ISCLR’s Contemporary Legend Casebook Series

The International Society for Contemporary Legend Research sponsors a series of casebooks on contemporary legends that is intended to appeal to college professors, students, and general readers. Each casebook, edited by one or two legend scholars, contains reprinted and new articles written by international scholars. Although these casebooks have a scholarly orientation, they are also appropriate for non-specialist readers who enjoy legends and want to gain a better understanding of their dynamics.

Legend casebooks fill the need for up-to-date, thorough studies of legends that can be used as texts in college courses. They present a variety of scholarly approaches, as well as variants of legend texts. Like Alan Dundes’s folklore casebooks, published in the 1980s and 1990s, they explore the complex meanings of narratives that have had cultural impact and reflected societal concerns. The first legend casebook, Legend Tripping: A Contemporary Legend Casebook, edited by Lynne S. McNeill and Elizabeth Tucker, was published by Utah State University Press in 2018; the second, North American Monsters: A Contemporary Legend Casebook, edited by David Puglia, was published by Utah State University Press in 2022. The editorial board is very grateful for the support of our editor at Utah State University Press, Rachael Levay.

Members of our editorial committee include Diane E. Goldstein, Professor of Folklore at Indiana University, Elissa R. Henken, Professor Emerita of English at the University of Georgia, Elizabeth Tucker, Distinguished Service Professor of English at Binghamton University, Bill Ellis, Professor Emeritus of English at Penn State, Lynne S. McNeill, Associate Professor of Folklore at Utah State University, and David Puglia, Associate Professor of English at Bronx Community College.

Editors of casebooks are experts in their field who have presented papers and published articles and/or books on the subject in question. If you are interested in editing a casebook, please send a query or a brief proposal to the general editor, Elizabeth Tucker (ltucker@binghamton.edu), who will get in touch with the rest of the editorial board. Thank you very much for your interest in our legend casebook series.