The Folklore and Folklife Graduate Program welcomes Assistant Professor Jay Dautcher and Center for Folklore and Ethnography Director Dr. Mary Hufford

Jay Dautcher is our newest faculty hire. He attended the graduate program in Folklore at Beijing Normal University between 1989 and 1991, then received his Ph.D. in Anthropology in 1999 from the University of California at Berkeley. He brings to the program a long-term interest in East Asian and Central Asian narrative traditions and forms of cultural expression. His research interests are in ethnic, gender and national identities, the politics of cultural production, folksong, joking and humor. Jay's faculty appointment is as Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Folklore in the Program of Anthropology. In coming semesters Jay looks forward to teaching courses including Masculinity in Narrative and Performance, Chinese Folklore, Asian Folklore, The Joke, Folksong, the Proseminar in Folklore, and Theories of Orality and Literacy. This spring, Jay is teaching a seminar, Masculinity in Narrative and Performance. Jay's campus office is University Museum, Room 418.

Mary Hufford joins the University of Pennsylvania as Director of the Center for Folklore and Ethnography. She has published widely on folklore, cultural policy and ecological crisis, including an edited volume, Conserving Culture: A New Discourse on Heritage. Her regional studies in central Appalachia and in southern New Jersey (Chaseworld: Foxhunting and Storytelling in New Jersey's Pine Barrens) reflect her broader interest in discourses on nature, environment, and the body, and the production of social imaginaries. Mary has taught Folklore and History, Public Culture, Appalachian Folklore and the Politics of Culture, and Environmental Imaginaries, and looks forward to offering a variety of courses, including Bodylore, Narrative, Ways of Speaking, and Fieldwork Theory/Practicum. This Spring, Mary will offer two graduate seminars, Topics in Folklore: Bodylore and Critical Regionalism. Her office is located in Logan Hall, room 313.

Regina Bendix named Professor of Volkskunde, University of Goettingen

After years of dedicated service to the University of Pennsylvania and the Program in Folklore and Folklife, most recently as Associate Professor of Anthropology and Folklore and Chair of the Graduate Group in Folklore and Folklife, Regina Bendix has accepted a new postion as Professor of Volkskunde at the University of Goettingen (Germany). Professor Bendix will be affiliated with the Institute for Volkskunde and European Ethnology, where, she writes, she hopes to expand her work as Europeanist ethnologist, participating in the "emerging landscape of a European ethnology beyond national boundaries." A number of Program events in the spring offered students and colleagues an opportunity to wish Regina and the Bendix family well in their new endeavor-though she'll be across the Atlantic, Regina reminds us that she'll remain, as ever, "wired" and accessible, electronically and otherwise. Congratulations, Regina, and a sincere "thank you" for all you've contributed to the folklore community at Penn and beyond!