Series, the American Folklife Center presents the best of current research and practice in Folklore, Folklife, and closely related fields. The series invites professionals from academia and the public sector to present findings from their research. The lectures are free and open to the public. In addition, each lecture is recorded for permanent deposit in the Archive of Folk Culture, where researchers can access them.

Benjamin A. Botkin (1901-1975) was a pioneering folklorist who believed that people continually create folklore out of their collective experiences. He was national folklore editor of the Federal Writers' Project (1938-39), chief editor of the Writers' Unit of the Library of Congress Project (1939-1941), head of the Archive of American Folksong (1942-45), and author of numerous folklore treasuries. The American Folklife Center is indebted to his work as both a folklorist and a government official. For all these reasons, the American Folklife Center has chosen to name this lecture series in his honor. Select this link for a biographical sketch, " Benjamin Botkin's Legacy-in-the-Making," by Jerrold Hirsch.

2012 Botkin Lectures

June 26, 2012, 4:00 - 5:00 pm
Mary Pickford Theater, 3rd Floor, James Madison Building

Patricia A. Turner.

Crafting Change: African American Folk Artists and the Civil Rights Movement presented by Patricia A. Turner, University of California, Davis. Reception to Follow.

Patricia A.Turner is the Vice Provost of Undergraduate Education and Professor of African and African-American Studies at the University of California, Davis, where she has been on the faculty since 1990. A nationally known folklorist, her scholarly interests include rumor, quilting, and media portrayals of African Americans. Dr. Turner's books include Crafted Lives: Stories and Studies of African-American Quilters (2009); Whispers on the Color Line: Rumor and Race in America with Gary Alan Fine; (2001); Ceramic Uncles and Celluloid Mammies: Black Images and Their Influence on Culture (1994) and I Heard It Through the Grapevine: Rumor in African-American Culture (1993). Her commentary on issues related to rumor and conspiracy theories—from Hurricane Katrina to 9/11 and the death of bin Laden– has been sought for print, radio and television media including the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Talk of the Nation, and All Things Considered, and the NBC Nightly News. Turner's recent New York Times op-ed on the film The Help was among the week's most visited and e-mailed stories. Active in national cultural/scholarly life on both coasts, she is leading UC Davis's participation in the 2012 Smithsonian Folklife Festival, and is a frequent panelist at San Francisco's Museum of the African Diaspora. Her interest in quilting both as a craft and as a rich historical narrative began at an earlier Smithsonian Folklife Festival. She is a collector of quilts crafted by African American women, and an avid quilter herself.

August 9, 2012, 12:00 noon - 1:00 pm
Mary Pickford Theater, 3rd Floor, James Madison Building

Simon J. Bronner.

Campus Traditions: Folklore from the Old-Time College to the Modern Mega-University, presented by Simon J. Bronner, Pennsylvania State University

From their beginnings in American history, College campuses emerged as hotbeds of expressive traditions fitting under the rubric of folklore (although scowling critics would dismiss these traditions as high jinks).  This became more true, rather than less, as universities have become engines of mass society. Rather than deride campus traditions as cases of boys and girls "gone wild," Bronner interprets the uses of play and ritual for students in different eras to work through tough issues of their age and environment. More broadly, campus traditions are shown to function centrally in the development of American culture.

Simon J. Bronner is Coordinator of the American Studies Program and Director of the Doctoral American Studies Program and Distinguished Professor of American Studies and Folklore at Pennsylvania State University. He received his Ph.D. in Folklore and American Studies from Indiana University in 1981. He became editor of the Encyclopedia of American Studies in 2011. He is the editor of a book series entitled Material Worlds and edits the journal Jewish Cultural Studies. He is the author of many books, including Explaining Traditions: Folk Behavior in Modern Culture (2011); American Children's Folklore (2006, winner of the Opie Prize for best book on children's folklore); Grasping Things: Folk Material Culture and Mass Society (2004); Folk Nation: Folklore in the Creation of American Tradition (2002), Following Tradition: Folklore in the Discourse of American Culture (1998); Piled Higher and Deeper: The Folklore of Campus Life (1990); and American Folklore Studies: An Intellectual History (1986)

Botkin Lecture Series Online Archive

Includes descriptions of each lecture and informational essays from the event flyers. Links to webcasts of lectures are included as available.

2012 Lecture Series

2011 Lecture Series

2010 Lecture Series

2009 Lecture Series

2008 Lecture Series

2007 Lecture Series

2006 Lecture Series

2005 Lecture Series

2004 Lecture Series