Click Here for Current & Recent Students

All faculty members hold appointments in their home departments.
Core faculty are those who have a strong interest in folklore,
as shown in their research, publications, and attendance at
professional meetings, and generally teach half in folklore
and half in their home department. They carry out most of the
necessary administrative tasks in the Curriculum and currently
include:
Bob
Cantwell (American Studies) Folklore theory, Southern
music, folk revival studies.
Bill
Ferris
(History)
author of over 100 publications in fields of folklore, American
literature, fiction, and photography, Dr. Ferris is interested
in all manifestations of Southern culture from Faulkner to moon
pies! Former director of the National Endowment for the Humanities;
former director of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture
at the University of Mississippi; editor of the Encyclopedia
of Southern Culture.
Marcie Ferris
(American Studies) southern Jewish history, American foodways, women’s studies, material culture of the American South. Current research: social history analysis of the role of food in southern society as expressed through the voices of southerners and of outsiders who visited the region.
Trudier
Harris (English) African American folklore, folk
church traditions, narrative. Current research: stereotypic images
of African American women in African American literature, oral
tradition and popular culture.
Glenn
Hinson (Anthropology) African American expressive
culture, health and belief systems, public folklore, ethnographic
practice. Current research: African American oral poetry; dream
and vision songs among sanctified Christians; historiography of
the Nat Turner uprising.
Jocelyn
Neal (Music)
Country music, twentieth-century music theory and popular music,
country dance and music relationships.
Daniel Patterson (emeritus) Folksong, folklore documentaries, Southern
folklore. Current research: ballads and narratives of Frankie
Silver; gravestones and Presbyterian Scots-Irish culture.
Kathy Roberts (American Studies)-- Material culture, Back-to-the-land movement, vernacular architecture.
Patricia
Sawin (Anthropology) Narrative, discourse, and
ethnography of speaking, festival, gender, politics of culture;
Appalachia, French Louisiana, Guatemala. Current research: racial
division and negotiation in small town mardi gras; cultural and
linguistic preservation and tourism in Guatemala.
Charles Zug (emeritus) Folk art, Southern material culture,
narrative. Current projects: building the North Carolina Pottery
Center; contemporary folk art in North Carolina.
Debbie
Simmons-Cahan says
she's still here! She is Departmental Manager for the Folklore and
American Studies curricula. Call her at 962-4062 with any questions
or comments.
..........................................................................................................................................................................
Curriculum offerings
are broadened by our adjunct faculty, who offer courses cross-listed
with the Curriculum in Folklore, direct and/or read theses, and
play an important supportive role. They include (but are by no
means limited to):
Carole Crumley (Anthropology)
Historical ecology, state societies, complex systems theory, global environmental change; ethnography, ethnohistory, and archaeology of Europe.
Robert Daniels (Anthropology) Social Anthropology, Psychological Anthropology, Systems Theory, Cross-Cultural Studies; Africa
Terence Evens (Anthropology) — Social Theory, Phenomenology, Religion and Ethics, Philosophical Anthropology.
John Florin (Geography) U.S. historical and cultural geography, population, and medical geography
Jacquelyn
Hall (History) Oral history, women's history, Southern
social history.
Norris Johnson (Anthropology) Architecture, Art and Aesthetics, Religious Landscapes, Japan
Edward Kennedy
(English)
Medieval chronicles, Medieval English and French Arthurian literature, Sir Thomas Malory
Valerie Lambert
(Anthropology)
American Indians, Sovereignty, Tribal Nation-building, Tribal Governance, Oklahoma
Christopher Nelson
(Anthropology)
History and Memory; Everyday Life; Ethnography; Critical Theory; Storytelling, Ritual and Performance; Japan and Okinawa
Patrick O'Neill
(English) Medieval English, Welsh and Irish; Celtic culture; Modern Irish language and literature
James
Peacock (Anthropology) Symbolic anthropology, Southeast
Asia, religious cultures, comparative studies of the American
South.
Della
Pollock (Communication Studies)
Politics of performance, Brechtian aesthetics, the performance
of oral history, the body in performance, and issues in critical
and cultural theory.
Karla Slocum
(Anthropology) Globalization and Place, Social Movements, Constructions of Race and History, Critical Development Studies, Gender, Public Anthropology, Caribbean, U.S. Southwest
Ruel
Tyson (Religious Studies) Philosophy and anthropology
of religion.