Katherine Borland, associate professor of comparative studies, is the recipient of a prestigious 2018-2019 Fulbright Bicentennial Chair in American Studies award.

As part of the American Studies program of the Department of World Cultures, Borland will teach folklore and performance studies at the University of Helsinki in Finland and will explore Finnish humanities research models that connect contemporary research with existing archival collections from August 2018-May 2019. Borland will visit the folklore programs and ethnological archives at the University of Turko, Åbo Akademi, University of Jyväskylä, University of Eastern Finland and the Folklore Archive of the Finnish Literature Society in Helsinki to interview archivists and researchers about how their work interfaces with community-based archival or research agendas.

“My aim is to identify the challenges and opportunities Finnish archivists face in articulating their value to diverse publics as well as to uncover collaborative models that I might apply to my own work at The Ohio State University Center for Folklore Studies archive,” Borland said. “My interest in researching Finnish team-based models for publicly oriented research derives from a pressing need for new models for engaged humanities research at Ohio State University, but it is grounded in the understanding of the foundational and ongoing importance of Finnish scholarship the academic study of folklore, and particularly in the strong, ongoing connection between public outreach, archives and academic research that exists in Finnish folklore studies.”

The Fulbright Scholar Program is administered by the Council for International Exchange of Scholars and is sponsors by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the U.S. Department of State.

For more information about the Fulbright Scholar Program, contact Joanna Kukiekla-Blaser.