Leary was born in Rice Lake, Wisconsin, in 1950. He is married to Janet C. Gilmore, an associate professor of landscape architecture at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
Career
James P. Leary received his B.A. in literature from the University of Notre Dame in 1972. In 1973, he earned his M.A. in folklore from the University of North Carolina. Leary earned his PhD in folklore and American studies from Indiana University in 1977. His research focuses on the folklore of the Upper Midwest, especially Scandinavian Americans, indigenous and immigrant people, and rural and working-class peoples. Leary teaches at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in the Scandinavian Studies Department and the Department of Comparative Literature and Folklore Studies. In 2012, he was a Fulbright Scholar in Iceland. From 1999 to 2009, Leary served as the Director of the Folklore Program at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He also co-founded, with Joseph C. Salmons, the Center for the Study of Upper Midwestern Cultures. Leary has published articles in journals such as Journal of American Folklore, Scandinavian Studies, Journal of the Folklore Institute, and Western Folklore. He has also researched and helped produce several folk life festivals, museum exhibitions, documentary sound recordings, and films, such as . Leary co-produced Down Home Dairyland with Richard March for Wisconsin Public Radio from 1988 to 1995. In his book, Polkabilly: How the Goose Island Ramblers Redefined American Folk Music, Leary proposes a redefinition of traditional American folk music and proposes a new genre known as "Polkabilly". Leary is a Fellow of the American Folklore Society. The Fellows of the American Folklore Society honor folklorists who have made outstanding contributions to the field of folklore. Together with Thomas A. DuBois, he served as co-editor of the Journal of American Folklore. Dealing with the era at Notre Dame before coeducation, Leary has contrasted two self-images of the Notre Dame student. They coexist uneasily, the first appearing in official documents the second in popular culture.
Awards and honors
In 1995, Leary was awarded the Governor's Award for Excellence in Public Humanities Scholarship.
In 2005, he was awarded the Benjamin A. Botkin Prize for outstanding lifetime achievement in public folklore from the American Folklore Society.
In 2006, Leary won the Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Teaching.
In 2007, he was co-winner of the American Folklore Society’s Chicago Folklore Prize for the best book in the field of folklore scholarship for Polkabilly: How the Goose Island Ramblers Redefined American Folk Music.
In 2016, Leary's Folksongs of Another America: Field Recordings from the Upper Midwest, 1937–1946 was awarded the Best Historical Research in Recorded Folk or World Music from the Association for Recorded Sound Collections.
