Erika Brady
American folklorist
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Erika Brady is an American folklorist and radio show host. She is a past-president of the Kentucky Folklore Society Fellows and editor of the journal Southern Folklore.
Erika Brady | |
|---|---|
| Academic background | |
| Alma mater | Indiana University |
| Thesis | The box that got the flourishes : the cylinder phonograph in folklore fieldwork, 1890-1937 (1985) |
Career
Brady studied at Harvard University, University of California, Los Angeles, and Indiana University Bloomington. She taught anthropology at Western Kentucky University beginning in 1989[1] and, as of 2022, has retired from teaching.[2] Brady was the editor of Southern Folklore, a journal published by the University Press of Kentucky, from 1992[3] though 2000.[4] She was the president of the Kentucky Folklore Society Fellows in 2015.[5]
She worked for the Library of Congress helping preserve and make available its collection of wax cylinder recordings.[6][7] Her work at the Library of Congress helped transfer audio tracks from wax cylinders onto tapes that could be preserved for future listeners, including songs from Native Americans[8] and French folk songs sung in Missouri.[9]
Her book, A Spiral Way: How the Phonograph Changed Ethnography, was about the impact of phonograph technology on ethnography. She also wrote a book about alternative medicine methodologies.[10] She has also written about healing in Healing Logics: Culture and Medicine in Modern Health Belief Systems which was reviewed by the Western States Folklore Society.[11]
Outreach
Brady hosts the folk music radio show Barren River Breakdown on WKYU-FM.[12] She co-hosted and eventually took over hosting of the radio show Barren River Breakdown which began in 1997.[13][better source needed] In 2015 she delivered the American Folklore Society's Don Yoder Lecture in Religious Folklife with a speech titled “A Subtle Thing Withal”: Reflections on the Ineffable, the Unspeakable, and the Risible in Vernacular Religion".[14] In 2010 about the significance of full moons in folkways with ABC News.[15]
Awards and honors
In 2002, Brady received the Acorn Award from the Kentucky Advocates for Higher Education.[16] In 2011 she received a Kentucky Governor's Award in the Arts for her work bringing regional music to Kentucky.[17] In 2015, Brady gave the Don Yoder lecture at the American Folklore Society's annual meeting.[18]
Writings
- Brady, Erika (1999). A spiral way : how the phonograph changed ethnography. Jackson, Miss.: University Press of Mississippi. ISBN 0-585-19046-1. OCLC 44954346.
- ————— (2001). Healing logics : culture and medicine in modern health belief systems. Logan, Utah: Utah State University Press. ISBN 0-87421-454-8. OCLC 54439127.
- ————— (2013). "Contested Origins: Arnold Shultz and the Music of Western Kentucky". In Pecknold, Diane (ed.). Hidden in the mix : the African American presence in country music. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. ISBN 9780822394976.