This week, we received word that Jane C. Beck’s acclaimed book Daisy Turner’s Kin: An African American Family Saga, won two awards: the 2016 Chicago Folklore Prize and the 2016 Wayland […]
Category: folklore
Throwbacklist Thursday: Gutsy Reads
Teach the controversy! Like any academic press, UIP delves into the taboo, the transgressive, and the fringe. Such books reflect our belief that a lot of topics go unseen, and […]
Throwbacklist Thursday: Humor Has It
One man’s opinion: if I had to choose the hardest gig in show business or performance, without a doubt I would say “comedian.” It is hard to spin a funny story. […]
Throwbacklist Thursday: The Stories We Tell
Humanity has undoubtedly told stories since forever. Possibly our ancestors acted or danced them before speech found its way into our brains. Writing brought religious texts and Gilgamesh but even […]
Flatfooting on YouTube
In Hoedowns, Reels, and Frolics, musician, dancer, and scholar Phil Jamison tells the story behind the square dances, step dances, reels, and other forms of dance practiced in southern Appalachia. […]
“Everybody likes stories”
Daisy Turner, the shotgun-wielding centenarian, was someone Jane Beck was anxious to meet. Beck, the Executive Director Emeritus and Founder of the Vermont Folklife Center, recounted her first encounter with Daisy […]
Daisy Turner’s words
Daisy Turner was a woman of many words. The storyteller and poet was a living repository of history. She related the stories of her own family, from the abduction of […]
Survey Says!: It’s a un-livin’ thing
In the temperate zone of North America, June is busting out all over. The tree near the railroad tracks spreads its verdant canopy over lunchtime picnickers. Staff gardener Margo tirelessly […]
Squeeze This! wins SEM award
Squeeze This! A Cultural History of the Accordion in America by Marion Jacobson has won the 2014 Klaus Wachsmann Prize for Advanced and Critical Essays in Organology from the Society for […]
Congratulations to Neil Rosenberg
Tonight, the International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) will induct folklorist, musician, bluegrass historian, and University of Illinois Press author Neil V. Rosenberg into the International Bluegrass Hall of Fame at […]
Accordionist Weird Al hits #1
For the first time in his 30 year career, singer, parodist and accordionist “Weird Al” Yankovic has a #1 slot on the Billboard charts with his album Mandatory Fun. What’s […]
Vernacular music and learning with Christopher Smith
Christopher Smith, author of The Creolization of American Culture gave a TED talk at Lubbock called “The Homeland of the Mind,” focusing on how people learn. Smith is an associate […]