AFC News

NPR Features New AFC Collection

American Folklife Center staffers, Nancy Groce and Megan Halsband, were interviewed for National Public Radio's "Interfaith Voices", a show that will air on sixty-one stations between March 27 and April 2, 2009. "Interfaith Voices" will air in the Washington, DC, area on Sunday, March 29, at 3:00 p.m. on WAMU-FM, with the AFC segment airing at approximately 3:30 p.m.

Groce and Halsband will be discussing and playing excerpts from a new AFC collection -- The Inauguration 2009 Sermons and Orations Collection. These oral testamonials were sent to the Library of Congress in response to a call for submissions issued by the American Folklife Center in December, 2008.

Almost three hundred churches, mosques, synagogues, and secular organizations from more than forty states submitted sermons and orations that comment upon Barak Obama's historic inauguration as President of the United States. Groce and Halsband discussed the project's relationship to earlier AFC collections, such as the "Man-on-the Street" Interviews Collection, which was generated by Alan Lomax's call for responses to the attacks on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. They also discussed plans for processing the collection so that it can be used by scholars and researchers. For more information on this collection, please visit http://www.loc.gov/folklife/inaugural/.

Research Awards

The American Folklife Center is pleased to announce its 2009 research awards. This year, we are awarding one or more awards from the Gerald E. and Corinne L. Parsons Fund, and one or more awards from the Blanton Owen Fund. Applications are due no later than March 6, 2009.

Brief descriptions of these awards are below. For full descriptions, and instructions on how to apply, please visit our website at

http://www.loc.gov/folklife/grants.html

(1) The Gerald E. and Corinne L. Parsons Fund Award.

The purpose of the Gerald E. and Corinne L. Parsons Fund is to make the collections of primary ethnographic materials housed anywhere at the Library of Congress available to the needs and uses of those in the private sector. Awards may be made either to individuals or to organizations in support of specific research projects.

Projects may:

*lead to publication in media of all types, both commercial and non-commercial

*underwrite new works of art, music, or fiction

*involve academic research

*contribute to the theoretical development of archival science

*explore practical possibilities for processing ethnographic collections in the Archive of Folk Culture or elsewhere in the Library of Congress

*develop new means of providing reference service

*support student work

*experiment with conservation techniques

*support ethnographic field research leading to new Library acquisitions.

Awards may be made in amounts up to 1000 dollars. The application deadline for this year's Parsons Fund award is March 6, 2009.

(2) The Blanton Owen Fund Award.

The Blanton Owen Fund Award was established in 1999 in memory of folklorist Blanton Owen by his family and friends to support ethnographic field research and documentation in the United States, especially by young scholars and documentarians. Currently, this award is offered every other year. The main component of a project eligible for this award is ethnographic fieldwork leading to cultural documentation in the form of field notes, audio and video recordings, and photographs.

Awards may be made in amounts up to 800 dollars. The application deadline for this year's Owen Fund award is March 6, 2009.

News - Getting Started: How Do I Do Folklife?

The range of activities, practices, beliefs, ideas, and behaviors that can be designated "folklife" is as broad, deep and wide-ranging as human creativity and existence themselves.