This fall 2022 Indiana University's Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology will welcome Dr. Julianne L. Graper to its permanent faculty. Dr. Graper’s broad range of theoretical interests include science and technology studies, multispecies ethnography, critical animal studies, sound studies, ecomusicology, and medical ethnomusicology. Her work questions the category of “the human,” asking how animals illuminate debates about personhood within sonic cultural phenomena.
“My goal,” Dr. Graper says, “is not only to shed light on the ecological dimensions of sonic practices, but also to understand the processes by which human social categories are articulated. Essentially, I ask a question central to all cultural study: what does it mean to be human?”
“Having seen the positive impact Julianne had in our department during her two years as Visiting Assistant Professor, it is incredibly exciting for us to have her now join permanently the faculty at IU,” said Institute of Ethnomusicology Director Eduardo Herrera. “Not only is Julianne an amazing teacher, but her ground-breaking work at the meeting point of sound studies and critical animal studies is a great addition to the study of Folklore and Ethnomusicology at IU.”
Dr. Julianne Graper joins a world-renowned faculty of folklorists and ethnomusicologists at IU. “I am beyond elated to be joining the faculty at IUB on a long-term basis. In addition to its reputation for rigorous and boundary-pushing research, I have found the Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology to be a welcoming community of thoughtful and creative scholars,” Graper said, “I look forward to many engaging discussions in the years to come.”
Dr. Graper received her doctorate from the University of Texas at Austin in 2019. Her upcoming publications include “Bat City Limits: Music in the Human-Animal Borderlands” in Sounds, Ecologies, Musics, Titon and Allen, eds; “Beyond Bat Eating: Digital Discourses about Zoonotic Disease in the COVID-19 Era” in Behind the Mask: Vernacular Culture in the Time of COVID, Goldstein, Bridges, and Brillhart, eds; and a piece about Brood X in Southern Indiana in The European Journal of Animal Studies.
The College of Arts