Anthropology of Food and Foodways

Lowell Brower is the former Director of Undergraduate Studies in Folklore and Mythology at Harvard University (2018-2022), and is currently member of the Folklore Program Faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Working at the intersection of folklore, African studies, anthropology, internet studies, and refugee and migration studies, Brower's research focuses on verbal traditions, communal storytelling, cultural re-imagination, and the folklore of emergency amid violence, displacement, and profound social rupture. A speaker of Kiswahili and Kinyarwanda, Brower has conducted long-term ethnographic fieldwork in communities throughout Tanzania and Rwanda. Brower's other research interests include American regional cultures, refugee resettlement, supernatural storytelling, rumor panics, and the weaponization of folklore in digital spaces. Brower earned a PhD in African and African American studies from Harvard University, an MFA in creative writing from the University of Washington, and a BA in English and African languages and literature and English from University of Wisconsin-Madison.