Cultural documentation workshop coming to Blackville
With Folklorist & Archivist Cathy Kerst
Registration deadline: Wednesday, October 2, 2019
Ethnographic Documentation Workshop:
Cultural Rights, Interviewing Skills, and General Archival Principles
- Tuesday, October 8, 2019
- 5:30-8 p.m.
- Blackville Senior Center
- 59 Callahan Street
- Blackville, SC 29817
- FREE
Researchers and interviewers who gather and document cultural information are involved in a complex of exciting, but sometimes, confusing issues that come up in person-to-person interactions. This workshop will explore the combined practice of interviewing, basic intellectual property matters, and fundamental archival procedures, so that collected cultural materials can be made accessible to the communities who created them, as well as to researchers, in an ethical and organized manner.
Drawing on her work as a Folklife Specialist and Archivist at the Library of Congress, Cathy Kerst will also provide an orientation to the American Folklife Center. The workshop will include opportunities for conversation and Q&A about participants’ specific interests and questions about becoming more involved in cultural documentation.
- Refreshments to be served
- Register by Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2019
- Click here to register for the free workshop
Who We Are
Catherine Hiebert Kerst, a folklife specialist at the Library of Congress’s American Folklife Center for 27 years, was trained as a folklorist and has significant experience in archival work and public sector cultural programming. Since leaving the American Folklife Center recently, she has done extensive research on the Sidney Robertson Cowell WPA Northern California Folk Music Collection,1938-1940. Her book focusing on the ethnomusicological fieldwork gathered by this intrepid woman collector is scheduled for publication by Dust-to-Digital in the near future. At the American Folklife Center, Kerst initiated the development of the American Folklore Society Ethnographic Thesaurus and served as coordinator of several symposia. In addition, she has worked extensively with New Deal ethnographic collections in the Center’s Archive, participated in educational folklife outreach activities, and contributed to scholarly publications, public presentations and reference services offered by the Center.
Ethnographic Documentation Workshop coordinator Laura Marcus Green is Program Specialist for Community Arts & Folklife at the South Carolina Arts Commission. She holds a Ph.D. in Folklore from Indiana University and an M.A. in Folklore/Anthropology from the University of Texas at Austin. Selected prior positions include Folklife & Traditional Arts Program Director, McKissick Museum, University of South Carolina, Community Engagement Coordinator for the Museum of International Folk Art’s Gallery of Conscience, and work as a folklife field-worker and researcher, writer, curator and consultant for the Louisiana Division of the Arts Folklife Program, the South Carolina Arts Commission, the Iowa Arts Council, New Mexico Arts, and the Idaho Commission on the Arts, among others.