Glassie, Henry, 1941-

Henry H. Glassie was born in Washington, D. C., in 1941. He earned his Ph.D. in folklore from the University of Pennsylvania in 1969. He began his teaching career at the Pennsylvania State University, where he taught from 1969 to 1970. For the following six years he taught at the Indiana University before coming back to the University of Pennsylvania to be a faculty member of the Department of Folklore and Folklife. He served as department chairman from 1976 to 1980, followed by the appointment of graduate chair from 1985 to 1987, and finally, undergraduate chair from 1987 to 1988. In 1988, he returned to the Indiana University and has since been teaching there. From 1968 to 1991, Glassie published over a dozen of books, mostly studies of American folklore, some of Irish folklore, and one of contemporary Turkish traditional art. In addition, he wrote numerous articles, pamphlets and book reviews. His academic activities have also included serving on editorial boards for many folklore journals and publishing houses. He has been associated with many academic societies, and served as president of the American Folklore Society from 1988 to 1990. He also spends a lot of time on public speaking. His record for recent years indicates an average of some ten speaking engagements either inside the country or overseas each year.

Henry H. Glassie (born in 1941 in Washington, D.C) received his B.A. in English and Anthropology from Tulane University in 1964, his M.A. from the Cooperstown Program of the State University of New York in fold culture in 1965, and his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in folklore in 1969. During the course of his doctoral work from 1967-1969, Glassie served as the State Folklorist of Pennsylvania which at the time was the only state folklorist position in the United States. From 1970-1976, he served as professor at Indiana University’s Folklore Institute, followed by a tenure at the University of Pennsylvania from 1976-1988 where he served as professor and chair of the department of Folklore and Folklife. In 1988, he returned to Indiana University’s Folklore Institute where he served as a professor, Co-Director of the Turkish Studies program, in addition to adjunct appointments in central Eurasian Studies, American Studies, Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, and India Studies. Glassie officially retired from the university in May of 2008 with the title College Professor Emeritus of Folklore and Ethnomusicology.

Glassie has published widely in the fields of material culture and vernacular architecture. Among his books are Passing the Time in Ballymenone (1982) which won the Chicago Folklore prize and the Haney Prize in the Social Sciences; Irish Folktales (1985); The Spirit of Folk Art (1989); Turkish Traditional Art Today (1993) which was included in the New York Times list of notable books of the year and won the Award for Outstanding Achievement by the Assembly of Turkish American Associations; Art and Life in Bangladesh (1997); Material Culture (1999); Vernacular Architecture (2000) which won the Cummings Award for the best book on North American Architecture; The Stars of Ballymenone (2006); and most recently Prince Twins Seven-Seven: His Art, His Life in Nigeria, His Exile in America (2010) through IU press.

Outside academia, he helped to organize the Smithsonian’s Folklife Festival and the Office of Folklife Programs, and served on the first Folk Arts panel of the National Endowment for the Arts and as a consultant for outdoor museums such as Conner Prairie Pioneer Settlement, Plimoth Plantation and Ulster-American Folk Park. He has also curated exhibitions for the Museums of International Folk Art, the Indiana University Art Museum and the National Museum of Bangladesh. He has served as president of the Vernacular Architecture Forum, the American Folklore Society, and was appointed by President Clinton to the National Council on the Humanities. He has received a Teaching Excellence Award from Indiana University and prestigious lifetime achievement awards from the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) and the American Folklore Society (AFS).