Eric Canin

I received a B.A. in Religious Studies from UC Berkeley in 1982, and a Ph.D. in Anthropology from Columbia University in 1993. I study religious movements and their views of the future, apocalypses large and small, utopias and dystopias, the cultural construction of time, and how myths transform and remain relevant through the use of media technologies. I have a preference for both/and over either/or, such as in the question of structure and agency. My doctoral thesis was a study of progressive Catholics in Nicaragua during the Sandinista revolution, and my latest study involved the shared creation of the Maya ‘end of the world’ phenomena in 2012 by anthropologists, new agers, and Maya in southern Mexico. I am currently concerned with the rise of ‘alt-right’ neo-fascism on college campuses. I have been a member of SWAA since 1999, joined the SWAA board in 2010, and served as SWAA President during 2013-2014.