New York Field Trip

New York Folklore Society
P.O. Box 764
Schenectady, NY 12301
518/346-7008
Fax 518/346-6617
nyfs@nyfolklore.org

Main Conference Page | 2005 NY Field Trip | Schedule of Events | Panel Discussion

ABOUT THE PARTICIPANTS

Dr. Michael Black is a professor emeritus of Baruch College. Along with his wife, Nancy, he is the editor for the collected works of Washington Irving.

Lee Ann Brown is a filmmaker, performer, and writer. She grew up in North Carolina, and much of her work draws upon her exposure to Appalachian culture. She holds a MFA in Creative Writing from Brown University. She is the founding editor and publisher of Tender Buttons Press, an experimental press with an emphasis on women and minorities. Her published works include Polyverse, 1996.

David Gonzalez is an award-winning New York Times journalist.

Frank Ingrasciotta is an actor, playwright, and director an is the creator of Blood Type: RAGU which was performed off-Broadway at the Belmont Playhouse for an extended four-month run. Ingrasciotta has performed both on and off-Broadway as well as in regional theater and on TV. He teaches acting workshops for all ages; he is currently on the faculty of SUNY Purchase.

Joanne Mulcahy is the Director of the Writing Culture Summer Institute at Lewis and Clark College and is an Assistant Professor at the Northwest Writing Institute. Her publications include Birth and Rebirth on an Alaskan Island: The Life of an Alutiiq Healer, and several non-fiction essays. She was a Writer-in-Residence at the Verbal Arts Center in Derry, Northern Ireland and is a recipient of the Oregon Institute of Literary Arts Award for Nonfiction.

Kirin Narayan is professor of anthropology and languages and cultures of Asia at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Her books include Storytellers, Saints, and Scoundrels: Folk Narrative in Hindu Religious Teaching (1989); Mondays on the Dark Night of the Moon: Himalayan Foothill Folktales (1997); and Love, Stars, and All That (1994), a novel. Narayan is the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.

Bushra Rehman is a poet whose work chronicles life in the immigrant desi world of New York City. Her writing captures the aunties, bodegas, Bollywood dramas, and street life of children with both humor and sincerity. She is the co-editor, with Daisy Hernandez, of the anthology Colonize This! Young Women of Color on Today’s Feminism.

Kevin White is a Ph.D. candidate at SUNY Buffalo’s Center for the Americas. A member of the Haudenosaunee Mohawk tribe, his dissertation is a study of Native American narrative and issues in its presentation to a non-Native American audience.

Steve Zeitlin is the director and cofounder of City Lore, an organization dedicated to the preservation of New York City’s—and America’s—living cultural heritage. Steve is the author and coauthor of a number of award winning books on America’s folk culture including A Celebration of American Family Folklore (Pantheon Books, l982); The Grand Generation: Memory Mastery and Legacy (U. of Washington Press, l987); City Play (Rutgers University Press, l990); Because God Loves Stories: An Anthology of Jewish Storytelling (Simon & Schuster, 1997); and Giving a Voice to Sorrow: Personal Responses to Death and Mourning (Penguin-Putnam, 2001). His children’s books include While Standing One One Foot: Puzzle Stories and Wisdom Tales from Jewish Tradition (Henry Holt, l996); Cow of No Color: Riddle Stories and Justice Tales from World Traditions (Henry Holt, l998); and a book on world cosmologies, The Four Corners of the Sky (Henry Holt, 2000). He is the author of a new volume of poetry, I Hear America Singing in the Rain (First Street Press, 2003).

This program is made possible by grants from the New York State Council on the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, and Poets and Writers.