Portelli at AFS

Originally uploaded by appalachiancenter

On October 22-26 The American Folklore Society (AFS), the national organization for folklorists, held their annual meeting in Louisville, KY. The opening night key note speaker was Alessandro Portelli, an oral historian, from the University of Rome. Portelli has been doing research in Harlan County for around 10 years. Some of that research has been published in the online virtual tour of Harlan County called, “I Can Almost See the Lights of Home- A field trip to Harlan County, Kentucky. The web address for this presentation is http://www.albany.edu/jmmh/vol2no1/lightsportelli.html. Portelli was also one of the visiting artists during the Appalachian Program’s PACT Project (Partners Affirming Community Transformation).

This photo shows Portelli during a session at AFS called “Conversations with Alessandro Portelli. At this session audience members were able to ask him about his research in Harlan County as his work in Italy.

Theresa Osborne, folklorist and Program Facilitator for the SKCTC Appalachian Program, was among several hundred folklorists, community scholars, and people interested in documenting their own communities who attended AFS.

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