Filmmakers

Tom Mould is the Earl Danieley Distinguished Professor Professor of Anthropology and Folklore at Elon University and director of PERCS, Elon’s Program for Ethnographic Research and Community Studies. He is the author of three books—Choctaw Prophecy: A Legacy of the Future (2003), Choctaw Tales (2004), and Still, the Small Voice: Revelation, Personal Narrative and the Mormon Folk Tradition (2011)—and the co-edited book The Individual and Tradition (2011). He has also published on issues of generic boundaries, constructed identities, and narrative and performance traditions in a number of cultures, including in American Indian and African-American communities, and in the rural southeast of the U.S. His video documentaries include topics in folklife in Indiana that include morel mushroom hunting, stonecarving, covered bridges, African-American stepping, euchre, the Miami Indian powwow, and quilting, produced with Brooke Barnett. He has also co-produced television episodes on Kentucky pottery and blacksmithing. All of his documentaries have aired on local public television. At Elon University, Mould teaches a video ethnography course where students produce their own video ethnographies, some of which have gone on to win national awards. Mould is currently working on a collaborative research project to understand the effect that contemporary legends about the welfare system in the U.S. have on shaping public opinion and public policy. He hopes to write a book for a general audience that will engage people in a broader discussion about the intersection of folklore and public policy.