Gregory A. Schrempp

Gregory A. Schrempp (born January 26, 1950) is an Associate Professor of Folklore and Ethnomusicology at Indiana University Bloomington. He is also the Director of the Mythology Studies Program at IUB, which he co-founded with William Hansen. His research interests focus on the mythologies and cosmologies of the Pacific Islands, specifically those of the Māori in New Zealand.

Academic Career

Schrempp received one M.A. in Folklore from Indiana University in 1975 and another in Anthropology from the University of Chicago in 1978; he obtained his Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Chicago in 1987. Schrempp held a faculty position at Wesleyan University in Connecticut from 1985-89, before later coming to Indiana University in 1989.

Publications

Schrempp is the author of Magical Arrows: The Maori, the Greeks, and the Folklore of the Universe (1992), a work in which he examines Māori cosmology and ancient Greek philosophy; this work was an honorable mention for the Chicago Folklore Prize in 1993. Dr. Schrempp also co-edited A Whaikoorero Reader: Comparative Perspectives for the Study of Whaikoorero and Other Traditional Maori Speech Forms (1984) with Robert Te Kotahimahuta and Isla Nottingham; this text encompasses the ethnography of speaking and acts as a resource guide for the study of language. In addition, Dr. Schrempp co-edited Myth: A New Symposium (2002), a compilation regarding the present study of myth, with fellow myth enthusiast and classicist William Hansen.

Research Interests

Schrempp’s research interests, aside from Māori mythology, include: cosmology and worldview, comparative mythology, comparative epistemology, the history of ideas in folklore and anthropology, Oceania, and Native North America. Schrempp has studied “modern mythology” and the mythologizing of science; he is currently working on a manuscript encompassing this research titled: Scientists and Centaurs: A Mythologist Looks at Popular Science Writing.

Courses

In the past five years, Schrempp has taught both undergraduate and graduate courses at IUB that focus upon mythology; such courses include:

  • Undergraduate: Mythology and Culture, What Is Myth?
  • Graduate: Analysis of Myth, Cosmology and Worldview, History of the Study of Folklore, Classics in Comparative Epistemology, Contemporary Approaches to Myth.
  • IU Bloomington Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology Website 1