Professor
- Phone: (713) 743-2955
- Email: lindahlcarl1@gmail.com
- Office: 224B Roy Cullen Building
Carl Lindahl is a Fellow of the American Folklore Society, a Fulbright Distinguished Scholar, a Folklore Fellow of the Finnish Academy of Sciences, and an internationally recognized authority in folk narrative, medieval folklore, folktales and legends, festivals and celebrations, folklore fieldwork, traditional healing strategies, and ways in which folk cultures seek and exercise covert power. Among the folk cultures he has explored are French Americans (Cajun, Creoles, Canadians, and Caribbean) and the regional cultures of Texas, Appalachia, and the Ozarks.
Swapping Stories: Folktales from Louisiana (1997) was named the Louisiana Humanities Book of the Year by the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities. He has received the Alcée Fortier Award from the American Folklore society, and has won a University of Houston Teaching Excellence Award. Among his books are Earnest Games: Folkloric Patterns in the Canterbury Tales (1987), Cajun Mardi Gras Masks (1997), Perspectives on the Jack Tales (2001), and American Folktales from the Collections of the Library of Congress (2004).
In 2005 he founded Surviving Katrina and Rita in Houston [SKRH], theworld's first project in which disaster survivors have taken the lead in documenting fellow survivors' experience of disaster. He continuesto co-direct SKRH, which has received worldwide recognition for its role in aiding survivors overcome the traumatic effects of hurricanes. He currently serves on the Executive Board of the American Folklore Society and the editorial Board of Fabula: Journal of Folktale Studies.
Education
- Ph.D., Indiana University
- M.A., Indiana University
- B.A., Harvard University
Research Interests
Folk narrative, American folktale, Cajun and Appalachian folk culture, medieval folklore