Folklorist and ethnographer Jason Jackson has a refined eye and a passion for discovering beauty in everyday objects. When asked to choose a “thing of beauty,” Jackson selected a woven basket made by Cherokee artist Rowena Bradley in the 1970s.The basket’s unique beauty, as Jackson sees it, derives not only from the artistry reflected in the object, but from a complex web of history and meaning surrounding it.
Jason Baird Jackson is a professor of folklore who teaches courses on curatorship and theories of material cultures in the IU Bloomington College of Arts and Sciences’ Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology. He serves as director of IU’s Mathers Museum of World Cultures, which holds collections of over 30,000 objects and 10,000 photographs representing cultures from each of the world's inhabited continents.
View faculty profile
Faculty guests: Roger Hangarter, Jason Jackson, Ellen MacKay, Catherine Pilachowski, Kate Rowold, Eric Sandweiss and Betsy Stirratt; host Claire Repsholdt; editor and producer Jon Pieczynski; John Lucaites, associate dean for Arts and Humanities and Undergraduate Education; Tracy Bee, director of Academic Initiatives, College of Arts and Sciences; Themester 2016 Faculty Advisory Committee; The College of Arts + Sciences, Indiana University Bloomington.
The College of Arts