Folklore News Archives

Items referring to events of interest to folklorists will be saved for an indefinite period of time in Western States Folklore Society's News Archives. The most recently expired items will always appear on top.

Dorothy Noyes wins 2005 Fellows of AFS Book Prize

The winner of the 2005 AFS Fellows Book Prize is Fire in the Plaça: Catalan Festival Politics after Franco by Dorothy Noyes of The Ohio State University, published by the University of Pennsylvania Press (2003).

The Prize Committee described the work as follows:

Fire in the Plaça: Catalan Festival Politics after Franco by Dorothy Noyes is an exhilarating study of the Patum festival in Berga, Catalonia. Folklorist Noyes traces the development of the Patum from Corpus Christi festivity, to political critique under Franco, through its silences and repressions in the transition to democracy, to the challenges of consumerism and the globalized economy of the present. The festival is both sensory experience and symbolic representation, and Noyes engages the festival both as observer and participant. She reads the festival over the shoulders of her informants who in turn reread the festival over hers. She deftly weaves the verbal arts—songs, taunts, weather rhymes—into the overall “religion” of the Patum. Introspective, reflexive, historical, sociological, psychological, political, and ironic, Fire in the Plaça is a multi-layered text that sparkles with observations and commentaries on a rite central to Bergan and Catalonian community and identity. It is an important contribution to the ethnography of Europe and to the analysis of ritual and festival worldwide.

Barre Toelken and Enrique Lamadrid Share Chicago Folklore Prize

Folklorists Barre Toelken, professor of English at Utah State University, and EnriqueLamadrid of the University of New Mexico, were the recipients of last year's prestigious Chicago Folklore Prize. The award, given at the 2004 American Folklore Society meetings in Salt Lake City October 13-17, was for Toelken most recent book, The Anguish of Snails, and Lamadrid’s HermanitosComanchitos. “These outstanding books underscore the tremendous importance of native American and ethnic studies to the field of folklore and beyond,” said University of Chicago’s Philip V. Bolman in his announcement of the award. The Chicago Folklore Prize is the oldest award of its kind and the most prestigious award for scholarly work in the field. It is given annually by anonymous judges for the best folklore book throughout the world.

Dov Noy awarded 2004 Israel Prize

Dov Noy, one of the world's foremost authorities on Jewish folklore has been awarded the 2004 Israel Prize. The Israel Prize, the most highly regarded award in Israel, was first awarded in 1953 by the Minister of Education Ben-Tzur Dinor, and has been awarded every year since then on the eve of the Israeli Day of Independence, which this year fell on April 26. Recipients of the Israel Prize can be individuals or groups that have demonstrated excellence or broken new ground in a certain field. They must be Israeli citizens. The prize is presented to the recepient before the Knesset, Prime Minister, President, and Supreme Court of Israel.

Dov Noy came to Israel from his native Poland in 1938, and currently resides in Jerusalem. He served in the British army during the WWII and after the war continued his education at Hebrew University, Yale, and Indiana University. In 1956 Dov Noy founded and until 1983 served as a director of the Haifa Ethnological Museum and Folklore Archives, including the Israel Folktale Archives. In 1968 he founded Hebrew University Folklore Research Center. Dov Noy taught at Hebrew University, where he was the chair of the Hebrew Literature Department and at Bar Ilan, where he was a Distinguished Professor of Yiddish. Dov Noy was a visiting professor at dozens of universities around the world, including Toronto, Harvard, UCLA, Berkeley, Pennsylvania, Oxford, Boston, Sao Paulo, Melbourne. He wrote and edited more than 200 books and papers in several languages. In the last several years Dov Noy organized Yiddish summer courses and expeditions in Ukraine and Moldova.