Scholars and students have been studying folklore at the University of North Carolina for almost ninety years. Come join our evolving tradition!


(Excerpt from "We've Got Company," by N.C. self-taught painter Theresa Gloster)

Author of over one hundred publications in folklore, American literature, fiction, and photography, William Ferris is interested in all manifestations of Southern culture from Faulkner to moon pies! Pre-UNC he was chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, director of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at Ole Miss, and co-editor with Charles Wilson of the original Encyclopedia of Southern Culture. (B.B. King)

Bernie Herman explores the worlds of material and visual culture and the self-taught and vernacular arts. He is currently completing a book called Quilt Spaces: Artists and Objects in Gee's Bend, Alabama and working on another titled Troublesome Things: In the Borderlands of Contemporary Art. He is working with students on an exhibition of Thornton Dial's early drawings to be held at UNC's Ackland Museum. (photo of students observing Thornton Dial in his studio by Bernie Herman)

Marcie Cohen Ferris is working on a book that examines the expressive language of food in southern historical sources from the plantation South through the Civil Rights Movement.

(section from jacket illustration for Marcie Ferris’s Matzoh Ball Gumbo © 2005 by Ed Lindlof)

Patricia Sawin is fascinated with the first person stories people tell in order to communicate and and perhaps even create our identities. She is currently working with Guatemalan women who as adults are finally getting access to an education, recording their accounts to track their evolving sense of new possibilities and new selves. (photo of students and volunteer at Safe Passage/Camino Seguro by Patricia Sawin)

The intertwined worlds of faith, style, & creativity have long fueled Glenn Hinson’s search for understanding in African American cultures. A public folklorist at heart, Glenn tries to balance the complementary callings of public engagement & academic pursuit. Currently, he is studying the reign of rhyme in African America, speaking with vernacular poets while exploring the hidden histories of oral poetry. (Painting by T. Gloster)

Kathy Roberts’ current book project examines land and work as cultural and economic resources in south-central Appalachia, ultimately asking how and why rural Americans remain rural today. (photo of Davis Homestead by Kathy Roberts)

In his youth Robert Cantwell reconciled his banjo obsession with his literary aspirations by writing a book on bluegrass music. Books on festivity, the folk revival, and a collection of critical essays followed. He is currently completing a book on love and preparing new courses on cultural rights and Bob Dylan.

Having completed an award winning book on early country music legend Jimmie Rodgers, Jocelyn Neal is now exploring country dance halls and regional traditions among country fans coast to coast. (dance hall photos by Jocelyn Neal)