IU Folklore & Ethnomusicology

PhD Candidate Olivia Phillips recently published “Folklore Studies and Twenty-First Century Appalachia: Making Peace with the Undefinability of a Region” in the Appalachian Journal’s Spring 2026 issue! The article is available to read via Project MUSE: https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/12/article/986820

Congratulations, Olivia!

Check out these photos from last month’s Graduate Commencement Ceremony! We are so proud of all of our graduates!

What a great week at the International Society for Contemporary Legend Research (ISCLR) conference in Lexington, KY! It was wonderful to see our alumni presenters and check out the sights of Kentucky.

Check out this news piece on the International Society for Contemporary Legend Research (ISCLR) meeting in Lexington, KY by Clay Wallace of WUKY!

https://www.wuky.org/wuky-news/2026-06-05/from-ai-to-mothman-international-gathering-of-folklorists-convenes-in-lexington

The International Society for Contemporary Legend Research (ISCLR) conference is in Lexington, KY this year and IU alumni are in attendance! Pictured here on the excursion day in Frankfort, KY at alum Eleanor Hasken's fine cocktail establishment Mortimer Bibb's Public House!

This academic year, Visiting Assistant Professor Dr. Dorian Jurić was awarded an American Philosophical Society Franklin Research Grant, an IU Research Conference Grant, and a CAHI Symposia and Workshop Grant (both for the Epic Geography Symposium)!

On a bittersweet note, this year was also Dr. Jurić’s final year with our department. We thank him for three wonderful years of service and can’t wait to hear about his next adventure. We will miss you, Dorian!

to the Lotus Blossoms World Bazaar, where graduate students Yuki Lo, Gul E Zahra, Gbenga Falana, Jenny Hesoun, and Lamont Pearley hosted an “Instrument Petting Zoo” at Fairview Elementary earlier this spring!

Earlier this spring, Visiting Assistant Professor Dr. Max Jack published an article on voice, affect and the apocalypse titled, “On Account of Doomsday: Climate Activism, Street Blockades, and the Intimacies of Contested Listening,” in American Ethnologist!

Check it out here: https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/amet.70080

Congratulations to Kennedi Johnson on a successful dissertation defense!

Congratulations to Rowan Glass, on both a successful MA project defense and on receiving a Fulbright English Teaching Grant!

Earlier this spring, after defending his MA project comparing ethnographic and journalistic approaches to filmmaking as a folklore method, Rowan headed to Peru to begin a nine-month Fulbright ETA grant. He is teaching English at two public high schools for high-performing students from underserved demographics, first in the coastal desert city of Ica and then near the Andean highland city of Huancayo. In addition to his teaching, Rowan looks forward to improving his Quechua and developing new research and filmmaking projects this year.