James P. Leary is a professor of Folklore and Scandinavian Studies at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, where he also serves as director of the Folklore Program and co-director of the Center for the Study of Upper Midwestern Cultures. A native of northern Wisconsin, he has conducted field research on the folklore of diverse cultural groups in America's Upper Midwest for more than thirty years and is author of Minnesota Polka, Yodeling in Dairyland, Wisconsin Folklore , and So Ole Says to Lena: Folk Humor of the Upper Midwest .