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History and Purpose

The Journal of Folklore Research, a publication of the Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology at Indiana University, was established in 1964 by Richard M. Dorson. Until 1983, it was known as the Journal of the Folklore Institute. The name change signaled an expansion in scope, and today JFR's editorial board includes folklorists from four continents. Devoted to the study of the world’s traditional creative and expressive forms, the Journal of Folklore Research provides an international forum for current theory and research among scholars of folklore and related fields. The current editor is John McDowell. Since July 2002, JFR has been published and distributed by Indiana University Press.

The Editorial Board welcomes substantive articles of current theoretical interest to folklore as an international discipline. In addition to topical, incisive articles, authors contribute timely reports on new books; assess the current state of folkloristics; and address the fieldwork experience.

The Journal of Folklore Research is indexed in the Social Sciences and Humanities Index, the MLA Bibliography, Anthropological Index Online, the American Humanities Index, the Music Index, and the International Bibliography of the Social Sciences. It is abstracted in Historical Abstracts and America: History and Life. In addition, JFR augments major research and teaching libraries in the former Soviet bloc as part of the East and Central Europe Journal Donation Project, sponsored by the New School for Social Research.

About Folklore and Ethnomusicology

The study of folklore (sometimes called “folkloristics”) has strong ties to the social sciences, the humanities, and the arts, and is often interdisciplinary in its approach to the documentation, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of its subject matter. Generally, folklorists are concerned with culture communicated by informal means, including oral tradition, material culture, and customary processes. Ethnomusicology is the study of music of all types and from all cultures, exploring the role of music in human life, analyzing relationships between music and culture, and studying music cross-culturally.

The two fields are closely interrelated, and both share common interests and engage in a rewarding exchange of ideas with scholars and professionals in many fields: