Department Info

Posted by Elly Fieffer

Main Office: JH 349

Elizabeth Huselton – Dept. Administrator – JH 349A

Dr. Edwards – JH 245

Dr. Jorgensen – JH 249A

Dr. Germano – JH 249B

Dr. Cornell – JH 249C

Dr. Waterhouse – JH 353A

Dr. Overdorf – JH 253B

Dr. Mould – JH 253C

Dr. Nebiolo – JH 253D

Dr. Searcy – JH 253E

Dr. Paradis – JH 349B

Dr. Shahrokhi – JH 349C

Dr. Fletcher – JH 349D

Dr. Andrei – JH 349E

Dr. Hanson – JH 373

Dr. Catalan – JH 373

Dr. Gilmartin – JH 373

Dr. Sluis – JH 375B

Dr. Kvapil – JH 380

Dr. Scarlett – JH 382A

Dr. Deno – JH 382B

Dr. Bungard – JH 382C

 

Meet Dr. Sluis

Posted by Elly Fieffer

Biography 

Dr. Aegis Sluis (she/her/ella) is a professor of Latin American History in the department of History and Anthropology, and affiliate faculty in Race, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (RGSS) and International Studies (IS). She is also currently the Director of Global and Historical Studies at Butler University.

Areas of Research and Scholarship

Dr. Sluis teaches courses on a variety of subjects, but all deal in some way with the interplay of power, culture, identity formations and historical shifts. Her scholarship generally lands at the intersections of gender, space, and the history of the Americas. Her articles can be found  in The Americas, the Journal of Urban History, and the Journal of Transnational American Studies (among others). Her first book titled Deco Body/Deco City: Spectacle and Modernity in Mexico City (University of Nebraska Press, 2016) looks at how new ideas about femininity and female bodies influenced urban reform in Mexico’s capital city in the 1920s and 1930s. Her new project, Warrior Power: Dreaming, Drugs, Death and the Search for Alternate Spirituality in Mexico during the Sixties and Seventies (tentative title), focuses on the interplay between the books and appeal of Carlos Castaneda, the history of anthropology, New Age sensibilities, popular imaginings of Mexico, and indigenismo.

Upcoming and Current Butler Courses

  • HST 101: An Introduction to History & Anthropology
  • HST 213/TI 239-HST: Exploring Latin America
  • PCA 267-HST: Experiencing the City
  • GHS 204: Contact Zones: Latin America
  • HST 301: Historiography 
  • She teaches various topics in History, International Studies, RGSS, as well as directing GALA in 2018 and 2022

Meet Dr. Mould

Posted by Elly Fieffer

Biography

Tom Mould (he/him) is Professor of Anthropology and Folklore. He received his BA in English from Washington University in St. Louis, and his MA and PHD in Folklore from Indiana University. Mould is a Fellow of the American Folklore Society (AFS) and has served on the AFS Executive Board, Chaired the AFS Media and Public Outreach Committee, and serves on the Advisory Boards for the Journal of Folklore Research, and the Mormon Studies Book Series at Farleigh Dickinson University Press.

Before coming to Butler in 2019, he was the J.Earl Danieley Distinguished Professor of Anthropology and Folklore at Elon University where he taught for 18 years and served in various roles including Director of the Honors Program, Chair of the Sociology and Anthropology Department, and Director of PERCS: The Program for Ethnographic Research and Community Studies. 

Areas of Research and Scholarship

Tom Mould teaches and publishes  in the areas of folklore, language and culture, American Indian studies, oral narrative, religious and sacred narrative, contemporary legend, identity, ethnography, genre, and performance theory. In  addition to numerous journal articles, he is the co-editor of two books—The Individual and Tradition (2011) and Latter-day Lore: Mormon Folklore Studies (2013)—and author of four more ChoctawProphecy: A Legacy of the Future (2003), Choctaw Tales (2004), Still, the Small Voice: Revelation, Personal Narrative, and the Mormon Folk Tradition (2011), and Overthrowing the Queen: Telling Stories of Welfare in America (2020), which won the Chicago Folklore Prize and the Brian McConnell Book Award from the International Society for Contemporary Legend Research.

He has also produced video documentaries for public television on folk art and culture in Indiana, Kentucky and North Carolina and has written articles, blogs, and radio stories for a general audience on a range of topics including perceptions of welfare, the American Dream,  unemployment and public assistance, fake news, and the confederate flag.  

For a complete CV, click here. 

Current Research Projects

  • Choctaw Traditions: Life and Customs of the Mississippi Choctaw: This book will explore recent and contemporary traditions among the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians through the personal experience narratives and family histories shared by community members today. This research is based on current ethnographic fieldwork with tribal members as well as archival research. 
  • Internet Memes for Social Justice: This research explores the efficacy of internet memes to work towards social justice, specifically in the area of economic justice around issues of public assistance in the U.S. This research is a spin off from previous work studying the narratives people tell about public assistance in this country and how those stories shape perception and policy. 

Mentored Student Research Projects at Butler 

  • 2022—Ericela Sahagun. “Hispanic Hoosiers: Ethnonym use among the Hispanic population in Indianapolis.” Selected as a Butler Summer Institute Scholar. Departmental Honors Thesis.
  • 2022—Braxton Martorano, Cameron Ellison, Emily Fales, Donald Crocker. “Improving Racial Dialogue and Understanding through Stories.”
  • 2022—Kat Sandefer. “Bird’s Eye View: The Construction of Identity and Community via Social Media of Cirque du Soleil Performers.” Butler Honors Thesis.
  • 2022—Cameron Ellison. “Shaping Perspective: Analysis of Narrated Experiences of Students of Color at a Predominately White Institution..” Departmental Honors Thesis. 
  • 2022 —Kynnedy Masheck. “Russetid: Formal and Informal Rituals in the Norwegian Rite of Passage to Adulthood.” Departmental Honors Thesis. Presented at the annual conference of the Central States Anthropological Society April 25, 2021.
  • 2022—Christopher Luis Paez Reyna. “Land Acknowledgments and Resources for Butler University.”
  • 2021—Ericela Sahagun. “’Pero like…’: An analysis of the use of Chicano English among Hispanic populations in the Midwest.” Butler Summer Institute Scholar, 2020 and 2021. Presented at the annual conference of the Central States Anthropological Society April 25, 2021.
  • 2021—Kat Sandefer. “Constructing Local and Racial Identities Through Supernatural Legends.” 
  • 2021—Cecilia Januszewski. “Coding Choctaw Cultural Traditions.”

Upcoming and Current Butler Courses

  • FYS 101: The Power of Everyday Stories
  • AN 333: Folklore, Culture, and Society
  • AN 338: Language and Culture
  • AN 364: Native American Cultures
  • Topics: Video Ethnography
  • Thesis and Research Advisor

Meet Dr. Kvapil

Posted by Elly Fieffer

Biography

Lynne A. Kvapil (she/her), known by her students as Dr. K, is an archaeologist specializing in ancient Greece and Aegean Prehistory. Her research focuses on the Mycenaean Greeks, particularly farming, warfare, the manufacture of ceramics, and labor organization and management. As an active field archaeologist, Dr. K travels to Greece every summer, where she is the Assistant Director of the Nemea Center of Archaeology Excavations at the Mycenaean cemetery at Aidonia and the Petsas House Excavations at Mycenae. Dr. K has been awarded research funds from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Mediterranean Archaeological Trust to support her ongoing research on the Mycenaean Greeks, and she has been a part of a successful grant-writing team that has been awarded funding from the Archaeological Institute of America and the Loeb Foundation to support the excavations at Aidonia.

Areas of Research and Scholarship

At Butler University, Dr. K teaches in all aspects of the ancient Mediterranean world, but most often she teaches about Ancient Greece, including Ancient Greek language courses, Ancient Greek Art and Myth, Ancient Greek Perspectives. She also teaches upper level courses in Ancient Greek and Roman Art and Architecture and Women in Antiquity. Dr. K is also a co-director of the Ancient Mediterranean Archaeology and Classics (AMCA) lab, which won a 2015 Butler University Innovation Grant and which aims to help put the material culture of the ancient world into the modern classroom.

Upcoming and Current Butler Courses

  • PCA 262 CLA: Greek Art and Myth
  • TI 201 CLA: Ancient Greek Perspectives
  • CLA 322: Art & Architecture of Greece and Rome
  • CLA 323: Women and Antiquity
  • Topics: Archeology of the Dead
  • Elementary, Intermediate, and Advanced Ancient Greek
  • Independent Study Opportunities
  • Study Abroad and Archaeological Field School in Greece