John Holmes McDowell
Professor of Folklore
Editor, Journal of Folklore Research Reviews
Office: 506 N. Fess 201
Phone: (812) 855-0390
E-mail: mcdowell 
indiana.edu
Website
Folklore of Student Life Website
Curriculum Vitae 
Education
- Ph.D. University of Texas, 1975
Research Interests
- Speech play and verbal art; the corrido of Greater Mexico; music, myth, and cosmology in the Andes; commemoration; folklorization; ethnopoetics; Latin America; the United States
Courses Recently Taught
- Folklore of Latin America
- History of Folklore Study
- Folklore Colloquy
- Latino Folklore
- Folklore of Student Life
- Children’s Folklore
- Myth, Cosmos, & Healing in Latin America
- Ethnopoetics
Awards and Distinctions
- Named Fellow of the American Folklore Society (2004)
- John Simon Guggenheim Fellow: “Poetry and Violence on Mexico’s Costa Chica” (1994)
- National Endowment for the Humanities, Interpretive Research: “Hispanic Folk Poetry in Performance” (1988-90)
- Fulbright Lectureship in Ghana, West Africa (1987-88)
- Fulbright-Hays Faculty Research Abroad Fellowship, Columbia (1978-79)
- Chicago Folklore Prize for Children’s Riddling (1979)
Publication Highlights
- Special Issue Editor. "With His Pistol in His Hand for Fifty Years: Folklore's Genealogies and the Intellectual Legacy of Américo Paredes." Journal of American Folklore. 125 (2012).
- Inga Rimangapa Samuichi: Speaking the Quechua of Colombia. Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, Indiana University, 2011. (With Francisco Tandioy Jansasoy and Juan Eduardo Wolf)
- "Coaxing the Corrido: Centering Song in Performance." Journal of American Folklore. 23 (2010):129-149.
- "The True Lineage of Juan Oso." Journal of Folklore Research. 47 (2010):325-349.
- "Rethinking Folklorization in Ecuador: Multivocality in the Expressive Contact Zone." Western Folklore. 69 (2010):181-210.
- “Traditional Music and Dance of Mexico’s Costa Chica.” EVIADA (Ethnomusicology Video). (Bloomington: Indiana University, 2008).
- Poetry and Violence: The Ballad Tradition of Mexico’s Costa Chica. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2000 ).
- “So Wise Were Our Elders”: Mythic Narratives of the Kamsá. (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1994).
- Sayings of the Ancestors: The Spiritual Life of the Sibundoy Indians. (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1989).
- Children’s Riddling. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1979).
