[3] Stoeltje's dissertation and early work was focused on the American West and, in particular, on her home state of Texas.
"[6] Stoeltje's later research continued to focus on her initial interests in performance, ritual, and gender; in 1990 she spent a year in Ghana funded by the Fulbright Program,[4] and subsequently shifted her geographical interests to Ghana and West Africa, exploring the role of Asante Queen Mothers (see Akan Chieftaincy).
[7] She was interviewed by Rebecca Tannenbaum in 2011 for the "Scholars of feminism" oral history program of University of Wisconsin–Madison.
[4] Stoelje is described in the Encyclopedia of Women's Folklore and Folklife as one of the "official foremothers of feminist folkloristics".
[8] Olaf Hoerschelmann discusses her work on ritual and festival in a modern society, originally formulated in response to rodeo, in the context of American televised quiz shows,[9] and Jiva Nath Lamsal applies this work to the rituals surrounding death in the Nepalese Gaijatra festival.