Chicago Folklore Prize!!!!!

What amounts to the Nobel Prize in Folklore Studies was announced last week at the American Folklore Society meetings in Boise, Idaho. I am so super pleased that two friends with ties to my home department are sharing the award for 2009. The Chicago Folklore Prize is a book prize and it is the oldest and most distinguished award in folklore studies. Begun in 1928 by the University of Chicago, it is today given by the university in partnership with the American Folklore Society.

Sharing the prize are my colleague Michael Dylan Foster (Assistant Professor of Folklore at Indiana University) and Ray Cashman (Associate Professor of Folklore at The Ohio State University). Ray earned his Ph.D. in folklore here at Indiana University.  Michael’s book is Pandemonium and Parade: Japanese Monsters and the Culture of Yôkai (University of California Press). Ray’s book is Storytelling on the Northern Irish Border: Characters and Community (Indiana University Press).

Indiana University has distributed a press release celebrating news of their winning the prize. Congratulations to Michael and Ray and to folklore studies.