Eric D. Mortensen, John A. Von Weissenfluh Professor of Religious Studies, has presented papers at several academic conferences this year.
Last April, Eric presented the paper, “The Resurgence of Nature-Based Folk Religion in Light of Ecological Trauma in the Lingering Buddhist Vacuum of Tibetan Communities in Gyalthang,” at the Ecological Spiritualities Conference at the Harvard Divinity School.
In May, he was a return guest on Blake Smith and Dr. Karen Stollznow’s podcast Monster Talk, this time discussing his fieldwork research in southeastern Tibet. If you would like to listen, see “Yeti Stories You’ve Never Heard Before - with Eric Mortensen,” at: https://www.monstertalk.org/253-yeti-stories-youve-never-heard-before-with-eric-mortensen/.
In August, he presented the paper “The Magical Causality of Poison Casting and Cancer among Tibetan Communities of Gyalthang,” at the 16th Seminar of the International Association of Tibetan Studies in Prague, Czechia. In November, Eric presented a paper at the Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religion (AAR) in Denver titled, “The Lake Bull Monster: Dechen Tibetan Folktales about mtsho glang and the Issue of Skepticism.” At the AAR, Eric also served as the respondent for a panel he organized (the second in a series) titled Poison and Poisoners in Religion.
Next month, in early March 2023, Eric will present a paper titled, “Adapting to Engaged Learning under the Sky: Teaching College Courses 100% Outdoors” at the Educating for the Unknown: Liberal Arts in the Age of Climate Change, the 21st Annual Conversation on the Liberal Arts Conference at Westmont College in California.