JOHN LAUDUN
Department of English
University of Louisiana at Lafayette
Lafayette, LA 70504–4691
https://johnlaudun.net/
@johnlaudun@hcommons.social
https://github.com/johnlaudun
Education
Ph.D. Folklore Studies. Indiana University (minor in cultural anthropology). 1999.
M.A. English/Textual Studies. 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. 1999–present. (On leave 2020–22.)
Professor. Social Informatics. U.S. Army Combined Arms Center (Fort Leavenworth, KS). 2020–22.
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. 2016. The Amazing Crawfish Boat. Folklore Studies in a Multicultural World. Andrew Mellon Foundation.
Laudun, John. 2013. The Louisiana Crawfish Boat. Louisiana State Board of Regents ATLAS Grant.
Laudun, John (PI), 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 (PI) and C. E. Richard. 2005. PI. Acadiana Folklife Renewable Documentation Project. Lafayette Convention and Visitors Center.
Laudun, John. 2004.. 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. 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.
Books in Progress
“A Pirate in a Tree: Hidden Histories in Gulf Coast Treasure Tales.”
“How Stories Work.”
Articles
Laudun, John, Katherine M. Kinnaird, and Allison J. B. Chaney. [Submitted.] Speaking Subjects, Subjects Spoken: Using TED Talks to Understand Discursive Gender Formations. Journal of Cultural Analytics.
Laudun, John and Jonathan Goodwin. [2023]. Computing Folklore Studies: Mapping over a Century of Scholarly Production through Topics. Overseas Folkloristics Studies 5. Ed. Li Yang. Tr. Li Yang and Qiao Yingfei. [In production.]
Laudun, John. 2023. Repairing Tradition. Journal of American Folklore 136(541): 274–297.
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. The Modes of Vernacular Discourse. Western Folklore 80(3/4): 401–436.
Kinnaird, Katherine and John Laudun. 2019. TED Talks as Data. Journal of Cultural Analytics (19 July). DOI: 10.31235/osf.io/4yqex.
Laudun, John. 2019. Trucks under Water: A Legend from the 2016 Flood. Louisiana Folklore Miscellany 28: 20–36.
Laudun, John. 2018. Tallying Treasure Tales: A Reconsideration of the Structure and Nature of Local Legends. Contemporary Legend 3(7): 1–27.
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.
Laudun, John. 2015. Text Statistics with Python. Programming Historian [URL]{.underline}.
Laudun, John. 2014. Counting Tales: Towards a Computational Approach to Folk Narrative. Folk Culture Forum 5/228: 20–35. Translator (to Chinese): An Deming.
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.
Laudun, John. 2011. The Technological Landscape. Technoculture: An Online Journal of Technology in Society. http://tcjournal.org/drupal/vol1/laudun.
Laudun, John. 2004. Reading Hurston Writing. African American Review 38(1): 45–60.
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. 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.
Book Chapters
Laudun, John. 2023. Weathering the Storm: Folk Ideas about Character. In Wait Five Minutes: Weatherlore in the Twenty-First Century. Ed. Shelley Ingram and Willow Mullins. (In production.)
Laudun, John. 2021. Connecting: Folklore Studies and Digital Humanities. In What Folklorists Do, 14-16. Ed. Tim Lloyd. Indiana University Press.
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. 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.
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. 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.
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. 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. 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, Audio, Video, Photography
2023. Review of Understanding Reddit by Elliot Panek. Reception 15, 154–157.
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
Invited Talks
2023. Listening for Lives: The Past Is Always with Us in the People around Us. Louisiana Aging Network Association (Baton Rouge, LA).
2023. Text Analytics and Digital Collections. Louisiana Digital Library Conference (Baton Rouge, LA).
2015. Counting Tales: A Computational Approach to Fairy Tale Study. At the Crossroads of Data and Wonder Symposium. Brigham Young University (Provost, UT).
2014. Why Count Words?: Folklore’s Contribution to the Computational Model of Narrative. American Folklife Center, Library of Congress (Washington, D.C.).
2014. The Matter of Mardi Gras: How Local Festivals Gather and Disperse Materiel across a Landscape. The Mathers Museum, Indiana University (Bloomington, Indiana).
2014. The Vernacular in Architecture and What It Means for the Future. Vernacular Inventions, Center for Louisiana Studies (Lafayette, LA).
2013. Counting Tales: Towards a Computational Narratology. Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (Beijing, China).
2011. Counting Clouds in the Digital Humanities. Language, Literature, and Lore: UL Graduates Student Conference (Lafayette, Louisiana) — plenary session on technology and pedagogy.
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).
2005. Kaliste Saloom & Ambassador Caffery: The Local History(s) and Culture(s) of Lafayette. British Women Writer’s Conference (Lafayette, Louisiana).
Conference Papers
2025. The Crossroads Are Not a Metaphor. Roundtable for Global Souths Conference (Lafayette, LA).
2024. Mistaken for Narrative: Rethinking the Status of Narrative in Legends and Conspiracy Theories. American Folklore Society (Albuquerque, NM).
2024. Using an LLM to Map the Structure of Conspiracy Theories. College of Liberal Arts Colloquium (Lafayette, LA).
2023. Speaking Subjects, Subjects Spoken: Using TED Talks to Understand Discursive Gender Formations. Text as Data/TADA (Amherst, MA). With Katherine M. Kinnaird and Allison J. B. Chaney.
2023. Folklore’s Nature & Memory’s Coefficient. American Folklore Society (Portland, OR).
2023. Who’s Afraid of ChatGPT: Legends as/and Large Language Models. International Society for Contemporary Legend Research (Sheffield, UK).
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).
2019. Modes of Vernacular Discourse. American Folklore Society (Baltimore, MD).
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]{.underline}.
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. 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.)
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. 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. 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. 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).
Media Appearances & Interviews
Carpenter, Perry and Mason Amadeus. 2023. Statistically Conscious (Artificial Intelligence). Digital Folklore. November 14. https://digitalfolklore.fm/episodes/s2e6.
Lowther, Adam. 2023. How to Craft Your Narrative of Deterrence. NucleCast: The Official Podcast of the ANWA Deterrence Center. February 3. https://rss.com/podcasts/nuclecast-podcast/847731/.
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
For a fuller description of the courses listed below, please see https://johnlaudun.net/teaching.
Undergraduate. Honors Freshman English (115), Introduction to Folk Narrative (332), Digital Folklore and Culture (334), Digital Storytelling (334), Louisiana Folklore (335), Text Analytics (370), Narrative Games (370), American Legends Online and Off (432), Field Research Methods (449), Folklore Genres (482).
Graduate. American Legends Online and Off (432), Field Research Methods (449), Folklore Genres (482), Seminar in Narrative Studies (531), The Poetics of Creativity (531), Projects in Folklore and Digital Humanities (532), Seminar in Folklore Theory (632).
Supervision of Student Work
2021. Outstanding PhD Mentor. UL-Lafayette Graduate School.
Dissertations (English). 2023, Emily Vega and Mystery Harwood; 2016, Amanda Laroche; 2014, Brenna Heffner and Kristen Bradley; 2012, Brandon Barker; 2008, Wanda Addison; 2006, James Reitter; 2004, Lana Henry; 2003. Connie Herndon. Ph.D. Dissertation; 2003, Billy Fontenot; 2002, Jeanne Soileau; 2001, Matt Dube; 2000, Kenneth Bearden.
MA Theses (English). Erin Rosson, 2024. 2010, Monique Dupas and Louis Toliver; 2005, Cheramie Richard (“Shortbread: Oral History as Community Creation”); 2004. Kristi Guillory (“Cajun Music: An Analysis of a Lyrical Tradition”).
MA Theses (Francophone Studies). 2006, Carmen D’Entremont; 2001, Luc Guglielmi.
MA Theses (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, HASTAC Scholars John Anderson and 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: vernacular cultures online and offline, American studies, regional and language literatures (Caribbean and African in English), creole and ethnic studies, United States folk cultures.
Service
University
University of Louisiana – Lafayette
2023. Mentoring Up and Down. Graduate School.
2021. Dissertation Mentor Award.
2019–2020. Faculty Senate Ad Hoc Committee on Salary Inequity.
2016–2020. Institutional Review Board.
2013–16. Faculty Grievance Committee.
2015. Dangerous Games. University of Louisiana (System) Retention Summit.
2013–14. Graduate Council.
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.)
2010. Digital Repository Planning Team.
2009–2010. IT Strategic Task Force.
2003–2007. Faculty Benefits and Welfare Committee.
2002–2005. Thesis Quality Management Committee, Graduate School.
2001–04. Member, UL Foreign Studies Committee.
2001–04. UL Study Abroad Committee.
2000–02. Graduate Writing Exam Committee, Graduate School.
Indiana University — Bloomington
1997. 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
2022–present. Chair. Personnel Committee.
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
2023. Referee for promotion and tenure. Daniel Peretti (Memorial University).
2022—. Co-editor, Contemporary Legend.
2013—. Committee member, Case Studies in Contemporary Legend (a joint effort of ISCLR and USU Press).
2013. Referee for promotion and tenure. Tim Tangherlini (UCLA).
2013. Referee for promotion and tenure. 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
Evangeline Council of the Boy Scouts of America. 2010-2015. Archive of Citizen Scholarship on Traditional Culture.
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.
Links
Academia.edu: https://louisiana.academia.edu/JLaudun
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnlaudun/
OrcID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7555-7562
Publons: https://www.webofscience.com/wos/author/record/A-5742-2009
ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/John-Laudun
References
Available upon request.