Posted on October 25, 2005 at 2:43 p.m.

BIRMINGHAM, AL — University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) anthropologist Ray Cashman, Ph.D., has been named the winner of the 2005 Frederick W. Conner Prize in the History of Ideas. He will receive the award during a ceremony at 3:30 p.m. Thursday, November 17, in the Mervyn H. Sterne Library, Henley Room, 917 13th Street South.

The Conner Prize is presented annually to a UAB faculty member for an outstanding essay on the history of ideas. The prize, which carries a $250 award, is named for Frederick Conner, Ph.D., former dean of the School of Arts and Humanities. Cashman is an assistant professor in the UAB Department of Anthropology and Social Work. He specializes in the ethnology of Ireland, ethnic and regional groups in the southern United States, folklore and oral traditions.

Cashman’s winning essay is titled “Critical Nostalgia and Material Culture in Northern Ireland.” In it, Cashman presents a historical analysis of nostalgia as a cultural practice with examples of how nostalgia has been used in Northern Ireland as a way of connecting with the past and asserting community in the midst of sectarian division.

Cashman earned his master’s degree and doctorate in folklore at Indiana University, Bloomington in 1998 and 2002 respectively. He has been a faculty member in the UAB Department of Anthropology and Social Work since 2003.

Cashman’s articles on Irish wakes, folklore, representations of outlaws in folklore and popular culture have been published in numerous academic journals. He is now completing a book manuscript, “Storytelling on the Irish Border: The Social Uses of Folklore in Context.”