Filmmakers

SHARON R. SHERMAN is Professor Emerita of Folklore and English at the University of Oregon where she directed the Folklore Program for over twenty years. She holds a Ph.D. in Folklore from Indiana University and a Master's degree in Folklore and Mythology from UCLA. Most of her published work has concentrated on the relationship between film and folklore, and perceptions about folklore as revealed by filmmakers and folklorists. Her students have produced a number of films that have had success on Oregon Public Broadcasting and elsewhere. Sherman’s films have won awards internationally. Professor Sherman designs and leads video workshops and is a consultant on various arts and humanities projects. She lectures on a variety of subjects, from Oregon folklore, to analyses of ethnicity in America, interpretations of documentary films and the interrelationships between folklore and popular culture. Sherman has served on the Executive Board of the American Folklore Society and as the Film and Videotape Review Editor for the Journal of American Folklore and Western Folklore. She is a Folklore Fellow of the American Folklore Society. Sherman has produced a number of films, including Kid Shoes; Tales of the Supernatural; Passover, A Celebration; Kathleen Ware, Quiltmaker; Spirits in the Wood; Inti Raymi en Quinchuqui; and Whatever Happened to Zulay. In addition to numerous articles, she is the author of Documenting Ourselves: Film, Video, and Culture (1998), the first in-depth study of folklore films as a genre of documentary. Other books include Chainsaw Sculptor: The Art of J. Chester Armstrong (1995), a book that grew out of her video fieldwork; and Folklore/Cinema: Popular Film as Vernacular Culture.