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Louisiana Folklore Society
The Louisiana Folklore Society was founded in 1956 to encourage the study, documentation, and accurate representation of the traditional cultures of Louisiana. Our members include university professors, professional folklorists in the public sector, secondary school teachers, museum workers, graduate students, and other individuals interested in Louisiana's traditions and cultural groups. Visioning for LFS In June 2010, the Louisiana Folklore Society hired folklorist Amy Skillman with the Institute for Cultural Partnerships to lead members through a visioning process. Twenty LFS members participated in a day-long workshop. Thirty-three took an online survey. Amy Skillman has submitted a report on the process with recommendations for LFS. The LFS officers are now considering the report and will be following up on the recommendations. Consultant's Full Report (48 pages) Join the Louisiana Folklore Society's Facebook group to stay connected with Officers
Officers
The bylaws of the society are available here.
Louisiana Folklore Society's Next Annual Meeting 56th Annual Louisiana Folklore Society Meeting McNeese State University is hosting the 55th Annual Louisiana Folklore Society Meeting in Lake Charles, Louisiana. The meeting theme is Tradition and Innovation in Louisiana Cultures. On Thursday, March 15 at 7:00 pm, T-Galop: a Louisiana Horse Story by Conni Castille will premiere at the Central School Arts and Humanities Center, 809 Kirby Street in Lake Charles. No admission fee. Donations accepted to benefit the Louisiana Folklore Society. On Friday, March 16th at 7:00 p.m., Dr. Nick Spitzer will deliver a keynote address entitled "Tradition and Creativity: From Louisiana Creole Expressive Culture to American Routes" at Stokes Auditorium in Hardtner Hall, 550 Sale Road on the McNeese campus in Lake Charles. Dr. Spitzer is a folklorist, Professor of Anthropology and American Studies at Tulane University, and host of NPR's American Routes. This event is free and open to the public.On Saturday, March 17th, 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. presentations on the conference theme and on other folklore topics and Louisiana folk traditions will be delivered by scholars, tradition bearers, folk artists, musicians, students, community leaders, community scholars, and others interested in local Louisiana cultures throughout the state and elsewhere at Stream Alumni Center, 600 East McNeese Street. A small registration fee is required. Pre-register to join us for lunch. We encourage and welcome the general public to these events. Submissions for presentations are accepted until February 10, 2012. For the Call for Presentations, click here - 2012 LFS Call for Presentations. For a schedule of Saturday's presentations, visit 2012 LFS Schedule . Visit us at LFS on Facebook. Contact Keagan LeJeune at 337-475-5312 or email clejeune@mcneese.edu for more information. Sponsors include McNeese State University, The McNeese Banners Series, and the Arts and Humanities Council of Southwest Louisiana.. To pre-register for the meeting, click here - 2012 LFS Registration Form. See below for details about the 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, and 2007 meetings.
Membership
To join the Louisiana Folklore Society, send your contributions dues to:
Louisiana Folklore Miscellany To see articles online from the Louisiana Folklore Miscellany, see Louisiana Folklore Miscellany Index: Contents from Previous Journals. Louisiana Folklore Miscellany publishes articles, notes, and commentaries on all aspects of Louisiana folklore and folklife. The Miscellany uses the same "References Cited" style as The Journal of American Folklore. Please consult a recent issue of either journal for form and style. Submissions to Louisiana Folklore Miscellany should be sent to:
The 2011 Annual Meeting The 55th meeting was held March 25-26, 2011 in Lafayette, Louisiana, and the conference theme was "Solastalgia: Longing for Home Without Ever Leaving." Friday night, the keynote address was "Solastalgia and the Landscape of the Mind: Reuniting Language, Emotions and Place in the Twenty-first Century" by Dr. Glenn Albrecht, Murdock University in Perth, Western Australia. 2011 LFS program The 2010 Annual Meeting The 54th meeting was held April 16-17, 2010 in Wallace, Louisiana, and the conference title was "The Mississippi River Road Corridor: Cuisines, Cultures and Communities from the Black Atlantic to the Plantation Belt." Friday night, the keynote address was "Three is a Magic Number: Culinary Cultures in the Making of a Southern Louisiana Cuisine" by cultural historian Dr. Jessica Harris, Endowed Professor and Professor of English at Queens College in New York. She presented the three matrix culinary cultures of southern Louisiana: Indian, African, and European using images and texts of the period. She also placed the Louisiana experience in hemispheric context and make comparisons with other creolized New World culinary cultures. The cultural tour on Friday afternoon featured Evergreen Plantation, the River Road African American Museum, Historic Donaldsonville, and Whitney Plantation. 2010 LFS poster 2010 LFS program The 2009 Annual Meeting The keynote address on Friday, March 27, 8 pm was Fiddle Tunes of the Old Frontier by Dr. Alan Jabbour, folklorist, American Folklife Center former director, and fiddler. Jabbour discussed and demonstrated the creative cauldron of Southern fiddling. Local fiddlers joined in on a jam session following the presentation. Jabbour is a noted authority on Appalachian fiddling. He has published widely on subjects related to folklore and folklife, including many publication on American instrumental folk music, and he is a frequent lecturer. His publications include both print publications and a number of docuementary recorded publications. Click here to see the 2009 Program Schedule.
The 2008 Annual Meeting The keynote address on Friday, April 4, 7 pm was Shotgun Houses: Their Future 35 Years Later by John Michael Vlach, Professor at George Washington University, and noted authority on folk and vernacular architecture. He returned to New Orleans to give an update on the 35th anniversary of his first visit to research the history of the shotgun house. Dr. Vlach has concentrated his scholarship on aspects of the African Diaspora by conducting field research in Africa (Ghana, Nigeria), the Caribbean (Haiti, Jamaica), and across the southern regions of the United States. Author of ten books, his titles include such seminal texts as The Afro-American Tradition in Decorative Arts, Common Places: Readings in Vernacular Architecture (with Dell Upton), By the Work of Their Hands: Studies in Afro-American Folklife, Plain Painters: Making Sense of American Folk Art, Back of the Big House: The Architecture of Plantation Slavery, and Barns (winner of the 2003 Kniffen Prize for Best Book on North American Material Culture). Dr. John Michael Vlach spoke on the history and future of the shotgun house in New Orleans. He is completing the definitive work on the shotgun house and has written widely on folk and vernacular architecture. Saturdays program also presented invited presentations from Nicole Eugene and Shari Smothers, two interviewers from The Surviving Katrina and Rita in Houston Project. The goal of this project is to voice, as intimately as possible, the experiences and reflections of those displaced to Houston by the two major hurricanes that hit the Gulf Coast. Trained as interviewers in special Library of Congress field schools, Shari Smothers and Nicole Eugene, African American women who were living in New Orleans before Hurricane Katrina and then evacuated to Houston, their new home, will make presentations on their experiences as interviewers for the project. Click here to see the 2008 Program Schedule.
The 2007 Annual Meeting The meeting began on Friday, March 9, at 7 p.m. with a keynote address titled Carnival Traditions and New Orleans by Roger D. Abrahams and Nick Spitzer. Abrahams and Spitzer are co-authors of the recent book Blues for New Orleans: Mardi Gras and Americas Creole Soul. Roger Abrahams is Hum Rosen Professor of Humanities at the University of Pennsylvania, and Nick Spitzer is producer and host of the public radio series American Routes. Their talk was free and open and the public, and took place in the Grand Salon at the French House on the LSU campus. The lecture and meeting wase supported by a grant from the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities and by funds from LSUs Department of English and Program in Louisiana and Caribbean Studies. The meeting continued at the French House on Saturday, March 10th with a full day of presentations by folk artists, folklorists, community organizers, and filmmakers. Special this year was a panel of artists documenting their own cultural traditions such as Acadian weaving, old country dances, boat building, and herbal medicine, and a panel discussion on documenting Mardi Gras. Also new was a community panel presentation titled After the Flood: A New Orleans Mardi Gras Indian Tradition Status Report, featuring Cherice Harrison-Nelson, Chair (Guardians of the Flame), Littdell S. Batiste (Queen, Creole Wild West), Clarence Dalcour (Big Chief, Creole Osceolas), Eugene Thomas (Big Chief, Whiter Eagles), Markeith Tero (Big Chief, Trouble Nation), Nadia Robinson (Queen, Young Guardians of the Flame), and Kevon Colley, Jr. (Big Chief, Young Guardians of the Flame). The program ended with a reception and screening of the films By Invitation Only and All on a Mardi Gras Day from 5 to 8 p.m. Saturday. Click here to see the 2007 Program Schedule
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