Katherine Borland is the Director and Graduate Studies Advisor at the Center for Folklore Studies, and Associate Professor in the Department of Comparative Studies. 

She studies and teaches about the artfulness of ordinary life, and the ways in which traditional expressive arenas constitute contested terrain. In 2013, she published International Volunteer Tourism: Critical Reflections on Good Works in Central America (co-edited with Abigail E. Adams, Palgrave).  Subsequently, she has published a number of essays on a range of subjects in narrative research, service-learning models, diverse environmentalism, and interrogating race in folklore and in the folklore classroom. 

In her teaching she works to develop and hone student’s interpretive, synthesizing and analytic skills through shared inquiry, team research and writing.  She is a passionate advocate of both experiential and discussion-based pedagogies.