Professors Emeritus
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Roger D. Abrahams
Roger returned to Penn in 1986 after being at Texas for 19 years and at Scripps and Pitzer Colleges in Claremont, California, for another six. His research interests have included folksong and ballad, African-American folklore, proverb and riddle study, childrens folklore, folklore theory and festival and ritual. Since retiring from his position in the English Department in the Spring of 2002, Roger has published two books with Penn Press, The Aesthetics of Everyday Life, and Blues for New Orleans, which he co-authored with Nick Spitzer.

Tristram Coffin
Dr. Coffin was professor of English and an acting member of the Program of Folklore and Folklife. He is an internationally known ballad scholar and among his publications are The British Traditional Ballad in North America; Our Living Traditions; An Introduction to American Folklore, The Critics and the Ballad (edited with MacEdward Leach), as well as Folklore From the Working Folk of America and Parade of Heroes: Legendary Figures in American Lore, edited with Hennig Cohen.

Brian Sutton-Smith
Brian shared an appointment in Folklore and Folklife and in the School of Education. He is a world class authority on child development, with a special focus on how play traditions enter into this process. He headed an interdisciplinary group on Child Culture at Penn.

Don Yoder
Dr. Yoder was our specialist in folklife study (in fact, he brought that term to its present use in the United States). His life enterprise has been to bring to notice the folklore and folklife of the Pennsylvania Germans, and he continues to publish widely in this field. His book on hex signs came out in the spring of 1989 and his book The Picture-Bible of Ludwig Denig was published in 1990.

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