Maribel Alvarez Will Present the Presidential Invited Lecture at the 2026 American Folklore Society Meeting
The Southwest Center is proud to share that Dr. Maribel Alvarez, Jim Griffith Chair in Public Folklore, has been invited by American Folklore Society President Jason Baird Jackson to deliver the Presidential Invited Plenary at the Society’s 2026 Annual Meeting in Asheville, North Carolina. It is one of the highest-profile invitations in the field, and a fitting recognition for a scholar whose work has long bridged the university, the public and the communities of the borderlands.
Her lecture, “While the Folklore Is Still Young: Field Notes from the Vernacular Life of Artificial Intelligence,” turns a folklorist’s eye on a very new subject: the everyday stories, habits, jokes and beliefs people are already weaving around AI. Rather than rushing to explain the technology, Alvarez asks what we might learn by paying attention to these small, ordinary moments while they are still taking shape. In her words, she hopes to “open a conversation about what we may already be witnessing.”
President Jackson praised her as “a true leader in the field of folklore studies,” noting her career-long integration of public-facing, community-serving and scholarly work, and calling her new research on AI one that “could not be timelier.”
Congratulations, Maribel!