S. Megan Mulet
B.A. in Anthropology, Cornell University;
M.A. in Demography, U.C. Berkeley
Fax: 310-206-7833
E-mail:
smmulet@ucla.edu
Subfield
sociocultural and psychological anthropology
Research Interests
culture of Burning Man and experiences of participants, transformation, play, kinship and other relationships, mixed methods, Nepal
Notes
Megan's dissertation research is on the culture of Burning Man and the experiences of participants who attend the annual event in Black Rock City, Nevada. She has been collaborating with scholars and students in multiple departments and campuses, as well as with the festival's organizers, to form an interdisciplinary team of researchers to study social, cultural and psychological aspects of the Burning Man phenomenon. (She is currently accepting applications for research assistants working towards a career in the social sciences.) Megan's previous research was on romance and marriage arrangements in Kathmandu, Nepal. She intends to return to Nepal in order to compare Black Rock City with the sacred Newari city of Bhaktapur and to compare the experiences of festival-goers at Burning Man with those who participate in Hindu and Buddhist festivals in Bhaktapur. These projects investigate the social dynamics of individuals interacting in contexts that facilitate cultural diversity.
Maiden name: S. Megan Heller
The animal (above right) is an Indian pangolin that I photographed in the Himalayan state of Sikkim in the summer of 2006.
Grants and Awards
Graduate Opportunity Fellowship, Department of Demography, U.C. Berkeley, 2003
Eugene Cota Robles Fellowship, University of California, 2004
Summer Research Mentorship Program, mentored by Dr. Douglas Hollan, 2005
Foundation for Psychocultural Research – Culture, Brain & Development Continuing Graduate Fellowship – declined
Interdisciplinary Relationship Science Program, National Science Foundation – Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship, 2005-2007
Foreign Language Area Studies Fellowship, Department of Education, Cornell University, summer 2007
Summer Nepali Program tuition scholarship, Department of Asian Studies, Cornell University, summer 2007
Summer Research Mentorship Program (UCLA Graduate Division), mentored by Dr. Tom Weisner, 2008
Collegium of University Teaching Fellows, UCLA Office of Instructional Development, 2009-2010
Advisors
Doug Hollan, Carole Browner, Tom Weisner, Anne Peplau
Conference Presentations
Panelist, "Playing with Selves and Worlds: Possible Transformations at Burning Man and Beyond", Panel title "Personal Transformation through Cultural Resources", Society for Psychological Anthropology / Society for the Anthropology of Religion Joint Biennial Conference, Asilomar, California, March 2009.
Panelist, “More 'Inside' than the Research Subjects? At Play with Identity at Burning Man,” panel: “Embodied Engagements: Shifting Subjectivities in Ethnographic Practice,” organized by Naomi Leite and Alexis Bunten (UC Berkeley), American Anthropological Association annual meeting, November 2008, San Francisco, California
Presenter, “Burning Man: Nurturing Networks in a Gift Economy,” CSA Conference, Communal Studies Association, September 2006, Marshall, California
Poster, “Nurturing Networks: Lessons from a Gift Economy,” Conference of Personal Relationships, International Association for Relationship Research, July 2006, Rethymno, Crete
Paper, “Burning Man: Transcending the Boundaries of Community and Exchange,” Conference for the Society for the Anthropology of North America, May 2005, Merida, Mexico
Poster, “Romance in Kathmandu,” Population Association of America 2004 Annual Meeting, Boston
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