Events at the Library of Congress
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Event | lectures and symposiaListening to Divergent Histories through Canadian Music with Beverley Diamond
Monday
October 16, 2023
12:00 pm - 1:00 pm EDT Online Only Canadian ethnomusicologist Beverley Diamond reflects on how her approaches to documenting culture have shifted over fifty years, echoing not only changes in the academic realm but changes in her relations with Indigenous and other culturally diverse communities. She suggests that her approach may align with differences between Canadian and American institutions more generally, given such factors as two official languages and multiple forms of... -
Event | lectures and symposiaTeaching Culture, Teaching Culturally: The Significance of Folklife Education in the Schools
Monday
September 25, 2023
12:00 pm - 6:00 am EDT Online Only Folklorists Paddy Bowman and Lisa Rathje present an overview of folklore in K-12 education in the U.S. They discuss their work with the influential non-profit Local Learning: The National Network for Folk Arts in Education, their visions, and the diverse and dynamic ways that folklorists and traditional artists are currently engaged in K-12, museum, and community education.More information at loc.gov. -
Event | lectures and symposiaFolklore Today/Folklore Tomorrow: Expanding the Conversation with Marilyn White
Wednesday
August 16, 2023
12:00 pm - 1:00 pm EDT Whittall Pavilion (LJ-G45E) Folklorist Marilyn White, current President of the American Folklore Society, retired Professor at Kean University, and a pivotal member of such influential groups as the Association of African and African American Folklorists, City Lore (NYC), and the New Jersey Folklore Society, reflects on her career and the challenges that must be met for the field to become more inclusive and reflective of 21st century... -
Event | lectures and symposia"Graffiti, Folklore and Community Life: Photographing Contemporary Culture," talk by Martha Cooper, documentary photographer
Wednesday
March 25, 2020
12:00 pm - 1:30 pm EDT Whittall Pavilion (LJ-G45E) Documentary photographer Martha Cooper, known for her work on graffiti, children’s play, and urban culture, will share some of her favorite photographs and discuss her projects, approaches, and reflections on photography. -
Event | lectures and symposia
African American Dollmaking and Puppetry
Tuesday
February 18, 2020
11:30 am - 2:00 pm EST LJ 119 African American artisans utilize ancient skills and innovative technologies to create dolls and puppets that are both whimsical and starkly serious. -
Event | lectures and symposia
North Mississippi Homeplace: Photographs and Folklife, a book talk by Michael Ford
Thursday
May 23, 2019
12:00 pm - 1:00 pm EDT Whittall Pavilion (LJ-G45E) In 2014 the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress acquired Michael Ford's collection of films and photographs documenting grassroots community life in northern Mississippi. The Michael Ford Mississippi Collection includes documentation of music, farming traditions, blacksmithing, molasses making, and other aspects of community life in LaFayette, Marshall, Tate, and Panola Counties, Mississippi, during the early 1970s. In addition to the 2019 book,... -
Event | lectures and symposia
Dick Spottswood: A Discographer on the Record
Tuesday
May 14, 2019
1:00 pm - 3:30 pm EDT Whittall Pavilion (LJ-G45E) The renowned discographer, researcher, author, broadcaster, and scholar of folk and ethnic music Dick Spottswood will join us at the Library of Congress to participate in a two-part event in the Benjamin Botkin Folklife Lecture Series. The event will feature an interview with AFC staff members about his career and accomplishments followed by a panel with prominent Washington DC folklorists, ethnomusicologists, and archivists highlighting... -
Event | lectures and symposiaTraditional Arts and Resilience in Later Life
Thursday
February 21, 2019
12:00 pm - 1:00 pm EST Whittall Pavilion (LJ-G45E) Jon Kay, Director, Traditional Arts Indiana and Clinical Associate Professor, Folklore and Ethnomusicology. -
Event | lectures and symposiaBlack Pearl Sings
Wednesday
February 13, 2019
12:00 pm - 1:30 pm EST Pickford Theater (LM-302) A Theatrical reading and discussion of this play with the artistic director and two cast members from the Alliance for New Music Theater. -
Event | concerts and performancesAmerican Folklife Center Summer Music Jam (Blues with Phil Wiggins)
Saturday
September 29, 2018
2:00 pm - 4:00 pm EDT Veterans History Project Information & Welcome Center (LJ-G51) The American Folklife Center is hosting a series of informal jams to celebrate our living folk traditions, and to bring to life the collections from our vast ethnographic archive. -
Event | lectures and symposiaSince 1968
Monday
September 24, 2018
1:00 pm - 4:30 pm EDT Whittall Pavilion (LJ-G45E) An afternoon symposium that explores the themes of cultural work, geography, and community as manifest in the history of three organizations who trace their beginnings to the swell of social change that emerged in 1968. -
Event | film and video screenings"The Last Tightrope Dancer in Armenia" (2009)
Friday
June 22, 2018
8:00 pm - 9:30 pm EDT Pickford Theater (LM-302) The Last Tightrope Dancer in Armenia is a documentary that tells the story of Zhora, 78 years old, and Knyaz, 77 years old, who were once the most celebrated tightrope dancers in Armenia. -
Event | lectures and symposia
The Theory and Practice of Folklore in Cajun and Creole Louisiana
Tuesday
June 12, 2018
12:00 pm - 1:00 pm EDT Whittall Pavilion (LJ-G45E) In this lecture, Ancelet will talk about his career, his fieldwork, and his current research. Drawing heavily on his fieldwork experiences, his talk will address the relationship between the theory and practice of folklore, between what folklorists think and how they convey the results of that thought to diverse audiences, including academic colleagues, cultural specialists, and the general public. -
Event | lectures and symposia
The Art of the Hunt
Thursday
June 7, 2018
12:00 pm - 1:00 pm EDT Whittall Pavilion (LJ-G45E) Wyoming-based folklorist Andrea Graham discusses her fieldwork among fishers and hunters in the contemporary American West and explores how these traditions maintain, reinforce, and celebrate deeply-rooted elements of place, family, and community life. -
Event | lectures and symposia
Syriac Chants and Aramaic Christianity in India
Thursday
May 31, 2018
12:00 pm - 1:00 pm EDT Whittall Pavilion (LJ-G45E) This presentation includes a brief lecture, a video and a performance of Syriac chants. It calls for a reconfiguration of the ways in which India has been historically imagined.