Profile picture of Daniel Wojcik

Daniel Wojcik

Professor
English
Phone: 541-346-3946
Office: 463 PLC
Office Hours: Winter Term: Mon/Thu 12-1:30pm
Research Interests: Cultural Studies, Folklore Studies, Religion & Mythology

Statement

Ph.D. University of California, Los Angeles, 1992

My interests include "outsider art"/art brut; visionary cultures; trauma and creativity; contemporary folklore studies, urban ethnology, & cultural theory; apocalyptic beliefs and millenarian movements; modern mythologies & vernacular religion; subculture studies; popular eschatology, death, & memorialization; and vernacular artistic expression.

Professional Memberships:

  • American Academy of Religion
  • American Folklore Society
  • Communal Studies Association
  • European Society for the Study of Western Esotericism
  • International Communal Studies Association
  • International Society for Contemporary Legend Research 
  • Société Internationale d’Ethnologie et de Folklore (SIEF)
  • Western States Folklore Society

Research

  • Apocalyptic Beliefs, Millenarianism, and Popular Eschatology
  • Visionary and "Outsider Art"
  • Contemporary Folklore Studies, Cultural Theory, and Urban Ethnology
  • Death, Mourning Rituals, Memory, and Memorialization
  • Vernacular Religion
  • Modern Mythologies
  • Visionary and Apparitional Cultures
  • Subculture Studies
  • Pilgrimage and Spiritual Tourism

Publications

Books and Edited Volumes:

 

1) Artist as Astronaut: The Otherworldly Art of Ionel Talpazan.

2) Vernacular Religion and Contemporary Spiritualities. Traditiones: The Journal of the Institute of Slovenian Ethnology 50 (3), 2021 (co-editors István Povedák & Jurij Fikfak).

3) Outsider Art: Visionary Worlds and Trauma.

4) The End of the World As We Know It: Faith, Fatalism, and Apocalypse in America.  

5) Punk and Neo-Tribal Body Art.

 

Selected Essays:
 

"Inside the Art of Outsiders" (Chapter 1) from the book, Outsider Art: Visionary Worlds and Trauma. [Click here to read]

"Between Madness and Art: Insanity, Therapy, and the Origins of Outsider Art" (Chapter 2) from the book, Outsider Art: Visionary Worlds and Trauma. [Click here to read]

"The Virgin and the Bomb: The Bayside Apparitions, Cold War Anxieties, and Marian Anti-Communism."  In Cold War Mary: Ideologies, Politics, and Marian Devotional Culture, ed. Peter Jan Margry, pp. 231-260. Leuven University Press, 2020. [Click here to read]

"Marian Apocalypticism." In The Oxford Handbook of Mary, ed. Chris Maunder, pp. 648-663. Oxford University Press, 2019.

"Miraculous Photography: The Creation of Sacred Space through Visionary Technology." In Expressions of Religion: Ethnography, Performance, and the Senses, ed. Eugenia Roussou, Clara Saraiva, and István Povedák, pp. 123-153. Zürich: LIT Verlag, 2019.

"A Saxophone Divine: Experiencing the Transformative Power of Saint John Coltrane’s Jazz in San Francisco’s Fillmore District" (co-author Peter Jan Margry). In Spiritualizing the City: Agency and Resilience of the Urbanesque Habitat, ed. Victoria Hegner and Peter Jan Margry, pp. 169-194. Routledge, 2016. [Click here to read]

"Art and Trauma." Raw Vision: International Journal of Intuitive and Visionary Art (Fall 2016): 48-55. Excerpt from the book, Outsider Art: Visionary Worlds and Trauma (Chapter 5). [Click here to read]

"John Coltrane Church (Saint John Will-I-Am Coltrane African Orthodox Church)" (co-author Peter Jan Margry). World Religions & Spirituality Project, 2016. [Click here to read

"Avertive Apocalypticism." In the Oxford Handbook of Millennialism, ed. Catherine Wessinger, pp. 66-88. Oxford University Press, 2011. [Click here to read]

"Spirits, Apparitions, and Traditions of Supernatural Photography." Visual Resources: An International Journal of Documentation 25 (March-June 2009): 109-136. [Click here to read]

"Pre's Rock: Pilgrimage, Ritual, and Runners' Traditions at the Roadside Shrine for Steve Prefontaine." In Shrines and Pilgrimage in Contemporary Society: New Itineraries into the Sacred, ed. Peter Jan Margry. University of Amsterdam Press (2008). [Click here to read] {For photos of Pre's Rock, click here}

"Outsider Art, Vernacular Traditions, Trauma, and Creativity." Western Folklore, no. 2 & 3 (Winter 2008): 179-198.

"Apocalyptic and Millenarian Aspects of American UFOism." In UFO Religions, ed. Christopher Partridge, pp. 274-300. Routledge, 2003.

"The American Apocalyptic Legacy" (Chapter 2) from the book The End of the World as We Know It: Faith, Fatalism, and Apocalypse in America. [Click here to read]

"Secular Apocalyptic Themes in the Nuclear Era" (Chapter 5) from the book The End of the World as We Know It: Faith, Fatalism, and Apocalypse in America. [Click here to read]

"Fatalism and Apocalyptic Beliefs" (Chapter 6) from the book The End of the World as We Know It: Faith, Fatalism, and Apocalypse in America. [Click here to read]

"Polaroids from Heaven: Photography, Folk Religion, and the Miraculous Image Tradition at a Marian Apparition Site,” Journal of American Folklore 109 (1996): 129-48. 

Teaching

  • Apocalypse Now and Then: The End of the World in American Culture and Consciousness
  • Folk Art, Visionary Art, and Material Culture
  • Folklore and Popular Culture
  • Folklore and Religion
  • Folklore and the Supernatural
  • Folklore of Subcultures
  • History and Theory of Folklore Research
  • Introduction to Folklore
  • Visionary Experiences and Otherworldly Encounters: Traditions, Theories, and Contexts