Faculty
 John H. McDowell Director of ML&CP Professor of Folklore and Ethnomusicology more |
John McDowell, graduate of Swarthmore College and the University of Texas, acquired a lasting affection for the Andes when studying Cochabamba Quechua with Bernardo Vallejo in Austin back in the 1970s. This involvement with the language was extended through tours of ethnographic research at the other end of Quechuan geography, among the Ingas of Colombia's Sibundoy Valley, with support from a Fulbright Fellowship and other sources. In Colombia he made contact and common cause with Professor Francisco Tandioy, Inga teacher and cultural activist, and initiated a research collaboration that has endured for more than a quarter of a century now. Products of these labors include "Sayings of the Ancestors: The Spiritual Life of the Sibundoy Indians" (1989) and "So Wise Were Our Elders: Mythic Narratives of the Kamsá" (1994), both published by the University Press of Kentucky, as well as several articles in social science journals. Current research is with the Quichua Runa around Otavalo, Ecuador, with an emphasis on the folklorization of indigenous tradition. |  Daniel F. Suslak Languages Coordinator Assistant Professor of Anthropology more |
Daniel F. Suslak is trained as a linguistic anthropologist, and received a joint Ph.D. in Linguistics and Anthropology from the University of Chicago in 2005. Since 1991 he has been conducting fieldwork in Southern Mexico on several different Mixe-Zoquean languages and the communities in which they continue to be spoken. His research focuses on grammatical change and changing patterns of language use and how they both form part of larger social changes. He has been studying how language serves as a medium through which people talk about the impact of economic development and globalization on their lives and how it becomes valued as a symbolic resource that social actors struggle to control and pass on to future generations. A professor in the Anthropology Department, he teaches courses on linguistic anthropology, youth and adolescence, mesoamerican languages and cultures. Professor Suslak is also affiliated with the Project for the Documentation of the Languages of Mesoamerica: http://www.albany.edu/anthro/maldp/ |
 David Delgado Shorter Assistant Professor of Folklore and Ethnomusicology more |
Professor Shorter's research draws from collaborative relationships with Yoeme ("Yaqui") Indians in Northwest Mexico. Since 1992, he has been involved in the ethnographic study of indigenous religiosity including the related study of colonialism in the Americas. Often traveling to Potam Pueblo, he continues to research Yoeme worldview and ritual. He hopes his work speaks to those Yoeme individuals living away from the Sonoran homelands, as well as to those continuing to live in Potam and the other pueblos surrounding the Rio Yaqui. Feel free to visit his web cuaderno hosted by NYU's Hemispheric Institute. |
 Shane Greene Assistant Professor of Anthropology and International Studies more |
Shane Greene finished his Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Chicago in 2004. He does work on indigenous and afro-descendent rights, social justice movements, environmental politics, and state multiculturalism in Latin America and has published in various venues ranging from major anthropological journals to more activist and journalistic formats. He has carried out extended ethnographic research in Peru, primarily in Andean Amazonia as well as more recently in urban Lima. |
 Javier F. Leon Assistant Professor of Folklore and Ethnomusicology |
Javier F. León is an ethnomusicologist originally from Lima, Peru. He received B.A. in astrophysics from the University of California, Berkeley and M.M. and Ph.D. in ethnomusicology from the University of Texas at Austin. Professor León taught at the Newcomb Department of Music and The Stone Center for Latin American Studies at Tulane University and joined Indiana University in 2007. His research has focused on contemporary Afroperuvian music making, criollo popular music and nationalism in the early and mid-twentieth century Lima, and the politics of academic research. Since 1995 he has worked with prominent Peruvian artists such as Manuel Acosta Ojeda, Gabriel Alegría, Roberto Arguedas, Oscar Avilés, Eva Ayllón, Susana Baca, Félix Casaverde, Novalima, Peru Negro, Teatro del Milenio, and Abelardo Vásquez. He is currently conducting research on how neoliberal socioeconomic reforms are affecting Afroperuvian musical production and its ability to remain a symbol of Black identity. |
 Serafin M. Coronel-Molina Assistant Professor of Language Education |
Serafín M. Coronel-Molina is an educational linguist and a sociolinguist. He is a native speaker of Huanca Quechua, the variety of Quechua spoken in the central highlands of Peru. He also speaks Ayacucho and Cuzco Quechua, and Spanish with native fluency. Dr. Coronel-Molina received his B.A. in Translation (English, French and Cuzco Quechua) from the Ricardo Palma University in Peru; he obtained his M.A. in Hispanic Linguistics from the Ohio State University, and his Ph. D. in Educational Linguistics from the University of Pennsylvania. He has published articles in Quechua, English and Spanish, and presented papers internationally. In addition, he has considerable experience in second and foreign language education, having been a Spanish and Quechua lecturer at various universities in Peru and the United States. Before joining Indiana University in 2007, he was an instructor at Princeton University. Professor Coronel-Molina's research interests include revitalization of indigenous languages (Quechua and Aymara), politics of language, language attitudes and ideologies, minority languages and technology, language maintenance and shift, language contact phenomena, second and foreign language acquisition and learning, issues of language, culture and identity in the Andes and beyond. His research is of an interdisciplinary nature, drawing on fields as diverse as macro- and micro-sociolinguistics, applied linguistics, linguistic anthropology, education, ethnography of communication, language policy and planning, pragmatics, politics and history. |
Language Instructors
 Nicolas André Haitian Creole Instructor |
Nick currently teaches Haitian Creole courses at Indiana University. Born in Port-au-Prince Haiti, he has conducted research on Haitian Creole language with an interest in the syntax components. He is currently the Chief Lexicographer for a Haitian Creole-French bilingual dictionary for students, and has worked as the Assistant Editor on a Haitian Creole - English bilingual Dictionary to be published by the Creole Institute at Indiana University. |
 Quetzil Castañeda Yucatec Maya Instructor |
Dr. Quetzil Castañeda is a visiting professor in CLACS (fall 2006–present) and Research
Associate in the Department of Anthropology. He previously taught in the Latino Studies
Program (spring 2006) and is currently teaching the Yucatec Maya language courses.
Castañeda has also taught at Princeton, University of Hawai'i, University of Houston, and
the Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán in Mexico. He is founding director of OSEA – the
Open School of Ethnography and Anthropology, which is an independent, non-degree school
that offers study abroad, writing workshops, research methods, and consulting services
|
 Francisco Tandioy Jansasoy Inga Instructor |
Francisco Tandioy Jansasoy teaches Inga at Indiana University. Francisco has come to IU from the Sibundoy Valley in highland Putumayo, Colombia. A native speaker of Inga and an Inga community activist, Francisco co-founded Musu Runakuna, a political action group that works closely with Inga elders to promote Inga language, cultural expression, and land rights. Having received a Masters degree in Linguistics as well as Latin American and Caribbean Studies from Indiana University, Francisco is now enrolled as a PhD student in the department of Folklore. |
Graduate Assistants
 Vannessa Pelaez-Barrios Graduate Assistant 2007-08 |
Vannessa entered the Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology as a Masters student in 2007. She is originally from Bolivia and graduated from the Linguistics Department at the Universidad Mayor de San Simon, Cochabamba-Bolivia. Her research focuses on documenting folktales and the study of Performance in rituals. |
Graduate Students
 J. Eduardo Wolf |
Eduardo is currently a fourth year graduate student in the Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology. He focuses on the music of Latin America, specifically Chile. His Master's work focuses on the history and performative aspects of the Chilean tonada. For his doctorate, he hopes to concentrate on the multiple music cultures of Arica and surrounding areas. This past year he was awarded a FLAS to study Quechua. |  Mintzi Auanda Martinez-Rivera |
Mintzi was born in Chicago, raised in Pátzcuaro, Michoacán, México and educated in San Juan Puerto Rico. She received her B.A. in European History from the University of Puerto Rico-Rio Piedras in 2004. That same year she began an M.A. in Folklore in Indiana University-Bloomington. While completing the last requirements for the M.A. Mintzi is already enrolled in the Ph.D. track in the Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology and in the Department of Anthropology. She aims to graduate in 2011 with a double concentration in Folklore and Anthropology. |  Selina Morales Graduate Assistant 2006-07 more |
Selina entered the Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology as a Masters student in 2006. Her research has focused on cooking and traditional healing in Latin America, she has conducted fieldwork in Puerto Rico, Cuba, Bahia, Brazil and Chiapas and Yucatán Mexico. Currently she is curating a museum exhibit at the Mathers Museum of World Cultures, which focuses on Puerto Rican botánicas and storytelling. |  Michael Grove |
Michael Grove was educated as a computer scientist and is interested in the possibilities and dangers of technology. He is currently a Ph.D. student in Latin American History, and studies the cultural history of technology. He hopes that digital technologies will enable new methods of language preservation and cross-cultural understanding. To this end, he programmed the Pipil Language and Culture CD, worked with Project CAMVA's video preservation effort, and is active in the nascent ML&CP web projects. |  Katherine Forgacs |
Katherine came to Bloomington in 2003 as a Master's student in IU's Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology. Her research interests lie in the material culture and human landscapes of the US and Eastern Caribbean. She learned Haitian Creole at IU and on a Summer FLAS at FIU, subsequently volunteering as a Haitian Creole translator at the 2004 Smithsonian Folklife Festival. She later studied St Lucian Creole at IU with Professor Albert Valdman. For the ML&CP Katherine initiated the ongoing inventory of the IU Creole Institute's unique collection of Creole-language documents from around the world. Her other areas of interest include the architecture, music, and history of the Atlantic Americas. She conducted archaeological and architectural research in St Kitts, Nevis, and St Lucia in 2001, 2002, and 2004, and hopes to return to St Lucia in 2008. |
