[Jill Terry Rudy]

I have been nominated to serve on the GS Folklore, Myth, and Fairy Tale forum executive committee. In 1997, I received my PhD in Folklore from Indiana University, Bloomington, and I am an Associate Professor of English at Brigham Young University (BYU). I co-direct a digital humanities project which includes graphs, visualizations, and a searchable online database of fairy tales on television (see fttv.byu.edu) and am the editor of The Folklore Historian.

My articles on the history of folklore scholarship and tale collections are published in the major US folklore journals and College English. I edited The Marrow of Human Experience: Essays in Folklore by William A. Wilson and co-edited Channeling Wonder with Pauline Greenhill. Currently we are co-editing a special issue of Marvels & Tales as well as the Routledge Companion to Fairy-Tale Cultures and Media, with Naomi Hamer and Lauren Bosc.

I hold a one-year fellowship with the BYU Humanities Center where I actively participate in the romanticism and adaptation studies research groups and Public and Applied Humanities initiatives. My additional projects involve foodways, family folklore, indigenous studies, and our college Humanities+ and department English+ experiences.

The Modern Language Association remains a vital organization and voice for literary, language, artistic, and humanistic scholarship, and my research confirms the reciprocity of folklore studies and the MLA over the decades. For the next five years, it remains important that the presence of folklore and folk narrative research be felt in connection with MLA programs. The GS Folklore, Myth, and Fairy Tale forum executive committee can highlight research on literary, ideological, and sociohistorical currents that foster and challenge traditional expression, stories, and life ways. Additionally, the MLA is an excellent venue for enhancing scholarly professionalism, recruiting and initiating young scholars, and maintaining outreach to wider audiences.

[Author]

Posts