John Laudun
Department of English
University of Louisiana at Lafayette
Lafayette, LA 70504-4691
337-482-5493
laudun@louisiana.edu
W: http://johnlaudun.net/
M: @johnlaudun@hcommons.social
T: @johnlaudun
GH: https://github.com/johnlaudun

Education

Ph.D. Folklore Studies. Indiana University (minor in cultural anthropology). 1999.

M.A. English Literature. Syracuse University. 1989.

B.A. Philosophy and English (dual major). Louisiana State University. 1986.

Employment

Professor. Department of English. University of Louisiana at Lafayette at Lafayette. 2016–present. (On leave 2021–22.)

Professor. Social Informatics. U.S. Army Combined Arms Center. Fort Leavenworth. 2021–22.

Associate Professor. Department of English. University of Louisiana at Lafayette at Lafayette. 2007–2016.

Assistant Professor. Department of English. University of Louisiana at Lafayette at Lafayette. 1999–2007.

Associate Director. Center for Louisiana Studies/Center for Cultural and Eco-Tourism. University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Release time granted. 2003–05.

Assistant Director. Office of Executive Education. Kelley School of Business. Indiana University. 1995–97.

Grants & Prizes

Laudun, John. 2013. The Louisiana Crawfish Boat. Louisiana State Board of Regents ATLAS Grant.

Laudun, John, Claiborne Rice, and Leslie Schilling. 2008. Louisiana Digital Humanities Lab. Louisiana State Board of Regents.

Richard, C. E. and John Laudun. 2007. Acadiana Foodways Documentary Project. Louisiana State Board of Regents.

Laudun, John and C. E. Richard. 2005. PI. Acadiana Folklife Renewable Documentation Project. Lafayette Convention and Visitors Center.

Laudun, John. 2004. PI. Lache pas la patate: Digitizing and Restoring Endangered Audio Recordings. National Academy of Recordings Arts and Sciences (GRAMMY Grant).

Walton, Shana and John Laudun. 2003. Co-PI. Lessons in Folklife for English Language Arts. Louisiana State Board of Regents.

Laudun, John. 1988. Delmore Schwartz Prize for Poetry. Syracuse University.

Fellowships

2016-18. Senior Scholar in Residence. UCLA Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics.

2013. Fellow. NEH/University of Virginia Scholar’s Lab Speaking in Code Symposium.

2010. Fellow. Institute on Networks and Networking in the Humanities. National Endowment for the Humanities.

2009. Fellow. Ethnographic Video for Instruction and Analysis Digital Archive (EVIADA). Indiana University / Michigan University.

1999-2004. Research Fellow. Center for Cultural and Eco-Tourism. University of Louisiana at Lafayette.

1993-94. MacArthur Scholar. Indiana Center on Global Change and World Peace. Indiana University.

1987-92. Jacob K. Javits Fellow. United States Department of Education. Syracuse University and Indiana University.

Publications

Books

Laudun, John. 2016. The Amazing Crawfish Boat. In the Folklore Series in a Multicultural World series (sponsored by the Andrew Mellon Foundation). University Press of Mississippi. PDF of first three chapters.

Articles & Chapters

Laudun, John. [2023]. Repairing Tradition. Journal of American Folklore. (In production.)

Laudun, John. 2023. Weathering the Storm: Folk Ideas about Character. In Wait Five Minutes: Weatherlore in the Twenty-First Century, 226–247. Ed. Shelley Ingram and Willow Mullins. University Press of Mississippi.

Laudun, John, Tom Kroh, Mahbube Sidikki, Robert Arp, and Adam Lowther. 2021. The Department Of Defense’s Multidomain Operations Challenge. Global Security Review. https://globalsecurityreview.com/defense-department-multidomain-operations-challenge/.

Laudun, John. 2021. Repairing Knowledge. In Technical Cultures of Repair: From Prehistory to the Present Day, 393–406. Ed. Liliane Hilaire-Pérez, Gianenrico Bernasconi, Guillaume Carnino and Olivier Raveux. Brepols Publishers.

Laudun, John. 2021. The Modes of Vernacular Discourse. Western Folklore 80(3/4): 401-436.

Laudun, John. 2020. The Clown Legend Cascade of 2016. In Folklore and Social Media, 188-208. Eds. Andrew Peck and Trevor Blank. SUNY Press.

Laudun, John. 2019. Folklore as a Networked Economy: How a Recently-Invented-but-Traditional Artifact Reveals the Way Folkloric Production Has Always Worked. In Folklorists in the Marketplace, 26-46. Ed. Willow Mullins and Puja Batra-Wells. Utah State University Press. PDF

Kinnaird, Katherine and John Laudun. 2019. TED Talks as Data. Journal of Cultural Analytics (19 July). DOI: 10.31235/osf.io/4yqex. PDF.

Laudun, John. 2019. Trucks under Water: A Legend from the 2016 Flood. Louisiana Folklore Miscellany 28: 20–36. PDF.

Laudun, John. 2018. Tallying Treasure Tales: A Reconsideration of the Structure and Nature of Local Legends. Contemporary Legend 3(7): 1-27.

Laudun, John. 2018. Intellectual Property. In The Routledge Companion to Fairy-Tale Cultures and Media, . Ed. Pauline Greenhill, Naomi Hamer, Jill Rudy, and Lauren Bosc. Taylor & Francis/Routledge.

Laudun, John and Jonathan Goodwin. 2016. Computing Folklore Studies: Mapping over a Century of Scholarly Production through Topics. Cultural Heritage 5. Translators (to Chinese): Li Yang and Qiao Yingfei.

Gao, Jianbo, Matthew Jockers, John Laudun, Timothy Tangherlini. 2016. A multiscale theory for the dynamical evolution of sentiment in novels. International Conference on Behavioral, Economic and Socio-cultural Computing (BESC). DOI: 10.1109/BESC.2016.7804470. PDF.

Laudun, John. 2015. Text Statistics with Python. Programming Historian URL.

Laudun, John. 2014. Counting Tales: Towards a Computational Approach to Folk Narrative. Folk Culture Forum 5/228: 20-35. Translator (to Chinese): An Deming. PDF

Laudun, John and Jonathan Goodwin. 2013. Computing Folklore Studies: Mapping over a Century of Scholarly Production through Topics. Journal of American Folklore 126(502):455–475.

Laudun, John. 2012. “Talking Shit” in Rayne: How Aesthetic Features Reveal Ethical Structures. Journal of American Folklore 125(497):304–326. DOI: 10.5406/jamerfolk.125.497.0304. JSTOR.

Laudun, John. 2011. A Constellation of Stars: The Study of Creativity on a Human Scale, or How a Bunch of Cajun and German Farmers and Fabricators in Louisiana Invented a Traditional Amphibious Boat. In The Individual in Tradition. Eds. Ray Cashman, Tom Mould, Pravina Shukla. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. PDF

Laudun, John. 2011. The Technological Landscape. Technoculture: An Online Journal of Technology in Society. http://tcjournal.org/drupal/vol1/laudun.

Laudun, John. 2009. Gumbo. In The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture 14: Folklife, 302–4. Ed. Glenn Hinson and William Ferris. University of North Carolina Press. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5149/9780807898550_hinson.75.

Laudun, John. 2008. Gumbo This: The State of a Dish. In Acadians and Cajuns: The Politics and Culture of French Minorities in North America, 160-175. Ed. Ursula Mathis-Moser and Günter Bischof. Innsbruck, Austria: Innsbruck University Press.

Laudun, John. 2006. Oikotypification. In Encyclopedia of World Folklore and Folklife, 67-68. Ed. William Clements. London: Greenwood Press.

Laudun, John. 2004. Reading Hurston Writing. African American Review 38(1): 45-60. JSTOR.

Laudun, John. 2001. Talk about the Past in a Midwestern Town: “It Was There At That Time.” Midwestern Folklore 27(2): 41-54.

Laudun, John. 2001. Orality. In Encyclopedia of Lifewriting, 680-682. Ed. Margaretta Jolly. London: Fitzroy Dearborn.

Laudun, John. 2001. The Elegant and the Mundane. In Elegance Beauty & Truth, 27-30. Ed. Lewis Pyenson. Lafayette: Center for Louisiana Studies.

Laudun, John. 2000. “There’s Not Much to Talk about When You’re Taking Pictures of Houses”: The Poetics of Vernacular Spaces. Southern Folklore 57(2):135-158.

Laudun, John. 1999. “Talking Shit” in Rayne. Louisiana Folklore Miscellany 14: 81-86.

Laudun, John. 1998. A Conspiracy of Cartographers: Folklore Studies and Postmodernism. Folklore Forum 29(2): 120–131.

Laudun, John. 1996. John Henry. In American Folklore: An Encyclopedia, 364–365. New York, NY: Garland.

Laudun, John. 1996. Folkways. In American Folklore: An Encyclopedia, 295–298. New York, NY: Garland.

Laudun, John. 1990. The Poetics of Virtual Space: Designing a Contiguous Architecture for Hypertexts. In Multiple Perspectives: Courseware Development Using Hypercard. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Writing Program.

Essays, Reviews, Television, CDs

2013. Dangerous Games. Chronicle of Higher Education (October 1).

Bale, Rachel. 2013. Worker Suffocations Persist as Grain Storage Soars. Rachel Bale: Journalist (April 17). http://www.rachaelbale.com/worker-suffocations-persist-as-grain-storage-soars-employers-flout-safety-rules/. Photographic credit.

2009. From Stories to Services: A Humanistic Methodology for Arriving at a Description of a Digital Infrastructure in Support of the Humanities. Project Bamboo Consortium.

2008. Reckonings: Finding Out Where We Are, In Louisiana Crossroads: 2-9. Lafayette, Louisiana: Acadiana Arts Council.

2008. Lou Trahan: Mask Maker. Louisiana: The State We’re In. Louisiana Public Broadcasting (Original broadcast: February 8).

2007. “Where Mind and Metal Meet,” In Louisiana Crossroads, 2-7. Lafayette, Louisiana: Acadiana Arts Council.

2007. John Colson: Filé Maker. Louisiana: The State We’re In. Louisiana Public Broadcasting (Original broadcast: February 14).

2006. At The Crossroads of Land and Water. In Louisiana Crossroads: Season 7, 2-9. Lafayette, Louisiana: Acadiana Arts Council.

2005. The Land of the Blue Guitar: The Nature of Art and Life at the Crossroads. In Louisiana Crossroads, 2-9. Lafayette, Louisiana: Acadiana Arts Council.

2004. Review of Natchitoches and Louisiana’s Timeless Cane River, by Richard Seale, Robert DeBlieux, & Harlan Mark Guidry. Louisiana History: The Journal of the Louisiana Historical Association 45(3): 361–362. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4234044.

2004. The Crossroads in Louisiana. In Louisiana Crossroads 2004-2005, 2-9. Lafayette, Louisiana: Acadiana Arts Council.

2004. Louisiana Folk Masters: Varise Conner (CD). Louisiana Crossroads Records.

2004. Allons Jouer!, in Louisiana Folk Masters: Varise Conner, 1-2. Lafayette, Louisiana: Louisiana Crossroads Records.

2003. Is “Folk” a Four-Letter Word? In Louisiana Voices: An Educator’s Guide, Louisiana Folklife Program (www.louisianavoices.org).

2003. From “Kombo” to Combo: Where Past Meets Future, in Louisiana Crossroads: Musical Journeys, 2-8.

2002. Crossing Roads, Crossing Lives, in Louisiana Crossroads: A Million Ways to Get There, 2-9.

2001. Imperial Saint Landry Regional Center, Army Corps of Engineers (script for video presentation).

Presentations

Conference Papers

2022. Folk Ideas: Folk Discourse as Transport Layer for Ideas. American Folklore Society (Tulsa, OK).

2022. Possibilities for Modeling and Simulation: Microtargeting a Missilleer. Annual conference of Strategic Command (Lawrence Livermore Labs).

Tangherlini, Tim and John Laudun. 2020. An Interview with Tim Tangherlini on Legends. Digital Humanities (Ottawa, Canada).

2019. Modes of Vernacular Discourse. American Folklore Society (Baltimore, MD).

2019. What is Culture Analytics? An Exercise in Applied Definitionistics. Cultural Analytics Workshop: Time Series. Digital Humanities (Utrecht, The Netherlands.)

2019. “Are We Not Doing Phrasing Anymore?”: Re-Thinking Statistical Approaches to Narrative. Symposium on Data Science & Statistics (Bellevue, WA).

2018. Louisiana Treasure Legends. Louisiana Folklore Society (Houma, LA).

2018. It’s about Time: How Folk Narratives Manage Time in Discourse. American Folklore Society (Buffalo, NY).

2017. The Shape of Small Stories: Towards an Economy of Legendry. New Directions in the Humanities (London, UK).

2017. The Clown Legend Cascade of 2016. International Society for Contemporary Legend Research (Lafayette, LA).

2017. Repairing Knowledge: A Case Study in Natural Knowledge Construction. CONSTRUIT (University of Warwick, Coventry, UK). PDF.

Kinnaird, Katherine and John Laudun. 2016. Ten Years of TED Talks: Understanding the Dimensions of a Cultural Phenomenon. International Conference on Social Informatics (SOCINFO).

Gao, Jianbo, Matthew Jockers, John Laudun, Timothy Tangherlini. 2016. A multiscale theory for the dynamical evolution of sentiment in novels. International Conference on Behavioral, Economic and Socio-cultural Computing (BESC). DOI: 10.1109/BESC.2016.7804470.

2016. Trucks under Water: A Louisiana Legend from the 2016 Flood. American Folklore Society (Miami, FL).

2015. Counting Tales: A Computational Approach to Fairy Tale Study. At the Crossroads of Data and Wonder Symposium. Brigham Young University (Provost, UT).

2015. The Story of a Pirate in a Tree: Using Network Analysis to Find treasure. Modern Language Association (Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada).

2015. The Shape of Legends: Towards an Algorithmic/Augmented Analysis of Folk Narrative. International Society for Contemporary Legend Research (San Antonio, TX.)

2014. The Matter of Mardi Gras: How Local Festivals Gather and Disperse Materiel across a Landscape. The Mathers Museum, Indiana University (Bloomington, Indiana).

Laudun, John and Jonathan Goodwin. 2014. Mapping Networks in Service of Intellectual History: How Topic Models and Co-Citation Networks Describe a Paradigm Shift in a Humanities Discipline. Texas Digital Humanities Conference (Houston, Texas).

2014. Using Topic Models and Morphologies to Understand Folk Narrative. Modern Language Association (Chicago, Illinois).

2014. The Vernacular in Architecture and What It Means for the Future. Vernacular Inventions, Center for Louisiana Studies (Lafayette, LA).

2014. Counting Tales: Folklore’s Contribution to the Computational Model of Narrative. American Folklore Society (Santa Fe, NM).

2013. Understanding Larger Histories through Smaller Legends. International Forum for Kunlun Culture (Golmud, Qinghai, China).

2013. Locating Louisiana Legends: Tallying Treasure Tales. International Society for Contemporary Legend Research (Lexington, Kentucky).

2013. Computing Folklore Studies: An Exploration of the Intellectual Landscape and History of Folklore Studies over the Past Century. American Folklore Society (Providence, Rhode Island).

2012. Pulling Up Holes, Pulling Down Hills: How People Who Actually Work the Land Understand the Landscape on Which They Work. American Folklore Society (New Orleans, Louisiana).

2011. Visualizing a Paradigm Shift: The Turn Towards Performance as a Network Phenomenon. American Folklore Society (Bloomington, Indiana).

2011. Mama Lou and Her Coterie of Experts. American Folklore Society (Bloomington, Indiana).

2011. Counting Clouds in the Digital Humanities. Language, Literature, and Lore: UL Graduates Student Conference (Lafayette, Louisiana) — plenary session on technology and pedagogy.

2011. A History of Folk Invention. Society for the History of Technology (Cleveland, Ohio).

2010. The Blue Spark of Creativity. American Folklore Society (Nashville, Tennessee).

2010. Calling a Star by Name. American Folklore Society (Nashville, Tennessee).

2009. “If You Go to Hell, This Is What You’ll Be Doing”: The Role of Rich-Mode Thinking in Fabrication. American Folklore Society (Boise, Idaho).

2009. The Ethics of Creativity on the Rice Prairies of Louisiana. American Folklore Society (Boise, Idaho).

2009. From Stories to Services: A Humanistic Methodology for Arriving at a Description of a Digital Infrastructure in Support of the Humanities. Project Bamboo (Workshop 3; Tucson, Arizona).

2009. A Technological Ouroboros: Searching Scholarly Narratives in Hopes of Founding a Cyberinfrastructure for the Humanities. IEEE Conference on e-Science (Oxford, England).

2008. Centering and Re-Centering Humanities Research. Project Bamboo. The Andrew Mellon Foundation, the University of Chicago, and the University of California at Berkeley (Chicago, Illinois).

2008. Genius Loci: Towards a Folkloristic Ethnography of Creativity. American Folklore Society.

2008. Ein bato kit e navigue on la terre com one la mer: Culture and Creativity on a Louisiana Landscape. English Department Symposium.

2008. AFSweb 2.0: A Scholarly Communications and Publication Platform. American Folklore Society.

2007. Gumbo This: The Historical and Ethnic Influences on Cajun Food. International Symposium on Acadians and Cajuns: The Politics and Culture of French Minorities in North America. Canadian Studies Centre, Universitet Innsbruck (Innsbruck, Austria).

2007. “Ein bato ki va sur la terre comme sur le mer [A Boat That Can Go on Land and Water],” American Folklore Society (Quebec, Canada).

2006. Going Academic: Fieldwork Relations among Natives Educated and Fine. American Folklore Society (Milwaukee, WI).

2006. An Individual Text and a Community. UL Graduate Conference (Lafayette, Louisiana).

2005. The Gumbo Lines from Africa to Louisiana. Louisiana and the Caribbean Studies Conference. Louisiana State University. (Baton Rouge, Louisiana).

2005. “Talking Shit” in Rayne. American Folklore Society (Atlanta, GA).

2004. More than a Thousand Cuts. American Folklore Society (Salt Lake City, UT).

2004. The Uses and Abuses of Gumbo. Modern Language Association (Philadelphia, PA).

2004. The Gumbo Lines of Louisiana: History from Maps, Maps from Food, Food from and for People. American Folklore Society (Salt Lake City, UT).

2003. The Mechanics of Mardi Gras. American Folklore Society (Albuquerque, NM).

2003. Louisiana Folk Masters. (Center for Cultural and Eco-Tourism, Lafayette, Louisiana).

2002. The Discipline Which Is Not One. American Folklore Society (Rochester, NY).

2002. Splitting the Difference in Folklore Studies. Louisiana Folklore Society (Natchitoches, Louisiana).

2002. Following The Way of the Masks (expanded). Symposium on Lévi-Strauss, sponsored by the Council for European Philosophy (Durham, United Kingdom).

2001. Creoles in the Balance: Toward a Louisiana Poetics. Modern Language Association (New Orleans, Louisiana).

2001. The Elegant and the Mundane. University of Louisiana Graduate Colloquium (Lafayette, Louisiana).

2001. Compiling an Inventory of Your Cultural Resources. The Art of Development and Promotion: A Statewide Cultural Tourism Conference (Center for Cultural and Eco-Tourism, Lafayette, Louisiana).

2001. Achieving Critical Mess. American Folklore Society (Anchorage, AL).

2000. The Discipline Which Is Not One. American Comparative Literature Association (New Haven, CT).

2000. “The Theory behind Our Tactics”: Making Semiotics Signify in the Folklore and Literature Classroom. Modern Language Association (Washington, D.C).

2000. Following The Way of the Masks. American Folklore Society (Columbus, OH).

2000. Necessary Dichotomies: The Trope of Twinness in Folkloristics. Louisiana Folklore Society (Baton Rouge, Louisiana).

2000. Narrative Uncertainty in Communal and Legal Discourses about Tragedy. Multi-Ethnic Literature in the United States (New Orleans, Louisiana).

1999. In the Middle of It All: Cultural Constructions of Time in the Midwest (Modern Language Association (Chicago, IL).

1999. “And Over to His Son He Said You Don’t Care If I Call You Son Do Ya Son?”: Dialogue as Intertextuality, Dialogue as Textuality. American Folklore Society (Memphis, TN).

1999. Authors Authors Everywhere and Not a Drop of Ink. Deep South Writers Conference (Lafayette,Louisiana).

1998. Reading Hurston Writing. Twentieth Century Literature Conference (Louisville, KY).

1997. Culture Changes: A Report from the Front on Corporate Culture Initiatives. American Folklore Society (Austin, TX).

1997. Leveraging Consortia in an Executive Education Strategy. Conference on Management Development (Innisbruck, FA).

1994. Folk Engineers: The Work of Art. American Folklore Society (Milwaukee, WI).

1994. Inventing a Better Wheel: Two Case Studies of Contemporary Craftsmen. American Culture Association (Chicago, IL).

1993. Steel, Speech, and Self: Forging Identity. American Ethnological Society and Council for Museum Anthropology (Santa Fe, NM).

1992. Overlooked Rhetorics & Poetics: Ethnography as Analysis and Allegory. National Council of Teachers of English (Louisville, KY).

1992. The Poetics of Vernacular Spaces: How Urban Appalachians Imagine and Realize Space. American Culture Association (Louisville, KY).

1992. Local Poetics: Folklore’s Contribution to Composition. Conference on College Composition and Communication (Cincinnati, OH).

1991. Contiguous Structures in Performance. American Folklore Society (St. John’s, Newfoundland).

1991. The Unselfconscious Muse: The Dynamics of “Flowlore”. American Culture Association (San Antonio, TX).

1990. Author! Author?: Authority and Authorship in the Desktop Publishing Classroom. Conference on Computers and Composition (Austin, TX).

1990. The Context of Context in Folkloristics. American Culture Association (Toronto, Ontario).

Invited Talks

2020. Digital Humanities from a Folklorist’s Perspective. Brown University (Providence, RI).

2020. TED Talks as Data, TED Talks as Discourse. Smith College (Northampton, MA).

2020. Re-Thinking Text Analytics. Amherst College (Amherst, MA).

2020. Approaching Digital Humanities as a Curriculum. College of the Holy Cross (Worcester, MA).

2014. Why Count Words?: Folklore’s Contribution to the Computational Model of Narrative. American Folklife Center, Library of Congress (Washington, D.C.).

2013. Counting Tales: Towards a Computational Narratology. Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (Beijing, China).

2005. Kaliste Saloom & Ambassador Caffery: The Local History(s) and Culture(s) of Lafayette. British Women Writer’s Conference (Lafayette, Louisiana).

Media Appearances & Interviews

Wyatt, Megan. 2022. Who do some people put tomatoes in their gumbo? The Daily Advertizer (August 29): 1E, 4E.

Sherman, Dayne. 2016. Louisiana Talks: Interview with Dr. John Laudun. Louisiana Libraries 78(3): 13-18.

Edge, John T. 2017. Oxford American.

Engster, Jim. 2016. The Amazing Crawfish Boat. The Jim Engster Show (April).

Meriwether, Judit. 2016. The Amazing Crawfish Boat. KRVS. (March 15).

Mader, Christian. 2015. What Makes Gumbo, Gumbo. Lafayette Convention and Visitors Center. http://blog.lafayettetravel.com/what-makes-gumbo-gumbo/.

2013. Louisiana’s Melting Pot. The Sunday Advertiser (July 7): 1A, 8A-9A.

2013. Food Is Just as Much a Part of Family History. The Sunday Advertiser (July 7): 9A.

Falgout, Anne. 2013. Creating the Monster. The Daily Advertiser (June 10). URL: http://blogs.theadvertiser.com/chefannespecials/2013/06/10/creating-the-monster/.

2012. “First you make a roux” not true of early gumbo. The Daily Advertiser (October 22). Picked up by Associated Press and appeared, for example, on [KATC-TV3]((http://www.katc.com/news/first-you-make-a-roux-not-true-of-early-gumbo/) and also The Worcester Telegram.

2012. Cooks adapt gumbo to time, place. The Advocate (October 22): 3B.

2012. “A Living, Breathing Dish.” The Daily Advertiser (September 26).

2008. Louisiana Story: The Reverse Angle. Louisiana Public Broadcasting.

2008. “Friday is Gumbo Day in New Orleans,” Philadelphia Inquirer (February 6).

2008. A History of Gumbo. The Southern Gumbo Trail. Southern Foodways Project, University of Mississippi. https://www.southernfoodways.org/interview/john-laudun/.

2004. “At Home with a Master,” La Louisiane (Autumn): 22-25.

2004. “Roasting a Pig Inside an Enigma,” New York Times (January 7).

2004. Friday the 13th, Daily Advertiser (August 13).

2004. Friday the 13th, KATC-TV 3 (June 13).

2004. “Archives Keep Music Alive,” Daily Advertiser (May 21).

2003. “Saving the Music,” The Independent (September 17)

2003. “Treasure Keepers,” The Times-Picayune (June 28)

2003. “Gumbo,” Three-Part Series. KATC-TV3 (Feburary 16-18)

2002. “As Police Seek Killer, Rumors Continue to Fly.” The Daily Advertiser (August 18).

2002. “UL Professor Studies Gumbo,” Daily Advertiser.

2002. “Great Gumbo,” The San Bernardino Sun (December 25).

2001. “Mardi Gras,” KATC-TV3.

Smith, Catherine. 1989. Computers and Pedagogy: An Interview with Henry Jankiewicz and John Laudun. Reflections. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Writing Program.

Teaching

Courses Taught

English 115. Honors Freshman English.
English 332. Introduction to Folklore.
English 335. Louisiana Folklore.
English 432. American Folklore.
English 531. Folklore in Culture: The Study of Narrative.
English 632. Proseminar in Folklore Theory.

English 365. Technical Writing.
English 440. Folklore and Literature.
English 449. Folklore Fieldwork.
English 482. Folklore Genres.
English 531. Folklore in Culture: Folk Art and Material Culture.
English 531. Folklore in Culture: The Poetics of Creativity.

Student Theses & Dissertations

Asterisks indicate committees chaired.

GRADUATE: English

2016. Amanda Laroche. Ph.D. Dissertation. 2014. Brenna Heffner. Ph.D. Dissertation. 2014. Kristen Bradley. Ph.D. Dissertation. 2012. Brandon Barker. Ph.D. Dissertation. 2010. Monique Dupas. M.A. Thesis. 2010. Louis Toliver. M.A. Thesis. 2008. Wanda Addison. Ph.D. Dissertation. 2006. James Reitter. Ph.D. Dissertation. 2005. Cheramie Richard. “Shortbread: Oral History as Community Creation” (M.A., Folklore). 2004. Lana Henry. Ph.D. Dissertation. 2004. Kristi Guillory. “Cajun Music: An Analysis of a Lyrical Tradition” (M.A., Folklore). 2003. Connie Herndon. Ph.D. Dissertation. 2003. Billy Fontenot. “Eighty Years” (Ph.D., Creative Writing). 2002. Jeanne Soileau. Ph.D. Dissertation. 2001. Matt Dube. Ph.D. Dissertation. 2000. Kenneth Bearden. Ph.D. Dissertation.

GRADUATE: Modern Languages

2006. Carmen D’Entremont. M.A. Thesis (Francophone Studies). 2001. Luc Guglielmi. M.A. Thesis (Francophone Studies).

GRADUATE: Architecture

2020. John Oliver. 2014. Joe Frick. 2009. Ashley LeBlanc. 2005. Matthew Baker. “From Cajun to Urban: Developing a Regional Design Program for Public Structures.” 2004. Chris Fowler. “Conditional Thresholds of Conflict: Spatial, Phenomenological, Geographical, and Environmental Effects.”

UNDERGRADUATE: Honors

2004. Matthew Spizale. “The Cultural Evolution of the Sicilian Immigrant Community of New Orleans from 1880 to World War II.”

2003. Keith Manuel. “Parsimonious Injustice?: Spain’s Detention of Military Hostages during the American Revolution, 1781-1783.”

2001*. Sarah Mertins. “La Llorona: A Legend Examined.”

Mentorships

2010-2011. Mentor to UL-Lafayette’s HASTAC Scholar John Anderson. 2010-2011. Mentor to UL-Lafayette’s HASTAC Scholar Kyle Felker.

Teaching Interests

Theoretical/methodological: Computational/structural approaches to texts, cultural theories and studies, narrative studies, folklore studies, documentary studies, semiotic approaches to cultural artifacts. Topical/areal: American studies, regional and language literatures (Caribbean and African in English), creole and ethnic studies, United States folk cultures.

Service

University

2013-16. Faculty Grievance Committee. University of Louisiana at Lafayette.

  1. Dangerous Games. University of Louisiana Retention Summit. 2013-14. Graduate Council. University of Louisiana at Lafayette. 2008-2012. University Liaison, Project Bamboo, a consortium funded by the Andrew Mellon Foundation and led by the University of Chicago and UC–Berkeley. (Release time granted.)
  2. Digital Repository Planning Team. University of Louisiana at Lafayette. 2009-2010. IT Strategic Task Force. University of Louisiana at Lafayette. 2003-2007. Faculty Benefits and Welfare Committee. University of Louisiana at Lafayette. 2002-2005. Thesis Quality Management Committee, Graduate School. University of Louisiana at Lafayette. 2001-04. Member, UL Foreign Studies Committee. University of Louisiana at Lafayette. 2001-04. UL Study Abroad Committee. University of Louisiana at Lafayette. 2000-02. Graduate Writing Exam Committee, Graduate School. University of Louisiana at Lafayette.
  3. Co-coordinator, Associate Instructor Diversity Training, Office of Academic Affairs, Indiana University. 1994-95. University Affirmative Action Committee, Indiana University.

College

2015. Overview of Digital Humanities. THATCamp. University of Louisiana at Lafayette.

2007-2012. Digital Humanities Liaison. College of Liberal Arts. University of Louisiana at Lafayette.

2004. Invocation and Benediction, Commencement, College of Liberal Arts. University of Louisiana at Lafayette.

2001-2008. Research Fellow, Center for Cultural and Eco-Tourism, College of Liberal Arts. University of Louisiana at Lafayette.

2001. Invocation and Benediction, Commencement, College of Liberal Arts. University of Louisiana at Lafayette. 1999-2008. Chair, Folklore Committee, College of Liberal Arts. University of Louisiana at Lafayette.

Department

2017-2021. Chair. PhD Exam Committee.

2013-16. Member. Personnel Committee.

2015. Chair. Search Committee for Trans-Atlantic Literary Studies tenure-track position.

20012-13. Chair. Search Committee for Folklore and Literature tenure-track position.

2008-12. Chair. Graduate Faculty Committee

2006. Discussant. English 499 panel on “Public Folklore.” Presentation entitled “Pubfolk Ops.”

2006. Discussant. English 596 Panel on “Work in the Academy.” Presentation entitled “What Do Folklorists Do All Day?”

2006-2012. Member. English Education Committee.

2006–. Member. Technology and Distance Learning Committee.

2004-2008. Member. Undergraduate Curriculum Committee.

2003. Faculty Coordinator. Departmental Website Revision Team.

2002. Acting Graduate Coordinator, Department of English. University of Louisiana at Lafayette.

2002-2008. Member. Ph.D. Exam Committee. Department of English.

2002-03. Member, Graduate Course Offerings Committee, Department of English. University of Louisiana at Lafayette.

2000-02. Secretary, Graduate Committee, Department of English. University of Louisiana at Lafayette.

1999–. Member, Creative Writing Committee, Department of English. University of Louisiana at Lafayette.

2000-02. Member, Information Techology & Departmental Website Committees, Department of English. University of Louisiana at Lafayette.

1988. Senior Faculty Search Committee, Writing Program, Syracuse University.

Professional

2010-22. Member AFS at MLA liaison committee. (Presided over several panels at MLA meetings.)

2013. Letter in support of promotion. Tim Tangherlini, UCLA.

2013. Letter in support of promotion. Greg Schrempp, Indiana University-Bloomington.

2008-2012. Editor, American Folklore Society website, www.americanfolkloresociety.org. (Release time granted.)

2008–12. American Folklore Society Scholarly Communications in Folklore Working Group.

2007–12. American Folklore Society Publications Committee.

2006. Participant, Professional Development Survey, American Folklore Society.

2004. Chair, Folklore and Literature Discussion Group, Modern Language Association.

2004. Folklife Grants panelist, Division of the Arts, State of Louisiana.

2003. Chair, American Folklore Society Section Meeting, Modern Language Association.

2001. Chair, Folklore and Literature Discussion Group, Modern Language Association.

2000–05. Board Member, Folk Art Discussion Group, American Folklore Society.

1999–2003. Board Member, Folklore and Literature Discussion Group, Modern Language Association.

1999-2003. Board Member, AFS@MLA, American Folklore Society. Community

2011-16. Consultant. Boy Scouts of America, Evangeline Council.

2006. Nominee. Man of the Year. Acadiana Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

2005. DAF Grant Panelist, Acadiana Arts Council (Lafayette, Louisiana).

2004. DAF Grant Panelist, Acadiana Arts Council (Lafayette, Louisiana).

2003. DAF Grant Panelist, Acadiana Arts Council (Lafayette, Louisiana).

2000–02. Consultant, Saint Landry Foodways Research Center (Washington, Louisiana).

2000-01. Consultant and Coordinator, La Vie en Acadie Folklife Festival, Lafayette Jaycees (Lafayette, Louisiana).

Documentary Consultant

2010-2015. Evangeline Council of the Boy Scouts of America.

Castille, Conni. 2007. I Always Do My Collars First (film).

Gladu, André. 2003. Maroon: On the Trail of Creoles in North America (film).

2002. Vernacular Architecture, Building Institute. University of Louisiana at Lafayette. School of Architecture.

2002. The Daily Advertiser (18 August).

2002. Script Consultant, Ernest Gaines Interview, Louisiana Public Broadcasting.

2002. Research Consultant, Tri-Community Nursing Facility, LeBeau, Louisiana.

2000. La Vie Cadienne Folklife Festival, directed one of the Festivals Acadiens organized by the Lafayette Jaycees, Lafayette, Louisiana.

1999. Consultant, Kate Chopin: A Re-Awakening (film by Louisiana Public Broadcasting).

Grant Panelist & Evaluator

2006. Folklife Funding Initiative. Louisiana Division of the Arts.

2004. Traditional Arts Focus Group, Cultural Economy Initiative Conference, Lieutenant Governor’s Office.

2000. Jubilee Folk Festival, Nicholls State University

2000. Grant Reviewer. Acadiana Arts Council.

Manuscript Reviews

Reviewer, Utah State University Press.

2012. Reviewer, Museum Anthropology Review (Bloomington, Indiana).

2012. Le Petit Bonhomme Janvier. Black Pot Publishing (Gretna, Louisiana).

2008–2012. Reviewer, Journal of Folklore Research.

2003–2005. Reviewer, Louisiana History.

2002–2008. Reviewer, Journal of Appalachian Studies.

2000. Reviewer, Journal of Mundane Behavior.

2000. Advisory Board Member, Lafcadio Hearn documentary, Louisiana Public Broadcasting.

1999–2005. Reviewer, College Literature.

1997. Script Consultant, Kate Chopin (documentary), Louisiana Public Broadcasting.

Workshops Moderated

2016. Introduction to Text Analytics for Folklorists. American Folklore Society (Miami, FL).

2016. Text Analytics from the Command Line. LSU Digital Humanities (Baton Rouge, LA).

2006. Creole Storytelling. Vermilionville Creole Day (Lafayette, LA).

2006. Definitions and Perceptions of Creole Groups in Louisiana. Vermilionville Creole Day (Lafayette, LA).

2005. Cajun and Creole Women’s Musical Traditions. Festivals Acadians (Lafayette, LA).

2005. Cajun and Creole Accordion Traditions. Festivals Acadians (Lafayette, LA).

2005. Creole Storytelling. Zydeco Festival (Plaisance, LA).

2005. Creole Storytelling. The Dewey Balfa Cajun and Creole Heritage Week (Chicot State Park, LA).

2005. Cajun Fiddling Traditions. The Dewey Balfa Cajun and Creole Heritage Week (Chicot State Park, LA).

2000. Creole Foodways. Festivals Acadiens (Lafayette,LA).

Affiliations

1991–. American Folklore Society.
1994–. Modern Language Association.
2010-14. Society for the History of Technology.
2003–10. Vernacular Architecture Forum.
1999-2000. American Comparative Literature Association.
1989-94. American Culture Association.
1993-95. American Ethnology Society.
1996-97. Conference on Management and Executive Development.
1995-97. International University Consortium for Executive Education.
1999-2002. Multi-Ethnic Literatures in the United States.

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References

Available upon request.