The Journal of American Folklore is Housed at Mason
The Folklore Program is currently the home to JAF: A Global Quarterly, the flagship journal of the American Folklore Society. As a quarterly journal grounded in the scholarship, methods, and theoretical approaches from the disciplinary perspective of folklore, it engages academic and public folklore from anywhere in the world through a wide range of materials, including publishing scholarly articles, perspective pieces, creative work, featured and reviewed projects, and book reviews.
Professor Lisa Gilman is serving as the Editor-in-chief of JAF, alongside an editorial team of George Mason University folklore professors: Benjamin Gatling, Debra Lattanzi Shutika, and Lijun Zhang. Folklore graduate student Emma Bussard is serving as the Editorial Assistant. The Folklore Program’s editorship is generously supported by Mason’s College of Humanities and Social Sciences.
During its time at Mason, the journal has published special issues:
The editorial team are engaging in significant initiates to expand the formats and types of materials JAF publishes toward the goal of better reflecting the folklore field’s diverse peoples and the material they produce. The editorial team continues to prioritize maintaining the journal’s consistency and high standard of excellence in addition to encouraging publications that challenge the “canon” of U.S. folklorists by fostering diversity and centering people whose contributions have been overlooked, such as scholars of color or women and inspiring dialogue with and contributions from those in allied fields.