Information about Contributors
Rent from DeepDyve- Information about Contributors
Diane Goldstein is Professor and Chair of the Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology at Indiana University and Director of the Folklore Institute. She is a co-author, with Sylvia Ann Grider and Jeannie Banks Thomas, of Haunting Experiences: Ghosts in Contemporary Folklore (2007); author of Once Upon a Virus: AIDS Legends and Vernacular Risk Perception (2004); a co-editor, with Cindy Patton and Heather Worth, of “Reckless Vectors: The Infecting ‘Other’ in HIV/AIDS Law” (special issue, Sexuality Research and Social Policy, 2005); editor of one of the earliest interdisciplinary anthologies on AIDS, Talking AIDS: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (1991); and author of numerous other works on popular belief, health, narrative, folklore and sexuality, applied folklore, and trauma and violence. Diane has been extensively involved in applied health work, including HIV priority-setting and policymaking initiatives over the past 30 years. This work has included a three-year appointment to the Canadian National Planning and Priorities Forum for HIV/AIDS, which developed Phase II of the Canadian AIDS strategy. She currently holds an appointment to the European Union Consortium on Population Behavior in Epidemics, whose mandate involves developing a global model for improved risk communication during infectious disease crises. Diane’s work focuses on the recognition of vernacular culture in policymaking, the nature of lay vs. official experience and knowledge, cultural issues in health decision making, and narrative. Diane is a past president of the American Folklore Society, past president of the International Society for Contemporary Legend Research, and a Fellow of the American Folklore Society.
Dana David Gravot has conducted extensive fieldwork with faith healers in her native Louisiana, and has collected linguistic data for the Dictionary of Louisiana French: As Spoken in Cajun, Creole, and American Indian Communities (2009; ed. Albert Valdman and Kevin J. Rottet). Her research interests include vernacular medicine, Mardi Gras, and cultural and religious processions. Her current focus is on a conceptual model for a taxonomy of illnesses specific to French Louisiana. She teaches at the American University in Washington, DC.
Solimar Otero is Associate Professor of English and a folklorist at Louisiana State University. Her research centers on gender, sexuality, Afro-Caribbean spirituality, and Yoruba traditional religion in folklore, literature, and ethnography. She is the author of Afro-Cuban Diasporas in the Atlantic World (2010) and a co-editor, along with Toyin Falola, of Yemoja: Gender, Sexuality, and Creativity in Latina/o and Afro-Atlantic Diasporas (2013), which was selected as a finalist for the 2014 Albert J. Raboteau book prize. Dr. Otero is the recipient of a Ruth Landes Memorial Research Fund grant (2013); a fellowship at the Harvard Divinity School’s Women’s Studies in Religion Program (2009 to 2010); and a Fulbright award (2001). She is currently working on a book, “Afro-Latino Religious Performance: Affect and Ritual in Cuba.” [End Page 242]
Ayako Yoshimura is a PhD candidate in folklore at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, currently studying kimono culture in contemporary Japan. Her research interests include (auto)ethnography, personal experience narratives, vernacular beliefs, the supernatural, material culture (foodways, arts and crafts, design), and public folklore. Her chapter, “Folklore and Asian American Humor: Stereotypes, Politics, and Self,” was recently published in Asian American Identities and Practices: Folkloric Expressions in Everyday Life (2014; ed. Jonathan H. X. Lee and Kathleen Nadeau), and she has contributed articles on ethnic humor, ethnic grocery stores, and ethnic foodways to the Encyclopedia of Asian American Folklore and Folklife (2011) and “Ethnic American Food Today: A Cultural Encyclopedia” (forthcoming; ed. Lucy Long). [End Page 243]
