Over the past 150 years folklorists, ethnomusicologists, and other ethnographic researchers have created a unique, enormous corpus of ethnographic field collections that are not familiar to most educators. These multi-format, unpublished groups of materials documenting human life and traditions have been created, gathered, and organized by folklorists or other cultural researchers as part of community-based field research. This special issue of the Journal of Folklore and Education offers a deep dive into ethnographic primary source materials, organized around the theme “Teaching with Ethnographic and Folk Arts Collections: Challenging History.” Submissions due April 1, 2023.

Death, Loss, and Remembrance Across Cultures prompts readers to consider their own complex and complicated relationship(s) to death and contemplate how people come to understand themselves, each other, and the world around them. Folklore can be a resource in helping heal from the trauma of loss and death while also aiding ongoing efforts to reckon with historical trauma from our shared histories.

Bretton A. Varga and Mark E. Helmsing, Guest Editors