The 2013 Patrick B. Mullen Prize for best graduate student paper was awarded to Joanna Spanos for "But Why a Hanging? Festival, Reenactment, and Social Memory."

One of the reviewers said:

"This paper represents a thoughtful contribution to Folklore Studies' inquiry into tradition as interpretation of pasts in present contexts, into the role of performance in the construction and negotiation of tradition, and, specifically, into local and heritage-oriented festivals as potentially important sites of these negotiations. All this, in turn, provides insight into the role of tradition in the construction of local and national histories in the contemporary U.S. Insofar as the event analyzed deals with the relationship between cultural attitudes toward crime and the legal system, the kind of work done in this paper also has crossover potential to enrich and problematize academic discussions about democracy, law, criminal justice, and the like in other fields."

We thank our alumni Eric Ball (Empire State College), Kevin Eyster (Madonna University), Elizabeth MacDaniel (Clarion University) and our own Martha Sims for the generous contribution of their time in reviewing the prize submissions.