Gary Alan Fine (Northwestern University and the Center for the Advanced Study of the Behavioral Sciences), delivered the 2010 Francis Lee Utley Memorial Lecture of the AFS Fellows at the American Folklore Society Annual Meeting in Nashville, Tennessee on Friday, October 15.

Abstract: "To understand contemporary society folklore requires a robust theory of how small groups motivate the creation and retention of tradition. The establishment, ordering, and expansion of any culture depend on groups with shared pasts and futures, that are spatially situated, and that depend on common references. Folk cultures arise from interaction scenes, linked to a field of activity. Within complex societies, specialized groups fulfill a set of instrumental tasks within a complex division of labor. As a result many group cultures are linked to the presence of knowledge specialists: experts who serve as brokers for external, lay publics. These groups constitute epistemic communities linked to focused knowledge realms, achieving essential societal ends in the absence of general knowledge."

Jay Mechling (University of California, Davis, emeritus; President, Fellows of the AFS), chair

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