“An Electromagnetic Tenderness of Remembering”

This interview engages with how one folklorist’s interests in recording spoken sounds and memories of his grandmother opened a pathway to recording the memories and sounds of living descendants of traditional Appalachian balladry. Through the processes of engaging...

Engaging with Discomfort

Death is not just the end of life; death is also a complex and cultural phenomenon. As such, the shifting boundaries between life and death call for a reexamination of existing social norms and practices and the various educational resources surrounding death and...

“Il repose ici”

The Great October Storm of 1893, despite remaining one of the largest natural disasters in the U.S. to date, was lost to history for nearly 100 years. It remained untold in hurricane treatises and in general literature and lingered only in the colloquial memory of...

Riding with James

  Let me tell you about my cousin James. First of all, he was almost 50 years older than me and we were actually like fourth cousins, once removed. I think. Anyway, from the time my Aunt Dorothy—who is actually not my aunt, but also a distant cousin, a couple of...

The Smithsonian’s Will to Adorn Youth Access Project

Zora Neale Hurston, the renowned anthropologist and folklorist, observed in 1934 that “the will to adorn” is one of the primary characteristics of African American expression. Like orature, quilting, and musical forms such as the blues, African American dress and body...