
Daniel Wojcik
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