Simon Bronner

Education

Ph.D., Indiana University, Folklore & American Studies.

M.A., American Folk Culture, State University of New York, Oneonta.

B.A., Binghamton University, Political Science

Bio

Simon J. Bronner is Dean of the College of General Studies and Distinguished Professor of Social Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He holds a Master’s degree in American Folk Culture from the Cooperstown Graduate Programs of SUNY and the Ph.D. in Folklore and American Studies from Indiana University. He has taught at Harvard University, Leiden University (Netherlands), Missouri University of Science and Technology, Osaka University (Japan), Dickinson College, and Penn State University. He also served as Scholar in Residence at the Latvian Academy of Culture in Riga, Latvia and visiting scholar at Beijing Normal University. He was the founding director of the Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies and the Center for Holocaust and Jewish Studies at Penn State. He is the author or editor of over 40 books in folklore and folklife studies, including most recently The Oxford Companion to American Folklore and Folklife Studies, Encyclopedia of American Folklife, The Practice of Folklore, Folklore: The Basics, and Youth Cultures in America. He has also been the editor of the journals Material Culture, Folklore Historian, and Folklore Forum, and editor of the book series Studies in Folklore and Ethnology (Lexington Books), Material Worlds (University Press of Kentucky), and Jewish Cultural Studies (Liverpool University Press). His awards and honors include the Lifetime Scholarly Achievement Award and Kenneth Goldstein Memorial Award for Academic Leadership from the American Folklore Society, Mary Turpie Prize for Program Development from the American Studies Association, Lifetime Achievement Award from the New Jersey Folk Festival, and Chicago Folklore Prize from the American Folklore Society and the University of Chicago. He has received fellowships and grants from the Rockefeller Foundation, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Endowment for the Arts, McCormick Foundation, and Pennsylvania Council on the Humanities.

Publications

Jewish Cultural Studies. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2021.

The Practice of Folklore: Essays Toward a Theory of Tradition. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2019.

(ed.) Oxford Handbook of American Folklore and Folklife Studies. New York: Oxford University Press, 2019. Online in 2018: oxfordhandbooks.com.

(ed.) Contexts of Folklore: Festschrift for Dan Ben-Amos. New York: Peter Lang, 2019 (with Wolfgang Mieder).

(ed.) Connected Jews: Expressions of Community in Analogue and Digital Culture. London: Liverpool University Press, 2018 (with Caspar Battegay).

(ed.) Pennsylvania Germans: An Interpretive Encyclopedia. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2017. (with Joshua R. Brown).

(ed.) Mothers in the Jewish Cultural Imagination. London: Liverpool University Press, 2017 (with Marjorie Lehman and Jane Kanarek).

Folklore: The Basics. New York: Routledge, 2016.

“Who’s That Knocking at My Door?”: Barnacle Bill the Sailor and His Mates in Song and Story. Northfield, MN: Loomis House Press, 2016.

(ed.) Youth Cultures in America, 2 vols. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2015 (with Cindy Dell Clark).

Whirligigs: The Art of Peter Gelker. Fullerton, California: Grand Central Press, 2014 (with Lynn Gamwell).

(ed.) Framing Jewish Culture: Boundaries and Representations. Oxford, UK: Littman, 2014.

Campus Traditions: Folklore from the Old-Time College to the Modern Mega-University.

Explaining Traditions: Folk Behavior in Modern Culture. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2011.

(ed.) Revisioning Ritual: Jewish Traditions in Transition. Oxford, UK: Littman, 2011.

(ed.) Jews at Home: The Domestication of Identity. Oxford, UK: Littman, 2010.

Greater Harrisburg’s Jewish Community. Charleston: Arcadia, 2010.

Killing Tradition: Inside Hunting and Animal Rights Controversies. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2008.

Steelton. Charleston, South Carolina: Arcadia, 2008 (with Michael Barton).

(ed.) Jewishness: Expression, Identity, Representation. Oxford, UK: Littman, 2008.

(ed.) The Meaning of Folklore: The Analytical Essays of Alan Dundes. Logan: Utah State University Press, 2007.

Crossing the Line: Violence, Play, and Drama in Naval Equator Traditions. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press [University of Chicago Press in U.S.], 2006.

(ed.) Encyclopedia of American Folklife, 4 vols. Armonk, New York: M.E. Sharpe, 2006.

(ed.) Manly Traditions: The Folk Roots of American Masculinities. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2005.

(ed.) Lafcadio Hearn’s America: Ethnographic Sketches and Editorials. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2002.

Folk Nation: Folklore in the Creation of American Tradition. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002.

(ed.) Plain Women: Ritual and Gender in the Old Order River Brethren. (By Margaret C. Reynolds). University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2001.

Following Tradition: Folklore in the Discourse of American Culture. Logan: Utah State University Press, 1998.

Popularizing Pennsylvania: Henry W. Shoemaker and the Progressive Uses of Folklore and History. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996.

The Carver’s Art: Crafting Meaning from Wood. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1996.

Piled Higher and Deeper: The Folklore of Student Life. Little Rock: August House Publishers, 1995.

(ed.) Creativity and Tradition in Folklore: New Directions. Logan: Utah State University Press, 1992.

(ed.) American Material Culture and Folklife. Logan: Utah State University Press, 1992.

(ed.) Folk Art and Art Worlds. Logan: Utah State University Press, 1992 (with John Michael Vlach).

Piled Higher and Deeper: The Folklore of Campus Life. Little Rock: August House Publishers, 1990.

American Children's Folklore. Little Rock, August House Publishers, 1988.

(ed.) Consuming Visions: Accumulation and Display of Goods in America, 1880-1920. New York: W. W. Norton, 1989.

(ed.) Folklife Studies from the Gilded Age: Object, Rite, and Custom in Victorian America. Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1988.

Old-Time Music Makers of New York State. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1987.

Grasping Things: Folk Material Culture and Mass Society in America. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1986. Reprinted 2004.

(ed.) Folk Art and Art Worlds. Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1986 (with John Michael Vlach).

American Folklore Studies: An Intellectual History. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1986.

Chain Carvers: Old Men Crafting Meaning. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1985.

(ed.) American Material Culture and Folklife: A Prologue and Dialogue. Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1985.

(ed.) American Folk Art: A Guide to Sources. New York: Garland Publishing, 1984.