Information about Contributors

Carol Bohmer teaches government at Dartmouth College. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania and Master of Laws from Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, and is the author of The Wages of Seeking Help: Sexual Exploitation by Professionals (2000) and coauthor, with Andrea Parrot, of Campus Sexual Assault (1993). She works as a pro bono attorney with immigrants, especially asylum seekers.

Laurel Horton is an independent folklorist, self-employed research consultant, and writer. She holds an M.A. in folklore from the University of North Carolina—Chapel Hill and an M.S. in library science from the University of Kentucky. She has written and edited numerous books and articles, primarily on quilt-making traditions, and served as editor of Uncoverings, the annual research papers of the American Quilt Study Group. With Paul Jordan-Smith, she coedited a special issue of Western Folklore titled "Communities of Practice: Traditional Music and Dance" (2001). She is currently completing a book about the Mary Black family quilts (forthcoming, University of South Carolina Press), exploring their changing meaning through several generations.

Paul Jordan-Smith is an independent writer and folklorist. He received his M.A. and Ph.D. in folklore and mythology from the University of California, Los Angeles, and an M.S. in library service from Columbia University. In 1976, he helped found Parabola Magazine, serving as story editor and contributor of many articles and retellings of folktales, myths, and legends; and coedited I Become Part of It: Sacred Dimensions in Native American Life (1989), an anthology of articles and folktales. With Laurel Horton he coedited a special issue of Western Folklore titled "Communities of Practice: Traditional Music and Dance" (2001), and he is presently working on a novel and a nonfiction book about Scandinavian folkdance.

James S. Miller is Associate Professor of American studies and American literature at the University of Wisconsin—Whitewater. He has written extensively on issues of public memory and middle-class identity in twentieth-century America. His most recent work, exploring the role of commodity culture in shaping historical consciousness, has appeared in such journals as American Studies and American Periodicals. He is currently at work on a book project entitled Managerial Memory: The Invention of White-Collar Roots in American Culture.

Rosina S. Miller is a Ph.D. candidate in the graduate program in folklore and folklife at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research interests include personal narratives, documentary theater, and urban cultural organizations and the communities they serve, particularly arts for social change programs. She is currently working on her dissertation, which employs a critical regionalist perspective to examine issues of memory, embodiment, and the performance of place at the Village of Arts and Humanities in Philadelphia.

Jack Santino is Professor of folklore and popular culture at Bowling Green State University. He is past president of the American Folklore Society and past editor of the Journal of American Folklore. He has published extensively on occupational folklore and, more recently, on ritual, festival, and celebration. He has authored several scholarly articles, ethnographic films, and books, including Signs of War and Peace: Social Conflict and the Public Use of Symbols in Northern Ireland (2001).

Amy Shuman directs the Center for Folklore Studies at The Ohio State University, where she is Professor of English and Adjunct Professor of Anthropology. She has authored Storytelling Rights: The Uses of Oral and Written Texts by Urban Adolescents (1986) and a forthcoming book, Small World, Isn't It: Personal Narratives and the Critique of Empathy (University of Illinois Press). With Charles Briggs, she coedited a special volume of Western Folklore, "Theorizing Folklore: Toward New Perspectives on the Politics of Culture" (1993). Currently, she is studying artisans who reproduce Renaissance and Classical marble sculpture in Pietrasanta, Italy.

Barre Toelken is Emeritus Professor of English at Utah State University. His professional focus has been primarily on vernacular expression (especially in occupational and ethnic folklore) and on intercultural studies. His publications include The Dynamics of Folklore ([1979] 1996), The Ballad and the Scholars (with D...