Senior Lecturer in Folklore
& Mythology
Director of Studies for Special Concentrations
Warren House, Room 103
617-495-8056
Office Hours:
Monday 1:30pm - 3:00pm
Wednesday 3:30pm - 5:00pm
Head Tutor and Senior Lecturer in Folklore and Mythology and Director of Studies for Special Concentrations, Deborah Foster received her Ph.D. in African Languages and Literature with a minor in Dance Performance and Choreography from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She has taught in the African and Asian Institute’s Department of Folklore at the University of Khartoum in Sudan, and in the Dance Department of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Her current research interests
extend and expand on her East African research on Swahili oral narrative
performance. When time permits, she continues translating the nearly three
hundred oral narratives she has collected for publication in a contemporary
volume of Swahili folktales.
Her teaching, for which she draws upon her fieldwork in Africa, responds to the growing demand for African humanities courses in the undergraduate curriculum. She teaches the fall term sophomore tutorial, Fieldwork and Ethnography in Folklore (FM 97a), African Oral Tradition (FM 90b), Women Storytellers in Africa (FM 113), and African Traditions in the Diaspora (FM 116). Her most recent teaching innovation has incorporated her long-standing interest in dance with folklore and cultural studies in a course called Embodied Expression/Expressive Body (FM 114).
(Please see the Courses page for full descriptions)
*Folklore and Mythology 97 (formerly *Folklore and Mythology 97a). Fieldwork and Ethnography in Folklore
Catalog Number: 3789 Enrollment: Limited to 12.
Deborah D. Foster
Half course (spring term). Th., 2–4.
[Folklore and Mythology 113. African Women Storytellers]
Catalog Number: 9418 Enrollment: Limited to 15.
Deborah D. Foster
Half course.
Note: Preference given to Folklore and Mythology and African and African American Studies concentrators. Expected to be given in future academic year.
Folklore and Mythology 114. Embodied Expression/Expressive Body: Dance in Cultural Context
Catalog Number: 7982 Enrollment: Limited to 16.
Deborah D. Foster
Half course (fall term). Th., 1–4; Th., 1–4. EXAM GROUP: 15, 16, 17
[Folklore and Mythology 115 (formerly Folklore and Mythology 90b). The African Oral Narrative Tradition: Seminar]
Catalog Number: 5663
Deborah D. Foster
Half course. Hours to be arranged.
Note: Expected to be given in 2007–08. All readings in English.
*Freshman Seminar 32v. The Art of the Storytelling - (New Course)
Catalog Number: 7011 Enrollment: Limited to 12.
Deborah D. Foster
Half course (spring term). Hours to be arranged.