IU folklore scholar receives national fellowship award

As a way to promote research in occupational folklore, the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. grants the Archie Green Fellowship Award each year.

One of only four recipients this year, Jon Kay — a research scholar in the Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology at IU — was awarded a fellowship to conduct ethnographic and oral history research through interviews with park rangers working in neighboring states.

Kay will work beside Brent Björkman, director of the Kentucky Folklife Program at Western Kentucky University, to accomplish its examination of occupational traditions and experiences in American workers.

Fieldwork by Kay and Björkman will primarily include 70 long-form interviews with former and current park rangers and related personnel to document what they coined “Ranger Lore.”

Only four Archie Green Fellowship awards were granted by the American Folklife Center this spring.

The award is named after Archie Green, a pioneer in folklore research who helped found the American Folklife Center in 1976. Green was a scholar who documented and analyzed the traditions and culture of American workers and encouraged others to pursue similar research.

Kay and Björkman’s final findings will be presented in the American Folklife Center’s archive and made available to fellow researchers and the public.

— Amanda Jacobson