This article appeared in the Volume 4, Issue 3 Winter 2024 issue of the Appalachian Curator. Click here to view a PDF of the full issue.
By Tim Binkley, Head of Special Collections and Archives
In July 2023, the Special Collections and Archives (SCA) department of Hutchins Library welcomed Emily Hilliard to our team. Emily is serving as Berea College Folklorist, a newly-funded position. She could have been stationed within other college programs and offices, but it seemed logical to the committee that created the position to give her direct access to SCA staff and resources. Of course, we agreed!
Emily is a folklorist, writer, and media producer with degrees from The University of Michigan (B.A.,
English Literature and Language and French and Francophone Studies) and The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (M.A., Folklore Studies). Prior to coming to Berea, Emily served Mid Atlantic Arts as Folk and Traditional Arts Program Director (2021-2023) and the West Virginia Humanities Council as State Folklorist and founding director of the West Virginia Folklife Program (2015-2021). She has also worked for Smithsonian Folkways Recordings and the National Council for the Traditional Arts. Of special note, Emily was a 2014-2015 Berea College Sound Archives Fellow.
Emily’s published writings include Making Our Future: Visionary Folklore and Everyday Culture in Appalachia (UNC Press, 2022) and articles “Students of the Strikes” (Dissent, 2023), “Something Deeply Rooted: The Invisible Landscape of Breece D’J Pancake’s Milton, West Virginia” (Oxford American, 2021), and “’Written and Composed by Nora E. Carpenter’: Song Lyric Scrapbooks, Home Recordings, and Self-Documentation” (Southern Cultures, 2016), which was based on her Berea Sound Archives Fellowship.
Emily’s mission is to raise interest in the study of folklife and provide hands-on training and experience with the tools of her discipline, both on and beyond campus. She is already making great progress meeting students and colleagues, planning folklife events, giving presentations, and writing.
One of Emily’s special interests is foodways. In October through December, SCA is inviting the public into our reading room to search the 550+ historic and regional cookbooks in our collection for spoonbread recipes and stories. We also hope to collect the same from our visitors. If you have a favorite spoonbread recipe or story that you would like to add to the archives, please contact Emily at hilliarde1@berea.edu.
