Dan Ben-Amos, a folklorist and professor at the University of Pennsylvania, where he was chair of the Department of Folklore and Folklife, died March 26. He was 88.

An interest in folklore while studying at Hebrew University of Jerusalem determined his life’s work. He began by conducting folklore research in Nigeria on the oral tradition of the Edo people in Benin City and its rural surroundings. His scholarly interests included Jewish folklore, African folklore, humor, the history of folklore, and structural analysis.

He served on the executive board of the American Folklore society, was editor of the Journal of American Folklore and general editor of the Indiana Press series on folklore and, since 1966, has been editor of the Raphael Patai Series in Jewish Folklore and Anthropology for the Wayne State University Press. In 2006, he won a National Jewish Book Award for Sephardic Culture, and was a finalist in the Scholarship category.