Dr. James S. (Big Jim) Griffith

Dr. James S. Griffith was formerly of the University of Arizona Library's Southwest Folklore Center. He retired from a faculty position at the University in 1998 and continues to teach and lecture on Southern Arizona folk arts throughout the region. In addition, he hosts a regular segment on Arizona Illustrated, a community news show seen on Tucson's public television station, KUAT-TV. In addition, he is extremely well known around our community as the founder and director of one of Tucson's most popular events, the Tucson Meet Yourself folk life festival. After briefly retiring from directing TMY, Dr. Griffith returned as its steward in 2001.

A renowned scholar throughout his career, Dr. Griffith's most recent books are Hecho a Mano: The Traditional Arts of Tucson's Mexican American Community, a companion book to the La Cadena Que No Se Corta exhibition and Saints of the Southwest, which provides brief biographies and descriptions of the significance of thirty-one of the most revered saints of the borderlands of the United States and Mexico.

Dr. Griffith is the author of three University of Arizona Library Web exhibits: Mission Churches of the Sonoran Desert, Southern Arizona Folk Arts, and La Cadena Que No Se Corta. He also contributed the slides and provide valuable direction for Military Aircraft Nose Art.

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