Two Great Papers

IU Folklore graduate students Teri Klassen and Selina Morales gave very fine papers this morning during the Conversations: 2007 POAET Grantees Report on their Research conference here on campus. POAET stands for Project on African Expressive Traditions and is a initiative to support research on the arts of Africa and the African diaspora by IU graduate students and faculty. POAET is directed by IU professor of comparative literature Eileen Julien.

Teri and Selina each benefited from POAET grants and each gave wonderful accounts of the fieldwork that they conducted last summer. Teri’s project focused on the nature of quilting among African American and European American women in two southern communities, one in Tennessee, the other in Alabama. Teri’s presentation and her POAET project are part of a larger doctoral research effort examining the complexities of American quilting across space, time, and sociocultural diversites. Selina’s paper considered aspects of her larger M.A. research and exhibition project on botánicas in New York City. This work will result in a major exhibition being curated by Selina and staged by the Mathers Museum. (Learn more about her project on her weblog, here.)

Congratulations to both Teri and Selina for their fine efforts.