Michael Owen Jones (born 1942)[1] is an American Folklorist and Emeritus Professor in the World Arts and Cultures/Dance Program at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).[2]
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".[3]
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.[3] His Ph.D. dissertation was titled 'Chairmaking in Appalachia; a study in style and creative imagination in American folk art'.[4]
Jones moved to a position at UCLA in 1968 in the Folklore and Mythology Program and remained there for the entirety of his career.[3] He was a founding member of UCLA's Interdepartmental Program in World Arts & Cultures in 1973.[2]
Jones has conducted fieldwork in "Western Canada and the Maritimes as well as Appalachia, the Great Plains, and Southern California".[2]
Jones has authored over 230 academic works.[2] He was also a general editor of the Folk Art and Artists Series, University Press of Mississippi.[5]
In 2021, Jones co-launched the Archive of Feeling,[6] "one of the largest databases of medicinal folklore from around the world",[7] based in part on material collected by Jones that became part of the UCLA Archive of American Folk Medicine.[8][9]
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.[2]
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.[10] His Presidential Address focused on foodways.[11]
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.[9]
He is a Woodrow Wilson Fellow and also a Fellow of the Finnish Academy of Sciences and Letters, and the Society for Applied Anthropology.[2]
His book Frankenstein Was a Vegetarian: Essays on Food Choice, Identity, and Symbolism was nominated for the Bookseller/Diagram Prize for Oddest Title of the Year in 2022.[12]