Over the past few years, the young researchers of The Will to Adorn have been engaged in a project of community autobiography.

At the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, we have been thinking a lot about assessing the long-term impact of our work. How does the Center support community agency? How do we learn through reciprocal engagement?

Submitting proposals for paper presentations at academic conferences can be very competitive, which is why I often try to improve my odds by selecting topics that have direct connections to the conference venue.

This year’s American Folklore Society (AFS) conference was held in Santa Fe, New Mexico, during the first week of November.

Asian American folklore—it’s both a simple and unwieldy category.

Leading up to the 2013 Smithsonian Folklife Festival, the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage worked in collaboration with the U.S.

The Virgin of Guadalupe has many names and stories. So, too, does the elaborately decorated version of la Virgen made by María Gloria Moroyoqui for the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands program at the 1993 Smithsonian Folklife Festival.

I spent much of my early childhood on the north shore of Bermuda. The island shaped me in many ways, and I still have many friends and family there. So it was a special privilege for me to curate a program about the land that I considered my first home.

Following up on my spring 2014 visit, this summer I was airborne to the 2014 Guiyang Summer Festival of Indigenous Music in Guizhou Province, China. The event was the first time Guizhou cultural officials featured artists from beyond their home country.

Against the backdrop of the Smithsonian Folklife Festival last June, the Center hosted Intangible Cultural Heritage: An International Dialogue, a gathering which brought together scholars and professionals working on issues of cultural heritage p