Welcome to the website of the Indiana University Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology. IU’s visionary Chancellor, the late Herman B Wells, often identified our department as one of the “jewels in the crown” of the University, and in this, as in so many other things, he was absolutely right. The Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology is unique, the only one of its kind in the country. It brings together an accomplished and diverse group of faculty members devoted to the study of the artistic and symbolic aspects of everyday life—verbal, musical, material—as part of lived experience, as a powerful basis of cultural identity, as an arena of cultural continuity and change. Our students, faculty, and alumni are actively engaged in research, teaching, and public programs throughout the world, and our interests extend from ancient mythology to stories of personal experience, from carnival drumming to hip-hop consciousness, from log cabins to body art, and from face-to-face performances to global regimes of intellectual property. The academic work of folklorists and ethnomusicologists at IU is supported by such world-class resources as:
Archives of Traditional Music
Archives of African-American Music and Culture
IU Folklore Archives
Folklore Collection of the university library
Traditional Arts Indiana
Sound and Video Analysis and Instruction Laboratory (SAVAIL)
Journal of Folklore Research
Trickster Press
The Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology has a long and distinguished history of training and hosting scholars who now live and work all over the globe. We welcome your interest in our department.
Portia Maultsby
Professor and Chair |
