Routes to Roots will celebrate 100 years of Missouri folklore

The Missouri Folklore Society will celebrate its centennial anniversary November 1 through 4 with an annual meeting, Routes to Roots, in Columbia. Free and open to the public, the activities will include singing, storytelling and fiddling. Visit the Society's website for a list of events and locations. The theme of the meeting, Routes to Roots, underscores Missouri’s position at the heart of the country and as a cultural crossroads.

More than 100 members of the society are expected to attend, including academics and historians, master musicians and artists, as well as the public. The celebration will allow Missourians to discuss discoveries and to meet others with similar interests in folklore.

A reunion at the Chez Coffee House will serve as a gathering spot for folk artists. Scholars will deliver papers on topics ranging from occupational folklore to people’s relationships with food. Other activities include a live jam session, tours of community highlights, such as historic cemeteries, the ghosts and legends of the MU campus, and an art walk in cooperation with the MU Museum of Art and Archaeology.

Singer-songwriter Joe Hickerson, former head of the Archive of Folk Culture at the Library of Congress, will deliver the keynote address: 50+ Years of Folk Music. Also featured is MU English Professor Anand Prahlad.

Shelley Ingram, MU graduate student in English and program coordinator for the meeting, says Missouri’s folklore centers around such emotional and geographical connections as Route 66, the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers, and the railways that brought people and their cultures to the state.

The Missouri Folklore Society was established to preserve and celebrate Missouri’s folk heritage. "The Society began in the English department at MU and has thrived for 100 years," says Elaine Lawless, president of the Society and Curators Professor of English at MU.

Links:

Elaine Lawless
Anand Prahlad
Department of English

Meeting flyer (in Word)