Our award-winning faculty examine the intersections of culture, traditions, and history. They have lived, traveled, and studied all over the world, experiencing and chronicling the cultural and artistic expression of groups of people in everyday life.
Assistant Professor, Folklore and Ethnomusicology
Director of Undergraduate Studies
Editor, Children’s Folklore Review
he/him
Research Interests
cognitive folkloristics; folk illusions; material culture and embodied cognition; American country music; children's folklore; American foodways; folklore and diversity in the southern United States; science of animal folklore
Provost Professor, Folklore and Ethnomusicology
he/him
Research Interests
Ireland, UK, North America; oral traditions, the ethnography of communication, performance studies; vernacular history, social memory, nostalgia; tradition and traditionalization; politics of culture and identity; sense of place and place-making; rites of passage, calendar custom, vernacular religion; material culture, observances, and beliefs concerning death; theory, methodology, and ethics of fieldwork and ethnography
Associate Professor, Folklore and Ethnomusicology
Director, Archives of African American Music & Culture
Research Interests
African American music and culture, archival studies, and film music
Laura Boulton Professor
Associate Professor, Folklore and Ethnomusicology
Director of Graduate Studies
she/her/li
Research Interests
Haiti, Caribbean, Latin America; ecomusicology, diverse environmentalisms, sacred ecologies, environmental justice; carnival, protest, revolution, politically engaged music; creative responses to crisis, disaster, poverty, violence, trauma; development discourse, grassroots development; arts activism and international NGOs, aid, and humanitarianism; intangible cultural heritage and cultural policy; archives, archival silences, hidden archives and accidental archivists; Haitian classical/art music; film as ethnography; applied/engaged/activist ethnomusicology
Senior Lecturer, Folklore and Ethnomusicology
he/him
Research Interests
folk belief and vernacular religion; contemporary legendry; forms and processes of commemoration; theories of grief and mourning; folklore and the Internet
Assistant Professor, Folklore and Ethnomusicology
she/her
Research Interests
multispecies ethnography, sound studies, protest music, the Austin Music Scene, music of southern Mexico
Associate Professor, Folklore and Ethnomusicology
Director, Ethnomusicology Institute
he/him
Research Interests
Latin American and Latinx cultural practices; music and sound in sports and games; sound studies; soccer, masculinity, violence; coloniality/postcoloniality/decoloniality; ethnography of elites; experimental music studies; cultural diplomacy and philanthropy
Associate Professor, Folklore and Ethnomusicology
she/ella/sie/sí
Research Interests
folk narrative in Ireland and Scotland; folklore in medieval Celtic literature; the international Child ballad and Gaelic song tradition; European narrative charms; gender and the articulation of women's space in folk narrative and song; the digitization of traditional folklore archives
Visiting Assistant Professor, Folklore and Ethnomusicology
he/him
Research Interests
atmosphere and affect theory, anti-capitalist movements, crowds and protest, music in sport, sound studies
Ruth N. Halls Professor of Folklore and Anthropology
Director, Material Culture and Heritage Studies Laboratory
Co-Director, International Folklore Studies Center
he/him
Research Interests
craft, material culture; cultural heritage policy and practice; performance studies; ethnology; cultural history; museum collections; Southern United States; Native North America; Southeast Asian Massif/Southwest China
Visiting Assistant Professor, Folklore and Ethnomusicology
he/him/on/njega
Research Interests
oral epic and bardic arts, oral prose narrative, supernatural beings, the comparative method, Oral Formulaic Theory, the politics of folklore, historical ethnography and archives, nativist folklore and anti-migrant solidarity
Associate Professor, Folklore and Ethnomusicology
Interim Director, Arts & Humanities
Director, Traditional Arts Indiana
he/him
Research Interests
public folklore; Indiana folklife; folk arts and aging; material culture; museums; occupational folklife; digital humanities
Associate Professor, Folklore and Ethnomusicology
Associate Professor, Media School
he/him
Research Interests
Israel/Palestine; performance ethnography; social theory; ethnomusicological study of violence and socio-cultural trauma; activism and critical ethnography; protest songs
Senior Lecturer, Folklore and Ethnomusicology
he/him/el
Research Interests
hip hop music and culture; popular music; subculture studies; body art; youth cultures; children's folklore; sports; game and play in culture; popular culture; pedagogy; United States
Professor, Folklore and Ethnomusicology
Professor, Gender Studies
Director, Latino Studies
Editor, Journal of Folklore Research
she/her/ella
Research Interests
gender, sexuality, Afro-Caribbean spirituality, and Yoruba traditional religion in folklore, literature, and ethnography
Provost Professor, Folklore and Ethnomusicology
Chair, Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology
Director, Folklore Institute
Research Interests
folk art and material culture; body art; dress and costume; museum studies; food art and culture; India; Brazil; United States
The College of Arts