Gabrielle A. Berlinger is a folklorist who studies creative expression in everyday life. She consider how people tell stories, dress, cook, dance, make music, and perform religious rituals to be artful acts of communication, all revealing the individual within a tradition. Her first book focused on the nature and significance of material creativity and ritual practice in contemporary Jewish communities. Currently, she is researching the poetics of everyday object collection, preservation, and use in alternative house museums.