This cutting-edge new book is the replacement for Folklife and Museums: Selected Readings which was published nearly thirty years ago in 1987. The editors of that volume, Patricia Hall and Charlie Seemann, are now joined by C. Kurt Dewhurst as a third editor, for this book which includes updates to the still-relevant and classic essays and articles from the earlier text and features new pioneering pieces by some of today’s most outstanding scholars and practitioners, to provide a more current overview of the field and addressing contemporary issues. Folklife and Museums: Twenty-First Century Perspectives is a brand new collection of cutting-edge essays that combine theoretical insights, practical applications, topical case studies (focusing on particular subject matter areas and specific cultural groups), accompanied by up-to-date “resources” and “suggested readings” sections. Each essay is preceded by an explanatory headnote contextualizing the essay and includes illustrative photographs.

Since its origins in 1967, the Smithsonian Folklife Festival has gained worldwide recognition as a model for the research and public presentation of living cultural heritage and the advocacy of cultural democracy. Festival curators play a major role in interpreting the Festival's principles and shaping its practices. Curatorial Conversations brings together for the first time in one volume the combined expertise of the Festival's curatorial staff—past and present—in examining the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage’s representation practices and their critical implications for issues of intangible cultural heritage policy, competing globalisms, cultural tourism, sustainable development and environment, and cultural pluralism and identity. In the volume, edited by the staff curators Olivia Cadaval, Sojin Kim, and Diana Baird N’Diaye, contributors examine how Festival principles, philosophical underpinnings, and claims have evolved, and address broader debates on cultural representation from their own experience. This book represents the first concerted project by Smithsonian staff curators to examine systematically the Festival’s institutional values as they have evolved over time and to address broader debates on cultural representation based on their own experiences at the Festival.

A truly international treatment of its subject, The Spirit of Folk Art draws upon the vast resources of the Girard Collection, amassed by Alexander and Susan Girard and housed at the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe. Distinguished folklorist and scholar Henry Glassie offers a vigorous and often lyrical discussion of the nature of folk art. More than 345 illustrations, including 285 in full color and 50 field photographs showing the various artists at work, provide a rich complement to Glassie's insights.

With the question, "What does it mean to show?", the author explores the agency of display in museums and tourist attractions. She looks at how objects are made to perform their meaning by being collected and how techniques of display, not just the things shown, convey a powerful message.

This profusely illustrated collection of essays, winner of the Elsie Clews Parsons Prize as the best folklore book of 1990, should engage anyone with an interest in how the humble devices and relics of everyday American life have influenced, and will continue to influence, our cultural history.