Gregory A. Schrempp
Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology Indiana University, Bloomington [email protected] Home: (812) 333-1360
EDUCATION
1987 Ph.D. Anthropology, University of Chicago. Dissertation: "Maori Cosmogonic Thought" (dissertation director, Marshall Sahlins)
1978 M.A. Anthropology, University of Chicago. Thesis: "The Tylorian Appropriation of Müller and the Müllerian Appropriation of Darwin" (thesis director, George Stocking)
1975 M.A., Folklore, Indiana University (Bloomington)
1972 B.A., Anthropology, Washington State University (graduated “With Highest Honors” and Phi Beta Kappa)
TEACHING POSITIONS
2014 - present Professor, Indiana University
2012 – present Affiliated faculty member of IU Ancient Studies Program
1995 - 2013 Associate Professor, Indiana University
1991 - present Joined IU Honors Division for three-year term (1991-94); since then have taught Honors courses periodically (most recently Spring 2013)
1989 - 95 Assistant Professor, Folklore Institute, Indiana University
1985 - 89 Visiting Assistant Professor, Dept. of Anthropology, Wesleyan University, Connecticut
1 ADMINSTRATIVE POSITIONS
1995 – 1997 Associate Director of Graduate Studies, Dept. of Folklore & Ethnomusicology
1998 - 2009 Director of Graduate Studies, Dept. of Folklore & Ethnomusicology
1999 – 2017 Co-Director, then Director, Mythology Studies Interdisciplinary Minor Program, IU
GRANTS AND AWARDS
Research
2017 Indiana University CAHI travel grant ($5,000) for research in New Zealand
2016 Indiana University New Frontiers Experimentation Grant ($13,000) for project “Science the Second Time Around – Phase 2”
2015 Indiana University New Frontiers Experimentation Grant ($13,000) for project “Science the Second Time Around”
2011 Indiana University Office of the Vice Provost for Research Grant-in-Aid ($2,500)
2011 Indiana University Overseas Conference Grant award ($800)
1998 IU Ventures grant proposal for conference "A Symposium on Myth" ($2,100)
1993 Magical Arrows awarded Honorary Mention, Chicago Folklore Prize.
1992 Indiana University International Travel Grant, $600
Teaching
2012-13 IU Trustees Teaching Award ($2,500)
1997 IU Teaching Excellence Recognition Award ($1,250)
1993 Grant for development of IU Topics Course ("What is Myth?") $1,500
1991-94 Three Indiana University course development grants ($3,500 each) to develop Honors Division courses
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Service
2009 Department of Folklore & Ethnomusicology Distinguished Service Faculty Award ($1,000)
PUBLICATIONS
Books (refereed)
2014 Science, Bread, and Circuses: Folkloristic Essays on Science for the Masses. Utah State/University Press of Colorado
2012 The Ancient Mythology of Modern Science: A Mythologist Looks (Seriously) at Popular ScienceWriting. McGill-Queens University Press.
1992 Magical Arrows: the Maori, the Greeks, and the Folklore of the Universe. University of Wisconsin Press.
Booklet (invited, editorially reviewed)
2016. The Science of Myths and Vice Versa. Chicago: Prickly Paradigm Press (a series of booklets on current anthropological topics, marketed by University of Chicago Press).
Co-authored Book in Press
The Truth of Myth, with Tok Thompson. Oxford University Press. Core book for projected series on world mythology.
Edited Books
(refereed)
2002 Myth: A New Symposium, ed. with Wm Hansen. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. (sole author of "Introduction," pp. 1-15)
3 (commissioned)
1984 with Robert Mahuta and Isla Nottingham, A Whaikoorero Reader: Comparative Perspectives for the Study of Whaikoorero and Other Traditional Maori Speech Forms. Hamilton, New Zealand: University of Waikato Press. (textbook on traditional oratory designed specifically for Maori advanced undergraduate and graduate students)
Book Chapters
(refereed)
In press. “Kantian Categories and the Relativist Turn,” in ed. Mario Schmidt et. al., The Social Origins of Thought. Berghan.
In press. “Is Modern Mythology Ancient?” Yearbook of Comparative Literature. University of Toronto Press.
2015 “Science and the Monsterological Imagination: Folkloristic Musings on David Toomey’s Weird Life,” in eds. Michael Foster and Jeff Tolbert, The Folkloresque. Utah State/University Press of Colorado.
2014 “Don’t Yell Fire: the Dawn of Humanity Goes to the Movies,” in ed. Martin Holbraad and Allen Abramson, Cosmologies: Making Contemporary Worlds. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
2002 "David Bidney and the People of Truth" in eds. Gregory Schrempp and William Hansen, Myth: A New Symposium. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, pp. 46-57.
1990 "Antinomy and Cosmology: Kant Among the Maori," in ed. Frank Reynolds and David Tracy, Myth and Philosophy. SUNY Press, pp. 151-180.
1989 "Aristotle's Other Self: on the Boundless Subject of Anthropological Discourse," in ed. George W. Stocking, Jr. Romantic Motives (History of Anthropology, Vol. 6). University of Wisconsin Press, pp. 10-43.
1985 "Tu Alone Was Brave: Notes on Maori Cosmogony," in ed. Antony Hooper and Judith Huntsman, Transformations of Polynesian Culture. Wellington: Polynesian Society, pp. 17-37.
(commissioned)
4 1998 "Distributed Power: A Theme in Native American Origin Stories," in ed. M. Bol, Stars Above Earth Below. Pittsburgh: Carnegie Museum, pp. 15-27.
Journal Articles (refereed)
In press. “Fabling Gestures in Expository Science,” Journal of Folklore Research.
2018 “The Possibility of Life,” Hau: Journal of Ethnographic Theory 8:530-36. (online: haujournal.org)
2011 “Copernican Kinship: An Origin Myth for the Category,” Hau: Journal of Ethnographic Theory 1:103-39. (online: haujournal.org)
2011 “Catching Wrangham: On the Mythology and the Science of Fire, Cooking, and Becoming Human,” Journal of Folklore Research 48:109-32.
2009 “Taking the Dawkins Challenge, or The Dark Side of the Meme,” Journal of Folklore Research.46:91-100.
2007 “Canonizing Creativity: Folkloric Patterns in Motivational Speaking,” Midwestern Folklore 33:37-43.
2005 “Formulas of Conversion: Proverbial Approaches to Technological and Scientific Exposition,” Midwestern Folklore 31:5-13.
1998 "Mathematics and Traditional Cosmology: Notes on Four Encounters," Cosmos 14:211- 26.
1998 "’The Demon-Haunted World’: Folklore and Fear of Regression at the End of the Millennium," Journal of American Folklore 111:247-56.
1996 “Folklore and Science: Inflections of 'Folk' in Cognitive Research,” Journal of Folklore Research 3:191-206.
1995 "Our Funny Universe: On Aristotle's Metaphysics, Oring's Theory of Humor, and Other Appropriate Incongruities," Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 8:219-228.
1983 "The Re-education of Friedrich Max Müller: Intellectual Appropriation and Epistemological Antinomy in Mid-Victorian Evolutionary Thought," Man (N.S.) 18: 90- 110.
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Published as Conference Proceedings
2012 “Traditional Origin Myths and Modern Science: A Mythologist’s Response to Primack and Abrams’ The View from the Center of the Universe.” In ed. Zongfu Zhao, Kunlun shenhua yu shijie chuangjie shenhua guoji xueshu taoluntan: Lunwenji (Papers Presented at the International Conference on Kunlun Myths and World Creation Myths), pp. 227-34. Xining: Quinghai renmin chuanbanshe (Qinghai People’s Press).
1996 "Dimensions of Worldview," keynote address (pre-circulated) for International Society for Folk Narrative Research 5-year meeting (Innsbruck, Austria), July 1992. Published in conference proceedings, Folk Narrative and Worldview: Vorträge des 10. Kongresses der Internationalen Gesellschaft für Volkserzählungsforschung (P. Lang).
Notes (invited)
2016 “Xenophanes Unbound.” Invited contribution to forum “Voicing the Ancestors: Readings in Memory of George Stocking,” ed. Richard Handler, in Hau: Journal of Ethnographic Theory 6:3, 381-83.
2012 “Mythology and Science; or, What Do We Want From Popular Science.” Invited contribution to Huffington Post [Science section, Oct 2012] (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gregory-schrempp/myths-and-science_b_1949316.html)
2009 with Moira Smith, “An Editorial Conundrum,” Journal of Folklore Research 46:1-2.
1998 “Two Distances, Two Terms,” in “Perspectives” section of Folklore Forum 29:76-78.
1989 "Making/Breaking: Notes on Writing Culture," in "Research and Methodology Notes" of Journal of Folklore Research 26:229-35.
1988 "Comparative Studies and the Scholarly Conscience," in "Open Forum" of Folklore Forum 21:225-29.
Major Encyclopedia Entries
2012 with Daniel Peretti, “Weltzeitmythen” entry for Enzyklopädie des Märchens (Gottingen)
6 2009 “Totemismus” entry for Enzyklopädie des Märchens (Göttingen)
2005 with Hasan El-Shamy, "Union of Opposites" entry for Archetypes and Motifs in Folklore and Literature: A Handbook (eds. Jane Garry and Hasan El-Shamy)
1997 "Comparative Mythology" entry for Encyclopedia of Folklore (ed. Thomas Green)
1996 "Maori" entry for Enzyklopädie des Märchens (Göttingen)
1996 "Mythology" entry (10 pages typeset) for Book of Knowledge encyclopedia (Grolier); also supplied original sketches and suggestions that publisher drew upon for the artwork.
Work under Review
“Mythology Begins With Science,” invited chapter in proposed handbook on emerging technologies, sponsored by the EU egalitarianism project centered at University of Bergen, Norway.
“Mythic Digressions in Science,” invited contribution to book organized by the “Digressions Project” of University of Aarhus, Denmark.
Book Reviews
2006 Sandra Dolby, Self-Help Books (Journal of Folklore Research)
2005 Anna-Leena & Jukka Siikala, Return to Culture (Fabula)
2003 Andrew Von Hendy, The Modern Construction of Myth (Western Folklore)
2002 Candace Slater, Entangled Edens (Journal of Folklore Research booknotes)
1994 Stanley Tambiah, Magic, Science, Religion and the Scope of Rationality (American Ethnologist)
1992 Thomas Crump, The Anthropology of Numbers (American Ethnologist)
1991 Robert Craig, Dictionary of Polynesian Mythology (Journal of American Folklore)
1981 F. Allen Hanson, Studies in Symbolism and Cultural Communication (Journal of Polynesian Society)
7 INVITED PRESENTATIONS
Fully-funded participant in “Digressions Workshop,” Aarhus University, Denmark (August 2017). Presented paper “Mythic Digressions in Science.”
Fully-funded participant in European Commission Advanced Project “Egalitarianism: Forms, Processes, Comparisons,” London (July 2017). Presented paper, “Mythology Begins with Science.”
Fully-funded participant in “Practice, Effervescence, Rhythm: Technologies of Categorization and the Legacy of the Durkheimian School,” University of Cologne (May 2017). Presented paper, “Kantian Categories and the Relativist Turn: A Comparison of Three Routes” (May 2017).
“Should We Re-Mythologize the Cosmos?” Invited (fully funded) presentation sponsored by the Dept. of Anthropology, Brigham Young University (October 2011).
Fully-funded participant in “International Forum on Kunlun Myths and Creation Myths Around the World,” sponsored by Qinghai Academy of Social Sciences, Xining City, China (July 2011). Presented paper “Traditional Origin Myths and Modern Science.”
Fully-funded participant in workshop “Contemporary Cosmologies and the Cultural Imagination,” Department of Anthropology, University College London (May 2011). Presented paper, “Don’t Yell Fire: The Dawn of Humanity Goes to the Movies.”
“Scientific Recastings of Traditional Origin Myths.” Invited presentation (with honorarium) sponsored by the Traditional Cosmology Society, University of Edinburgh (May 2011).
“Scientific Fire Myths: A Lévi-Straussian Analysis of Four Variants.” Invited presentation for symposium “After 100: The Legacy of Claude Lévi-Strauss, Indiana University (October 2010).
Fully-funded participant in panel on "War." "Mythic Journeys" conference sponsored by The Mythic Imagination Institute (June 2004, Atlanta).
"Documenting Human Insignificance: The Idea of the Copernican Revolution in Popular Science Writing." Invited presentation (with honorarium) UCLA (June 2002).
Invited (funded) to speak to Anthropology Department, University of Chicago, at retirement of Prof. George Stocking (May 2000).
"Gods and Homunculi: Polarity in Anthropomorphic Imagination and Error." Invited
8 presentation (with honorarium) UCLA (June 1999).
"The Origin of Cooking Fire: Scientific Tests Confirm Ancient Myth." Invited presentation, Department of Anthropology, University of Chicago, conference in memory of Valerio Valeri (April 1999).
"Boas and Durkheim: 'Matter' and 'Spirit' in Loose vs. Tight Formation." Paper presented as part of invited session in honor of George Stocking, American Anthropological Association Annual Meetings, Fall 1997.
Invited presentation to Folklore Program faculty/students at University of Oregon (Eugene) on ongoing research in comparative cosmology, February 1997.
“The Demon-Haunted Universe: Folklore and Fear of Degeneration at the End of the Millennium.” Paper given as part of invited plenary session (“What’s In a Name?”), American Folklore Society Annual Meeting, October 1996.
“Cosmologies of Kinship in the Age of Science.” Paper presented at colloquium sponsored by Dept. of Anthropology and School of Maori Studies, Victoria University of Wellington, April 1996.
"Cosmologies of Kinship in the Age of Science." Paper presented at Dept. of Anthropology Seminar Series, University of Auckland, March 1996.
Fully-funded participant in panel "The Age and Fate of the Universe: Why They Matter." Harvard University Center for the Study of World Religions, October 1995.
“Theories of Projection in Myth, Metaphor and Science.” Presentation at IU anthropology Department Works-in-Progress Roundtable (December 1995).
"Dimensions of Worldview," Keynote Address (pre-circulated) for International Society for Folk Narrative Research 5-year Meeting [Innsbruck, Austria] (July 1992).
"Aristotle and the Maori 'Kinship I'," presentation in faculty/student seminar, University of Auckland, July 1990.
Fully-funded participant in a three-year (6 meetings total, 1986- 89) symposium on comparison of religions organized by the University of Chicago Divinity School. Spring 87 presented paper "Experiments in Eliatic Anthropology."
"Antinomy in Cosmogonic Thought; Kant Among the Maori," fully funded presentation at University of Chicago Dept. of Anthropology "Monday Seminar," Spring 1987.
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CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS
Participant in panel on Folklore and Science, “The Future of American Folkloristics” conference, Indiana University, 2017.
“Fabling Gestures in Expository Science,” American Folklore Society/International Society for Folk Narrative Research Joint Meeting, 2016.
“Myth as Classic Category and as Fuzzy Set,” American Folklore Society Annual Meeting 2013.
“Lucretius and the Wonders of Science,” American Folklore Society Annual Meeting 2012.
“Science Fundamentalism: Problems in Re-Mythologizing the Universe,” American Folklore Society Annual Meeting 2011.
“How Scientists Save Myth,” American Folklore Society Annual Meeting 2010.
“Origin Scenarios: Mythic and Scientific,” American Folklore Society Annual Meeting 2009.
“Toy Trains, the Dark Side of Humanity, and the Sad Tale of Indiana’s AMT Line,” Hoosier Folklore Society Annual Meeting 2009.
“Taking the Dawkins Challenge: Memes and Myths in the Commonwealth of Science,” American Folklore Society Annual Meeting 2008. Also chaired the session (“Science and the Environment”).
“Lord of the Meme: Richard Dawkins and the Folk Literature of Science,” Hoosier Folklore Society Annual Meeting 2008.
“Canonizing Creativity: A Folkloristic Foray into the World of Motivational Speaking,” Hoosier Folklore Society Annual Meeting 2006.
"Formulas of Conversion: A Proverbial Approach to Technological and Scientific Exposition," Hoosier Folklore Society Annual Meeting 2004.
"Documenting Human Insignificance: The Copernican Revolution in Folkloric Perspective," American Folklore Society Annual Meeting 2002.
Organizer and Chair of panel "Kinship Extended: Familial Forms in Myth, Metaphor and Science," American Folklore Society Annual Meeting 2000. Presented paper "Categories as Bodies and as Kin."
10 Organizer and chair of panel "Folklore, Science, and Cognitive Science II" at American Folklore Society Annual Meeting" 1999. Presented paper "The Conscious Self as Cognitive Mesocosm."
“The Origin of Cooking Fire and You: Notes on Cosmological Rhetoric,” American Folklore Society Annual Meeting 1998
"The Size of the Sun: The Projection of the Human Scale in Traditional Cosmology," American Folklore Society Annual Meeting 1995, "Performance and Perspective" session. Served as session chair.
Co-organizer/Co-chair (with Ruth Stone) of panel "Philosophy in Folklore and Ethnomusicology" for American Folklore Society/American Society for Ethnomusicology annual Meetings 1994. Presented paper "The Structure of the category: A Folkloric- Philosophic Dialogue."
"Philosophies of Familiar Form: Juxtapositions of Folklore and Philosophy," American Folklore Society Annual Meeting 1993, "History of Ideas in Folklore" session. Served as session chair.
Organizer and Chair of panel "Folklore and Cosmology," American Folklore Society Annual Meetings 1992. Presented paper "Answering the Unanswerable; Folklore and the Study of Cosmology". Also served as discussant for "Folklore and Universals" panel.
“Motion and Maori Metahistory,” American Society for Ethnohistory Annual Meeting, 1991.
“The Great Race in North America,” American Folklore Society Annual Meeting, 1990.
"The Maori Transformation of Proto-Polynesian Cosmogony," Social Sciences Section, XV Pacific Science Congress, Dunedin, New Zealand, February 1983.
TEACHING EXPERIENCE
Teaching Specializations
Folklore, Mythology, Popular Science
History of Folkloristic, Anthropological, Ethnographic, and Mythological Theory
Comparative Mythology, Theory of Narrative
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Comparative Cosmology and Worldview
Comparative Epistemology (special interest in relationships between “myth,” “religion,” “folklore,” “philosophy,” “science”)
Great Books Curriculum
Polynesian/Oceanic Mythology and Ethnology
Native American Mythology and Ethnology
Doctoral Dissertations
Director of 3 completed dissertations: Elizabeth Locke, Andrew Kolovos, Daniel Peretti
Co-director of 3 completed dissertations: Ilana Harlow, Judith Neulander, Kate McKenzie
Member of 31 additional dissertation committees, completed
Member of 6 additional dissertation committees, in-progress
SERVICE
Editorial Posts
2011- 17 Member, Editorial Board of Hau: Journal of Ethnographic Theory.
2010-16, 1993-97 Member, Special Publications Board of Folklore Institute;
1997-99, 1990-94 Advisory Editor for Journal of Folklore Research
International
Have refereed manuscripts for Journal of the Polynesian Society (New Zealand), Oceania (Australia), Hau: Journal of Ethnographic Theory (England/France), Folklore (England), Cosmos (Scotland), Anthropologica (Canada), Cultural Anthropology (USA), History of Religions (USA), Anthropological Linguistics (USA), Journal of Folklore Research (USA), McGill Queens University Press (Canada), and Pickering and Chatto reprint
12 publishers (England),
National
2006 Judge for Wayland D. Hand Prize for Outstanding Publication in Folklore and History.
1999 Conference Co-chair and Organizer, A Symposium on Myth (national conference held at IU)
1992 Co-Chair (with Sue Tuohy) of Program Committee for the 1992 Annual Meeting of the American Folklore Society (Jacksonville, Florida).
1992 Member American Folklore Society Meetings Committee.
University
2012 In connection with Fall semester themester course (F210 Myth, Legend, and Popular Science), took part in planning session, on-line discussions, and other preparatory activities around themester theme (Good Behavior, Bad Behavior: From Molecules to Morality)
2002 Member of Woodrow Wilson roundtables on “re-envisioning the Ph.D.” (Dean Kintgen, Chair)
2002 Interviewed by IU Art Museum staff and submitted proposals regarding make-over of Oceania section of museum
1998 with William Hansen established interdisciplinary graduate minor in Mythology Studies
1992 - 95 Member Patten Lecture Committee, Indiana University
1991 - 94 Various tasks associated with 3-year term in Honors Division (including reviewing research, internship, and creative activity grant proposals for honors students, and speaking at information day for prospective students)
1992 - Departmental representative to “Teaching for a More Diverse Classroom” workshop series
Departmental
13 2018, 2017, 2012 – 2015, 2010 Elected Member Faculty Affairs Committee (Chair 2013/14)
2012 - 18, 1995 – 1997 Member Graduate Affairs Committee
2014 – 2018 Course Outcomes Committee
2011 - 2016 Chair Fellowship and Awards Committee
2012 – 13, 2016 Elected Member Faculty Merit Committee
2012 Elected Member Executive Committee (for 2012/13 year)
2017, 2016, 2015, 2011, 2005 Member of tenure/promotion committees
2010, 2015, 2016 Visitation and peer-review teaching evaluation for Folklore colleagues
2009 Member Scheduling Committee
2008 Co-chair of committee to explore Dual M.A. between Folklore/Ethnomusicology and AAADS
1998 – 2009 Director of Graduate Studies and Chair of Graduate Affairs Committee
2005, 1994 Member Folklore Colloquium Series Committee
2003 Member Long-Range Planning Committee
2001 Member Committee to judge Dorson paper prize
2000 Member committee to evaluate undergraduate service courses
1998 – 1999 Member task force on restructuring of department
1990 – 93 Scheduling Officer
1990 – 92 Special Projects Committee
1990 – 92 Department Scribe
1989 – 91 Admissions Committee
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