Jon Lohman |
Jonathan Lohman is Program Director of the Virginia Folklife Program at the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities (VFH) and Virginia State Folklorist. Jon earned an M.A. degree in the Social Sciences from the University of Chicago, and a Ph.D. degree in Folklore from the University of Pennsylvania. As the state folklorist, he works to document, present, and support Virginia's rich cultural folkways through a variety of mediums, including audio and video documentation, exhibit design, public programming, and project development. He has produced more than twenty music recordings, including the Paschall Brothers’ Independent Music Award-winning CD “On the Right Road Now” for Smithsonian Folkways, and the VFH’s critically acclaimed Crooked Road Series. Jon is the author of In Good Keeping: Virginia’s Folklife Apprenticeships, and has published scholarly and popular writings on Southern folklore. Jon has presented and facilitated cultural programs at numerous festivals and symposia throughout Virginia and the nation, including the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, the American Folklore Association, the National Folklife Festival and many others. Most recently, Jon was part of a small American delegation invited by the International Intellectual Property Institute to speak about protecting and promoting traditional arts at conferences in Lima, Peru, and Mexico City. He has taught academic courses on American folklife, cultural sustainability, and oral history at Mary Washington College, Goucher College, and the University of Pennsylvania, where he also served as the Program Coordinator for the Urban Studies Program. In 1991 Jon was Corps Member of Teach for America with assignment as a fifth-grade teacher at Harriet Tubman Elementary School in New Orleans.
