Home
Folklorist. Ethnomusicologist. Writer.
Langston Collin Wilkins, PhD. is an Assistant Professor of Folklore and African American Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His research interests include African American folklife, African American music, urban folklore, car culture and public folklore. Dr. Wilkins received his PhD from Indiana University’s Department of Folklore & Ethnomusicology in 2016. He also holds a MA in African American and African Diaspora Studies from Indiana University and a BA in English from the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of Welcome 2 Houston: Hip Hop Heritage in Hustle Town (University of Illinois Press, 2023), which explores the relationship between music creation, place attachment and local heritage within Houston, Texas’ hip hop music scene. His work has also appeared in the Journal of Folklore Research, The Washington Post, Houston Chronicle, and several other publications. From 2019-2022, Dr. Wilkins served as the Director of the Center for Washington Cultural Traditions, a public program that seeks to document and preserve the traditional culture of Washington State. He also served the state of Tennessee through multiple positions in the arts and humanities sector. Dr. Wilkins is also a former executive board member of the American Folklore Society.
