About

The Journal of American Folklore, the quarterly journal of the American Folklore Society since the Society's founding in 1888, publishes scholarly articles, notes, and commentaries directed to a wide professional audience. Other sections include those devoted to poetry, short fiction, and creative nonfiction on matters fundamental to the field; and reviews of books, exhibitions and events, films, sound recordings, and digital/online resources.

The contents of the Journal reflect a wide range of topics and points of view. As the flagship publication of the Society, the Journal reflects concerns of members in both academic and public spheres. Content is grounded in past and current folklore scholarship, and is based on recognized disciplinary methods. Articles present significant research findings and theoretical analyses from the disciplinary perspective of folklore. Notes are narrower in scope and focus on a single, often provocative, issue of definition, interpretation, or practice. Commentaries briefly address topics raised in earlier articles. Its contents are not restricted to folklore in the United States; the Journal publishes materials on folklore and from folklorists anywhere in the world.

Video clip from our The UPside podcast on the special issue on "Folklore Studies and Disability"

Indexes

Academic ASAP, Academic Search Alumni Edition, Academic Search Complete, Academic Search Elite, Academic Search Premier, Academic Search Ultimate, Academic Source Premier, America: History & Life with Full Text, America: History and Life, Anthropological Literature (Online), Art & Architecture Complete, Art & Architecture Index, Art & Architecture Source, Art Abstracts (H.W. Wilson), Art Full Text (H. W. Wilson), Art Index (H.W. Wilson), Art Source Ultimate, Art, Design & Architecture Collection, Arts & Humanities Citation Index, Arts & Humanities Database, Arts Premium Collection, Bibliography of Native North Americans, Book Review Digest Plus (H.W. Wilson), Brepols, Children's Core Collection, Core Collection en Espanol, Current Abstracts, Current Contents, Dietrich's Index Philosophicus, EBSCO, Fiction Core Collection, FRANCIS, Gale Academic OneFile, Gale Academic OneFile Select, Gale General OneFile, Gale Literature: Book Review Index, Gender Studies Database, Graphic Novels Core Collection, Historical Abstracts, Historical Abstracts (Online), Humanities Abstracts, Humanities Abstracts (H.W. Wilson), Humanities Full Text, Humanities Index (Online), Humanities International Complete, Humanities International Index, Humanities Source, Humanities Source Ultimate, IBZ - Internationale Bibliographie der Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaftlichen Zeitschriftenliteratur, InfoTrac Custom, International Bibliography of Theatre & Dance with Full Text, Internationale Bibliographie der Rezensionen Geistes - und Sozialwissenschaftlicher Literatur, Linguistic Bibliography (Online), Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts (Online), Middle and High School Core Collection (H.W. Wilson), MLA International Bibliography, Music & Performing Arts Collection, Music Periodicals Database, Nonfiction Core Collection (H.W. Wilson), OmniFile Full Text Mega (H.W. Wilson), OmniFile Full Text Select (H.W. Wilson), Periodicals Index Online, Personal Alert (E-mail), Poetry & Short Story Reference Center, Professional ProQuest Central, ProQuest 5000, ProQuest Central, PubMed, Research Library, RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, Russian Academy of Sciences Bibliographies, Scopus, Senior High School Core Collection (H.W. Wilson), SocINDEX, SocINDEX Full Text, The Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature (ABELL), TOC Premier, Web of Science, Women's Studies Abstracts, Women's Studies International

MEMBERSHIP RATES

For individual and student memberships, please contact the American Folklore Society. 

Institutions, click here to subscribe to 'Print Only' format.

Non-U.S. Postage: $10 Canada/Mexico, $35 Other Non-U.S. Locations

Single Issues: $15 Institutions

ONLINE + PRINT ADVERTISING

The print ad rates for all our titles can be found in the 2025 journals catalog/rate card.

Click here to download the PDF version

Editors

Editorial Board

Editorial Collective  

Senior Managing Editor

Editorial Assistants

Book Review Editor

Digital Media Review Editor

Exhibits and Events Review Editor

Film and Video Review Editor

Music and Sound Recording Review Editor

Editorial Review Board

• Sarah Craycraft, Harvard University
• Ann K. Ferrell, Western Kentucky University
• Terry Gunnell, University of Iceland (emeritus)
• Rossina Zamora Liu, University of Maryland, College Park
• Mintzi Auanda Martínez-Rivera, The Ohio State University
• Phyllis M. May-Machunda, Independent Folklorist; Minnesota State University Moorhead (emerita)
• Selina Morales, Independent Folklorist
• Anand Prahlad, University of Missouri, Columbia; The Thompson Center for Autism and Neurodevelopment
• Pravina Shukla, Indiana University
• Nevena Škrbić Alempijević, University of Zagreb
• Cory W. Thorne Gutiérrez, Memorial University
• Langston Collin Wilkins, University of Wisconsin–Madison
• Lijun Zhang, George Mason University

PDF Policy

Author Deposit Permissions Policy

Journal of American Folklore

In response to the evolving nature of scholarly exchange and communications, the American Folklore Society has established the following policy regarding authors’ deposit of their Journal of American Folklore (JAF) contributions (including articles, reviews, notes, etc.) in their institutional repositories. This policy replaces any previous AFS author deposit policy, so it also applies to materials already published in the JAF.

Definitions

[These definitions are based on those on the SHERPA/RoMEO web site (www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeoinfo.html).]

This policy applies to pre-prints, post-prints, and the publisher’s version. 

A pre-print is a work-in-process: a contribution not yet accepted, or perhaps even submitted, to the JAF, that you make available for comments and criticism from others. 

A post-print is the version of your JAF contribution after peer review and acceptance for the Journal of American Folklore, with revisions having been made.

The publisher’s version is the PDF file of your contribution as it appears in the Journal of American Folklore.

Policy

AFS encourages authors to post pre-prints and post-prints of their JAF contributions in temporary locations, such as personal websites, until such time as the publisher’s version is available. 

Authors may post publisher’s versions of their JAF contributions to the repository of their home institution as soon as those versions are available. When posting a publisher’s version, authors must include one of the following two notations:

For JAF contributions published before 2003:

Published as [provide the complete bibliographic citation as it appears in the print version of the Journal of American Folklore]. © [Year] by the American Folklore Society.

For JAF contributions published beginning in 2003:

Published as [provide the complete bibliographic citation as it appears in the print version of the Journal of American Folklore]. © [Year] by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois.

Submissions

Please visit the American Folklore Society for the Journal of American Folklore submission guidelines.

When you are ready to submit, please click the button below to be taken to our online submission system.

View our Publications Ethics and Malpractice Statement

Featured Articles

Online Access

Project Muse Access

Institutions- Current Content (SPC)

Institutions- Back Content (JSTOR)

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