From Samhain to Halloween
Exploring the Celtic origins of everyone's favorite harvest holiday celebrating thresholds between life and death.
“Telling the Bees”
In nineteenth-century New England, it was held to be essential to whisper to beehives of a loved one’s death.
What Smoke Signals Means 20 Years Later
This groundbreaking film was the first movie to be written, directed, co-produced, and acted by Native Americans.
When Prison Time Meant Rhymes
The “gay, frolicsome and amusing" rhymes of 1970s American prison slang.
The Fairytale Language of the Brothers Grimm
How the Brothers Grimm went hunting for fairytales, accidentally changed the course of historical linguistics, and kickstarted a new field of scholarship in folklore.
The Completely True History of April Fools’ Day
The door to spring is guarded by fools, but that's ok, because they're not all that serious. And everybody knows the password: April Fools!
Why Saris are Indian Material Culture
Between 1996 and 2003, a folklorist studied the connection between handlooms (technology), sari makers (producers), and sari wearers (consumers) in the ancient city of Banaras.
What Amateur Cookbooks Reveal About History
Remember those spiral-bound cookbooks from your church group or your mom’s favorite charity? Those amateur recipe collections are history books, too.
Super Mario, Homer’s Odyssey, and the Meaning of Marriage
Nintendo's Mario and Homer's Odysseus have more in common than you might think.