Journal of American Folklore
JAF: A Global Quarterly
The Journal of American Folklore , the flagship journal of the American Folklore Society, is a global quarterly that engages academic and public folklore from anywhere in the world through a wide range of materials, including blind peer reviewed scholarly articles and perspective pieces that engage with the broad field of folklore across academic, public, and applied work.
JAF has expanded the possibilities for cutting-edge professional dialog by inviting non-traditional formats and genres in its new Perspectives section! If you have ideas, please contact us at [email protected]. We eagerly encourage new and innovative content.
AFS Begins Search for the Next Journal of American Folklore Editor
The Journal of American Folklore/JAF: A Global Quarterly is searching for a new editor or editorial team to transition into the term beginning in January 2025. A range of editor configurations have been successful in the past, and we are open to creative and feasible proposals going forward. Editor(s) have customarily served for a five-year period. The deadline for proposals is May 1, 2024. The new editor(s) will begin work with a transition period starting in the fall of 2024.
JAF enthusiastically encourages submissions by people representing all ethnic, racial, gender, sexual, national, and professional identities whose work is grounded in the field of folklore.
JAF is committed to inclusion, equity, and social justice and enthusiastically invites contributions that critically engage issues associated with race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, class, ability, religion, and citizenship
JAF authors include university-based academics, public and applied folklorists, community scholars, and folklore practitioners.
Special Offer: Read These Recent Articles for Free!
In honor of the AFS Annual Meeting, “Counter Memes and Anti-Legends in Online Welfare Discourse” by Tom Mould will be freely available on the Scholarly Publishing Collective from November 1, 2023 to January 31, 2024. This article from the Spring 2022 JAF (Volume 135, Number 538), uses welfare memes as a case study to explore “counter memes” as a strategy to critique hegemonic discourse and pervasive stereotypes in the digital space. Do some memes do more harm than good? How do others use parody, irony, and factual claims to target stigma?
Three response articles published in the same forum will also be free to access November through January:
- “Vaccine Hesitancy Counter Memes” by Anastasiya Astapova
- “Memes and Representations of Race: An Analysis of Historical Representations of Welfare” by Mia Moody-Ramirez
- “In a Land of Venn Diagrams: Reflections on Anti-Fans and Counter Memes, Trolls and Anti-Legends” by Whitney Phillips
Coming Soon: The JAF Fall 2023 Issue
The 2023 Fall issue of the JAF: A Global Quarterly (v. 136, no. 542) will be available online and will arrive in mailboxes soon. This issue showcases diverse formats, dialogue, and engagement with critical contemporary social and professional issues, as well as with overlooked scholarship of the past.
Articles
- “Conspiratorial Thinking among Russian Speakers in Estonia: From COVID-19 to the War in Ukraine,” by Anastasiya Astapova
- “Departures: Irish Emigration and Supernatural Belief Narratives,” by Timothy Corrigan Correll
Engaging the Past
“Aurelio Macedonio Espinosa’s ‘Great(er) Spain’: The Snares of Querencia and the Pitfalls of Cultural Nationalism and Fundamentalist Hispanismo,” by Enrique R. Lamadrid
Perspectives
Two discussions, in a series of short essays from diverse perspectives:
- “A Cross-Boundary Dialogue in Need: Racial, Ethnic, or Folk Groups?”
- Discussion of the Alliance for California Traditional Arts 2022 report “Tending the Taproot: Opportunities to Support Folk & Traditional Arts in the United States.”
And more!
Forthcoming and Recent Special Issues
Summer 2024
Folklore and Disability
Special Issue Editor: Anand Prahlad
SPRING 2022
Latinx Folkloristics: Women of Color Transnational Feminisms Perspectives
Special Issue Editors: Rachel V González-Martin, Mintzi A Martínez-Rivera, and Solimar Otero
FALL 2021
African American Expressive Culture, Protest, Imagination, and Dreams of Blackness
Special Issue Editors: Tanya Boucicaut and Lisa Gilman
JAF has expanded the possibilities for cutting-edge professional dialog by inviting non-traditional formats and genres in its new Perspectives section!
We eagerly encourage new and innovative content.
If you have ideas, please contact us at [email protected]
Contact:
Lisa Gilman
Editor-in-Chief
[email protected]
541-285-7043
Lorraine Walsh Cashman
Senior Managing Editor
[email protected]
Address:
Folklore Program
George Mason University
4400 University Drive, MSN 3E4
Fairfax, VA 22030