Folklore educates students about ghosts, hip-hop

The cobbled streets of Fess Avenue are filled with small, quaint houses that resemble small-town America. \nSome of those houses hold IU’s Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology, a nationally known program.\n“Students from all over the country recognize our department,” said David Shorter, an assistant professor for the folklore department. “I think many students hear about our program from others because we are number one in the nation.”\nShorter teaches an American Indian film and video class, and another one on aliens, psychics and ghosts. \n“Many people think we study old European fairy tales only. We do study that, but we also study many other things, ” he said. “I think people believe we study folklore stories that aren’t true, but that’s not what folklore is about. We study them as viable information for how the world exists for other people.”\nThe aliens, psychics and ghosts class looks at stories about being abducted by aliens. Students also explore ghost stories and develop a strategy to understand them. As a class, students decide whether they think the stories are true or not based on their analysis.\nThe department also offers courses on hip-hop and children’s folklore, both taught by lecturer Fernando Orejuela. The hip-hop course looks at the social perspectives of hip-hop music as it evolved from hip-hop through other stages to what is now known as rap music.\n“A lot of people think they know what hip-hop is, but they don’t,” Orejuela said.\nMany of the classes in the folklore department also involve field work.\n In Orejuela’s children’s folklore class, students work at Templeton Middle School and the Boys and Girls Club of Bloomington, where they receive hands-on experience and learn about how children form their own culture.\n“Many of us do try to give opportunities to go out in the field and do interviews,” Orejuela said. “The student’s goal is to find out what the culture means to the person who creates it.” \nStudents can find many of the folklore and ethnomusicology classes under the “Arts and Humanities” or “Social and Historical” labels when picking classes.