The Future of Folklife with Dr. Shawn Pitts
Dr. Shawn Pitts, a McNairy County nonprofit leader, folklorist, and former Humanities Tennessee board member, recently received the Governor’s Arts Award for Folklife Heritage. Among the many folklife projects Pitts has undertaken, he played a pivotal role in the Tennessee Folklife Institute (TFI), a project of the Tennessee Arts Commission’s Folklife Program with support from Humanities Tennessee. He shared thoughts about his work and the future of folklife in Tennessee with Caroline Carrico, HT’s Shared Futures Lab Correspondent and TFI graduate:
CC: How has your work as a folklorist impacted your understanding of McNairy County and West Tennessee?
SP: Great question. You think you know a place because you grew up there, or maybe because you’ve spent so much time there. But it’s possible to know about a place without really knowing it. Until you discard preconceived notions and approach a community or region with an open mind, you can’t really understand what makes it tick, and that’s rather precisely what folklorists do.
“One thing I’ve come to understand is that the various forms of expressive culture—the things we make and share, the stories we tell each other, the songs we sing, the traditions we value, etc.—are closer to the heart of who we are than what is revealed by other types of community work. There is profound intimacy in connecting to people on those levels, and that’s the most gratifying part of the work.”
Dr. Shawn Pitts
I think I shared the Wendell Berry quote with the first cohort of TFI, the one from his 2012 NEH Jefferson Lecture where he talks about affection for a place being enabled by the illumination of its unique character. The truth of that has always resonated deeply with me. It speaks to the motivation for the work of a folklorist, but also how it transforms the one doing the work.
CC: Why does Tennessee need folklorists?
SP: When we think about what makes Tennessee Tennessee, our minds automatically run to the domain of folklorists: music, foodways, vernacular speech, legends, etc. Even when we are talking about the diverse geography—the Smokies in the east, Middle Tennessee’s Highland Rim, or the Mississippi River Delta in the west—we can’t help thinking of the rich cultures of the three Grand Divisions. Zoomed in at the local level, all that gets much more specific, and we suddenly begin to talk about cultural identity on a town by town, or county by county, basis. Folklorists help us get a handle on all that, and make sense of it in ways that define who we are as Tennesseans.
The state’s shifting demographics and the rapid evolution of culture in the internet age ensure that Tennessee folklorists have their work cut out for them. Tennessee folklife isn’t going away anytime soon.
CC: You once said that the Tennessee Folklife Institute “is absolutely vital to people who want to do this kind of work.” What does the Folklife Institute provide that is vital?
SP: Years ago I began to realize—and say to anyone who would listen—that we couldn’t rely on chance to produce folklorists at the local level. When I first entered the field, I drew inspiration from people like Linda Caldwell in Etowah, and Donald Fann in Woodbury, who were doing exemplary work in those communities. Linda and Donald were exceedingly gracious to spend time answering my questions and offering sound advice, but they were under no obligation to do so. I’ve paid that forward by mentoring others, but that’s a hit or miss approach to cultivating new folklife leaders.
As I was concluding my tenure on the HT Board, we began serious discussion about a pilot program to share knowledge and resources among West Tennessee culture workers. Around the same time, the TAC Folklife Program staff was having a similar conversation about formalizing a community scholars program. When COVID-19 sidelined all those efforts, it looked like we were back to the hit or miss method, but TAC and HT teaming up for TFI turned out to be the best solution for everyone.
TFI provides the tools enrollees need to go back into their communities and start doing quality work right away. It takes some of the guesswork out of it by drawing on the work of established Tennessee folklorists for context and offers concrete examples of what the work can look like. It far exceeds anything I had hoped for. Bradley Hanson, Evangeline Mee Principe, and Paul McCoy get all the credit as the architects of the program, but TAC and HT leadership should be commended for having the vision to get behind it.
Photo courtesy of Tennessee Arts Commission Folklife Program.
CC: I know from firsthand experience that you were a vital part of the first TFI cohort. Your examples of combining public folklore projects with community development principles gave me a sense of what is possible with this work. What does it mean to you to know that you have a hand in training the next generation of folklorists?
SP: It’s interesting you should frame it that way. When I was doing a lot of nonprofit consulting I used to tell those inclined to do this sort of work to think like folklorists and act like community developers. What I meant by that was tradition should be approached respectfully and with something like academic rigor, but one should always be thinking of ways to productively reintegrate it into the community of origin where it belongs. That’s the real measure of success.
I came along at a time when folklore was moving away from the academy, and toward nonprofit arts and humanities agencies. That wasn’t a smooth transition and the field was diminished in many ways by the declining number of academic folklorists and the support of the academic institutions which traditionally turned them out. If there was an upside, it was that community arts agencies, local museums, etc. were often closer to rich veins of traditional arts than university campuses.
If that approach has been influential with the next generation of folklorists, I am more than gratified. In 2023, I was honored to work with three college-aged interns who did outstanding work in McNairy County, including Jacob York who you know from TFI. From what I’ve seen, the field is in excellent hands.
CC: What do you imagine the future of folklife will be in Tennessee? What do you hope will be happening in ten years? What will it take for us to get there?
SP: I first noticed a sea change in attitudes about traditional arts and folk culture in the Millennials. These were the kids who were listening to folk adjacent groups like Mumford & Sons or The Lumineers or digging their parents’ turntables out of the attic to spin blues records. Resurgent interest in traditional handcraft and folkways was also evident pretty early in that generation. Their affinity for some of this stuff has been pretty durable and I see great opportunity there, if we can get out of our own way.
Urban folklife is coming into clearer focus in Tennessee, as are the works of outsider and visionary artists; both welcome developments. The customs and traditions of recent immigrant populations also seem to be getting more attention, and I view that as a sign of a healthy, evolving folklife community.
The most encouraging development in recent years has definitely been the wide range of Tennesseans attracted to TFI for a variety of reasons. Graduates are already out there doing important work, raising the profile of the program, inspiring others to pursue folklife interests. That has a mushrooming effect that will pay off in unexpected ways.
Like everything else, folklife is changing. Ten years from now whole new lines of cultural inquiry will have emerged, presenting new programming opportunities and maybe even challenges to the very definition of folklore. My hope is that the unbroken thread that runs through Tennessee folklife will be discernible in ways future generations can embrace and carry forward with pride.
Image courtesy of the Tennessee Arts Commission Folklife Program.