Dan Ben-Amos famously ushered in the performance turn in folklore studies in the 1970s with his paradigm-changing definition of folklore as "artistic communication in small groups." He went on to make profound contributions to issues of folktale, folk speech, genre, cultural memory, biblical and Jewish folklore, African folklore, and historiography, and gain renown around the world as a leading figure in folklore studies. In Contexts of Folklore, leading lights of folklore studies from many corners of the globe honor Ben-Amos by presenting original studies inspired by his insights. Their essays will assuredly be lasting, provocative statements of folklore research that will energize future generations of folklorists and other scholars of culture and communication.

Simon J. Bronner is Dean of the College of General Studies and Professor of Social Sciences at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, and held the Maxwell C. Weiner distinguished professorship in Humanities at Missouri S&T. He is the recipient of the Lifetime Scholarly Achievement award and Kenneth S. Goldstein Lifetime Achievement Award for Academic Leadership from the American Folklore Society. Wolfgang Mieder is University Distinguished Professor of German and Folklore at the University of Vermont. He is the founding editor of Proverbium and editor of the International Folkloristics series for Peter Lang Publishing. He has also received the Lifetime Scholarly Achievement award from the American Folklore Society and the Europäischer Märchenpreis (European Folklore Prize) from the Walter Kahn Folklore Foundation.