Sarah Craycraft, PhD
Head Tutor and Lecturer, Folklore & Mythology
Harvard University
How are generations entangled differently in the problems facing rural places? Do place and age matter to the ways we understand revitalization? Sociologist Karl Mannheim noted that each generation establishes ‘fresh contact’ with social dilemmas, granting new perspectives on existing problems. This presentation explores why and how young, urban Bulgarians are addressing rural depopulation, and especially how recovery of traditional cultural practices plays into their endeavors. Their interventions—personal and civic—rely on peer networks, the reactivation of cultural memory, and resources beyond the village, choices that can create problems between villagers and newcomers even as they offer new platforms for rural communities to address pressing community needs. Attention to tactics of emplacement reveals presumptions about belonging and spatial tropes, not to mention (re)new(ed) sites of attention for folklorists and community-engaged scholars.
Free and open to the public.
Sarah Craycraft is Head Tutor and Lecturer of Folklore and Mythology at Harvard University. Her forthcoming first book, The Village Project: Rural Revitalization in Contemporary Bulgaria (University of Wisconsin Press) explores the practices and stakes of intergenerational approaches to “rural revitalization” in Bulgaria’s rapidly depopulating villages. Her broader work and publications address genre, the circulation of value and meaning, and the role of youth in tradition, cultural transmission, and strategies of recuperation. Prior to joining Harvard, Sarah was Visiting Assistant Professor of Folklore at Indiana University and Lecturer of Comparative Studies at Ohio State University. She has served in leadership and advisory roles for the Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Folklore Association, the International Connections Committee of the Appalachian Studies Association, and Midwest Folklorists and Cultural Workers Alliance. Sarah’s service, outreach, teaching, art, and community engaged scholarship aims to build bridges between academic and public folklore, spaces of formal and informal learning, and fields adjacent to folklore studies. Sarah earned her PhD from Ohio State University.
Co-sponsored by the Center for the Study of Upper Midwestern Cultures, CREECA, Center for Research on Gender and Women (CRGW), and GNS+.