Michael Dylan Foster
Associate Professor of Folklore
Office: 506 N. Fess 202
Phone: (812) 855-0395
E-mail: fosterm 
indiana.edu
Curriculum Vitae 
Video Profile 
WFHB Interchange Interview - on Folklore of Fear
Education
- Ph.D. Stanford University, 2003
Research Interests
- Japanese folklore, literature, and film; monster and supernatural studies; legend; folklore and popular culture; ritual and festival; tourism; Asian folklore
Courses Recently Taught
- Readings in Ethnography
- Heritage Tourism in East Asia
- Literary and Historical Methods
- Introduction to Folklore
- Folkloristics in Japan
- Reading & Writing Culture in East Asia
- Tourism: Authenticity and Nostalgia
Awards and Distinctions
- Fulbright Fellowship (2010-11)
- Trustees Teaching Award - Tenure/Tenure-Track (2010-11)
- Outstanding Junior Faculty Award (2010-11)
- Northeast Asia Council (NEAC) of Association for Asian Studies (AAS) Short-term Travel to Japan for Professional Purposes (2009)
- Chicago Folklore Prize; for best book-length work of folklore scholarship (sponsored by the American Folklore Society and the University of Chicago) (2009)
- Indiana University College Arts & Humanities Institute (CAHI) Travel Research Grant; Project: Festival, Fear, and Tourism: Producing and Consuming Heritage in Japan (2009)
- Stanford University Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies Postdoctoral Fellowship in Japanese Studies (2006-08)
- Stanford Humanities Center, Geballe Dissertation Fellowship (2001-02)
- Fulbright Fellowship (Graduate Research Fellow) (1999-2001)
- Blakemore Foundation Fellowship (1995-96)
Publication Highlights
- "Early Modern Past to Post-Modern Future: Changing Discourses of Japanese Monsters." Ashgate Research Companion to Monsters and the Monstrous. Ed. Asa Mittman and Peter Dendle, pp. 133-150. Surrey: Ashgate Publishing, 2012.
- "The UNESCO Effect: Confidence, Defamiliarization, and a New Element in the Discourse on a Japanese Island." Journal of Folklore Research. 48, no. 1 (2011):63-107.
- Pandemonium and Parade: Japanese Monsters and the Culture of Yôkai.
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009). - “Haunted Travelogue: Hometowns, Ghost Towns, and Memories of War.” Mechademia 4: War/Time, (2009): 164-181.
- “What time is this picture? Cameraphones, tourism, and the digital gaze in Japan.”
Social Identities: Journal for the Study of Race, Nation and Culture. 15(3), (2009): 351-372. - “The Otherworlds of Mizuki Shigeru.” Mechademia 3: Limits of the Human, (2008): 8-28.
- “Observing Ritual: Namahage, Toshidon, and the Tourist Gaze.” Proceedings of the
Association for Japanese Literary Studies 8, (Summer 2007): 479-488. - “The Question of the Slit-Mouthed Woman: Contemporary Legend, the Beauty Industry, and Women’s Weekly Magazines in Japan.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 32(3) (2007): 699-726.
- “Strange Games and Enchanted Science: The Mystery of Kokkuri.” The Journal of Asian Studies 65(2) (2006): 251-275.
