BMI Foundation Awards 8th Annual Woody Guthrie Fellowships

The winner of the eighth annual Woody Guthrie Fellowship has been announced by Porfirio Piña, President of the BMI Foundation, Inc., and Nora Guthrie, President of the Woody Guthrie Foundation. The program funds research fellowships for scholars to use the rich and extensive archival holdings available at the Woody Guthrie Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

2013 Woody Guthrie Fellowship recipient Dr. Mark Kissling is an assistant professor of education in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the Pennsylvania State University. Dr. Kissling’s project, Woody Guthrie’s ‘Patriotism’ in U.S. Schools, will explore the teaching of This Land Is Your Land in schools, examining the ways in which teachers have incorporated the song into curriculum, as well as the impact this inclusion has had on pedagogy.

The Woody Guthrie Center seeks to preserve and communicate the social, political, and cultural values that Woody Guthrie contributed to the world through his life, his music, and his work. Housed within the Center, the Woody Guthrie Archives is a paper-based research repository providing support to scholars exploring the many facets of Woody Guthrie’s life, legacy, and contribution to American and world culture. Originally opened in New York City in 1996, the Archives holds over 15,000 items – the largest collection of Woody Guthrie material in the world – and includes Guthrie’s original song lyrics, notebooks and diaries, manuscripts, photographs, correspondences, personal papers, scrapbooks, artwork, and audio recordings.