Thank You to the Editors of the Journal of American Folklore, Past and Present

Even before 2026 began, many American Folklore Society (AFS) members were already getting a first glimpse of Journal of American Folklore (JAF) 139 (551), the Winter 2026 issue. I have started reading it via Project Muse, but JAF readers experience the journal in a variety of formats, including print. If you have not seen it yet, I am sure that you will be checking it out soon. There is much to consider and think about in the issue. I am tempted to start writing here about contributions of special interest—many very timely and important—but I instead wish to use this space to acknowledge and thank two groups of colleagues.

George Mason University folklore studies faculty members Lisa Gilman (Editor-in-Chief), along with Ben Gatling, Debra Lattanzi Shutika and Lijun Zhang (Co-Associate Editors) worked with a range of colleagues across the field, within AFS, and at the University of Illinois Press, to steward and advance the journal over several years (2020-2025). Their term of service concluded at the end of 2025, with the new issue being the first led by the new editorial collective. Thus, 2025 was—as suggested by the new issue just out—a fruitful year of collaboration and overlap between the outgoing editors and the incoming ones. My first order of business is to join the new editors (Cantú et al. 2026) to thank Lisa, Ben, Debra, and Lijun for their exemplary service stewarding and advancing JAF throughout their term as the JAF editorial team. Editing almost any journal is a challenge and editing a global English flagship journal with four issues a year, in this time and place, is a particularly daunting task. AFS and the whole global folklore studies community is fortunate to have benefitted from their leadership across many endeavors and we were fortunate that they chose to take up the work of editing JAF at a crucial time. Helping them were many peer-reviewers, editorial assistants, University of Illinois Press colleagues, freelance publishing professionals, and others. It takes a village to publish a journal.

A crucial bridge between the outgoing and incoming editorial teams is JAF’s Senior Managing Editor Lorraine Walsh Cashman, whom I thank here in the liminal space within this post!

Which brings me to the new editorial collective. I here want to express appreciation for colleagues Norma E. Cantú (Trinity University), Coppélie Cocq (Umeå University), Tim Frandy (University of British Columbia), Lisa Gabbert, (Utah State University) and Shelley Ingram (University of Louisiana at Lafayette) for their willingness to take on our most important AFS publication and to pioneer a new distributed editorial team model. As reflected in the new issue of JAF, they have already been hard at work since early in 2025 and it is exciting to now see and read the first fruits of their labors.

With their diverse talents, backgrounds, and interests, and Lorraine’s experience linking the journal’s excellent past work to their promising present efforts, JAF is well positioned to thrive in the year, and the years, ahead, despite the many challenges that our field, our society, and our wider calling as humanists and interpretive social scientists will face in the period ahead. My thanks go not only to the new editorial team, but also to Lorraine and the various student assistants, peer-reviewers, deans, departmental staffers, University of Illinois Press colleagues, and others who have already helped the team to succeed and who will do so in the years ahead.

Please do not flood their email boxes but do look for opportunities in the year ahead to thank both sets of editors for their valuable service on behalf of the American Folklore Society and all those whom we serve and support.

Reference Cited

Cantú, Norma E., Coppélie Cocq, Tim Frandy, Lisa Gabbert, and Shelley Ingram. 2026. “From the Editors.” Journal of American Folklore 139 (551): 3–4.