Diane Goldstein

Biography and education

Diane Goldstein’s father, Kenneth S. Goldstein, was a prominent figure in folklore studies who chaired the University of Pennsylvania’s folklore department and wrote the 1964 standard text A Guide for Fieldworkers in Folklore. She completed a bachelor’s in religious studies at Memorial University of Newfoundland in 1979, then earned an M.A. in 1983 and a Ph.D. in 1987 in Folklore and Folklife from the University of Pennsylvania. Her doctoral dissertation, supervised by Dell Hymes, was titled “Sharing In the One: An Ethnography of Speaking in a Mystical Religious Community.” She spent twenty-four years teaching in Memorial University’s folklore department, and in 1991 she was cross-appointed to its School of Medicine. Goldstein directed the Folklore and Language Archive from 1993 to 1994 and again from 2003 to 2005, and served as head of the Department of Folklore from 1997 to 2007.

Honors

Goldstein led the American Folklore Society as its president from 2012 to 2013. In 2006, she gave a Benjamin Botkin lecture at the Library of Congress's American Folklife Center titled "What's in a Name?: AIDS, Vernacular Risk Perception, and the Culture of Ownership." She also spent three years on the Canadian Federal Committee for AIDS Priorities and Policy. Currently, she heads the International Society for Contemporary Legend Research. Her editorial board work includes the Journal of American Folklore, Folklore Ethnologies, Contemporary Legend, Electronic Journal of Folklore, and the Journal of Applied Folklore.

Publications

Goldstein authored Once Upon a Virus: AIDS Legends and Vernacular Risk Perception (2004), held in 432 libraries according to WorldCat. She co-authored Haunting Experiences: Ghosts in Contemporary Folklore (2007) with Sylvia Grider and Jeannie Banks Thomas, held in 729 libraries. She also wrote "9/11 and After... Folklore in Times of Terror" and co-edited "Reckless Vectors: AIDS and the Infecting ‘Other’ in HIV/AIDS Law."

In an interview before becoming president-elect of the American Folklore Society, she stated, "I am a firm believer that folklore, in its various guises, has vital perspectives on critical social issues…" and added, "I have extensive experience…convincing others outside of our discipline of the significance of our disciplinary perspectives and [I] would like to explore ways that we can better present those perspectives…to make our relevance visible within the academy, with the public and with cultural policymakers."