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Through blog posts, podcasts and videos presentations of public programs and concerts, you can learn more about the American Folklife Center's collections directly from folklorists, specialists, and performers.
Folklife Today is a blog for people interested in folklore, folklife, and oral history. The blog features brief articles on folklife topics, highlighting the unparalleled collections of the Library of Congress, especially the American Folklife Center and the Veterans History Project.
The highlighted blog posts below focus on the topic of material culture.
Discover the treasures of the Library through its experts and special guests. Find full podcast series produced by the American Folklife Center by following the links below.
Folklife Today Podcast Series
America Works Podcast SeriesThe selected podcasts below focus on the topic of material culture in the American Folklife Center collections.
Since its inception in 1976, the American Folklife Center has routinely hosted public programs at the Library of Congress in the form of concerts, lectures, panels, and symposia. From 2006 on, most of these public programs have been video recorded and made available online.
There are a number of playlists available on the YouTube page that gather videos from certain seasons of our Homegrown Concert series External or pull together various lectures as a sampler External of the types of topics covered. You can also simply search "folklife" on the YouTube page External to pull up hundreds of videos.
It is also possible to view entire series of American Folklife Center videos on the Library's website. Those links are provided below. Many (if not all) of the same videos can be found on the Library's YouTube channel.
Wyoming-based folklorist Andrea Graham discussed her fieldwork among fishers and hunters in the contemporary American West and explores how these traditions maintain, reinforce, and celebrate deeply-rooted elements of place, family and community life. The folklore and traditions surrounding hunting and fishing are among the most ancient expressions of traditional culture in contemporary America. Although hunting and fishing are not usually seen as artistic pursuits, a closer examination of the handmade tools and gear used, the skills of guides and outfitters, the decorative crafts involved and the hunting and fishing stories told among hunters reveal an enormous depth of creativity, beauty and tradition. (Event date: June 7, 2018)
