Professor
Linguistics
Andrew Cowell works on Native American languages, oral literatures, and performance, as well as the same topic in Polynesia. The topic of origins comes up repeatedly in Native American and Polynesian oral narratives, in many different genres and contexts. He is currently examining several Arapaho origins narratives that recount the origins of various pow-wow dance styles. Cowell has also done previous work on medieval European literature and anthropology, where he explored the origins of the concept of 'profit' and 'markets' in the modern sense of the term during the 12th and 13th centuries, and the connection of these to the idea of 'play'.