Michael Owen Jones
Michael Owen Jones (born 1942) is an American Folklorist and Emeritus Professor in the World Arts and Cultures/Dance Program at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Jones has wide-ranging research interests: he is particularly known for his research on folk medicine and on foodways but has also researched on other of genres of folklore including "folk belief, speech... arts and crafts and poetry". Early life and education. Jones studied at the University of Kansas, earning a BA in history, Art and Political Science in 1960. He studied Folklore at Indiana University earning a MA in  1964 and a Ph.D. (in Folklore and American Studies) in 1970. His Ph.D. dissertation was titled 'Chairmaking in Appalachia; a study in style and creative imagination in American folk art'. Career. Jones moved to a position at UCLA in 1968 in the Folklore and Mythology Program and remained there for the entirety of his career. He was a founding member of UCLA's Interdepartmental Program in World Arts & Cultures in 1973. Jones has conducted fieldwork in "Western Canada and the Maritimes as well as Appalachia, the Great Plains, and Southern California". Jones has authored over 230 academic works. He was  also a general editor of the Folk Art and Artists Series, University Press of Mississippi. In 2021, Jones co-launched the Archive of Feeling, "one of the largest databases of medicinal folklore from around the world", based in part on material collected by Jones that became part of the UCLA Archive of American Folk Medicine. Recognition. He has received funding from a number of organisations, including the National Endowment for the Humanities, Skaggs Foundation, Canadian Museum of Civilization and the National Institutes of Health. He is a Fellow of the American Folklore Society (AFS) and a former member of the  AFS's executive board. He is also a former President of the AFS, serving in that role between 2004 and 2005. His Presidential Address focused on foodways. Jones is also a former President of the California Folklore Society and has served as a council member of the California Council for the Humanities. He is a Woodrow Wilson Fellow and also a Fellow of the Finnish Academy of Sciences and Letters, and the Society for Applied Anthropology.