Dan Ben-Amos (1934–2023)

In an interview with Amy Shuman at the Annual Meeting of the American Folklore Society (AFS) in 2013, Ben-Amos recounted his time at Indiana University (IU) in the early 1960s as intellectually exhilarating (Shuman 2013). From his early study of Aggadic and Talmudic intergenerational wrestling with...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Journal of American folklore 2024, Vol.137 (543), p.139-142
Main Authors: Horowitz, Amy, Shuman, Amy
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Cultural heritage
Essays
Folklore
Genre
Hebrew language
History
Humanities
Storytelling
Students
Teaching
Traditions
Citations: Items that this one cites
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Summary:In an interview with Amy Shuman at the Annual Meeting of the American Folklore Society (AFS) in 2013, Ben-Amos recounted his time at Indiana University (IU) in the early 1960s as intellectually exhilarating (Shuman 2013). From his early study of Aggadic and Talmudic intergenerational wrestling with texts at Hebrew University, Ben-Amos embodied a style of research and teaching based on sustaining conversations and developing dialogues with others. In 1967, after a brief sojourn at The University of California, Los Angeles, he began his 55 years at the University of Pennsylvania, first as an Assistant Professor, then as a tenured Professor (and at times chair) of Folklore and Folklife (1967–1999), and then as Professor of Folklore & Asian and Middle Eastern Studies (1999–2023). According to Ben-Amos, Mr. Egharevba asked: “What did you come here for, my son?” Ben-Amos replied, “I came to study the history of the stories of Benin,” acknowledging that the local term “Okpobhie” refers to both history and story.
ISSN:0021-8715
1535-1882
DOI:10.5406/15351882.137.543.13