On June 14^th, 2022, Sarah Craycraft defended Reinventing the Village: Generations, Heritage and Revitalization in Contemporary Bulgaria, a dissertation that committee members described as an impressive, wide-ranging synthesis, a very coherent dissertation, and easily a book within two years. The dissertation brings together several bodies of literature and a wealth of ethnographic research to explore the role of young people in cultural transmission, using case studies of Bulgarian village residencies to interrogate a series of intertwined phenomena: the ways that “Children of Post-Socialism” relate to  place, heritage and to earlier generations; the “folklife project” as a complex genre of cultural production; the slippages between help and harm resulting from depoliticized social initiatives; the role of projects in facilitating mutual aid in times of crisis; and the challenges of generating new models for rural revitalization at the grassroots level.

Sarah’s committee included Teodora Dragostinova, Galey Modan, Dorry Noyes, and advisor, Katherine Borland. Leslie Moore, Associate Professor of Teaching and Learning, served as our Graduate Faculty Representative. Sarah will be receiving her PhD in August 2022.