PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR

As part of the DEAGENCY project, I am investigating the changing role of the agency of the dead in Muslim rural communities in central Bosnia. I am investigating how changing lifestyles, family and social relationships, and changing values and norms within rural communities are reflected in the role of the agency of the dead in the lives of individuals.

I am Professor of Folkloristics at the Department of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology of the Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. I currently serve as a president of the International Society for Folk Narrative Research (ISFNR) (2024-2028). I was Chair of the Committee of Belief Narrative Network (BNN) at the International Society for Folk Narrative Research (2013-2020) and a member of the Executive Committe of the ISFNR (2020-2024). I am a member of the Executive Committees of Traditional Cosmology Society (since 2007) and Executive Committee member of the Commission for Folkloristics of the International Committee of Slavicists (since 2020). From 2010-2016 I was an editor-in-chief of the journal Cosmos (Edinburgh). I have been a member of twelve editorial boards of international scientific journals, including Fabula (Berlin), Cosmos (Edinburgh), Ethnologia Slavica et Slovaca (Bratislava), Ethnoanthropozoom (Skopye), Studia mythologica Slavica (Ljubljana).

I have received several scholarships, including an Alexander von Humboldt fellowship, which supported my research at universities and institutes in Göttingen, Mannheim and Regensburg.

I have published seven books and (co)edited three and published numerous papers.

MAIN PUBLICATIONS

ORCID: 0000-0001-6539-7086

Mencej, Mirjam (2017). Styrian Witches in European Perspective. Ethnographic Fieldwork. London: Palgrave Macmillan / Springer.

Mencej, Mirjam (2013). Sem vso noč lutal v krogu. Simbolika krožnega gibanja v evropski tradicijski kulturi.

(I was wandering in circles the whole night long. The symbolism of circular movement in European traditional culture). Ljubljana: ZRC SAZU.

Mencej, Mirjam (2001). Gospodar volkov v slovanski mitologiji (The Master of the Wolves in Slavic Folklore). Ljubljana: University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Arts.

Mencej, Mirjam (with Willem de Blécourt), eds. (2023). Werewolf legends. Palgrave historical studies in witchcraft and magic. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan / Springer.

Mencej, Mirjam (with Éva Pócs), eds. (2024). Special issue of the journal Religions: Communication with the dead.

Mencej, Mirjam (2023). Werewolves as social others: contemporary oral narratives in rural Bosnia and Herzegovina. In: Werewolf legends. Palgrave historical studies in witchcraft and magic. Willem de Blécourt and Mirjam Mencej, eds. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. Pp. 183-208.

Mencej, Mirjam (2021). The dead, the war, and ethnic identity: ghost narratives in post-war Srebrenica. Folklore 132 (4): 412-433.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/0015587X.2021.1905380, doi: 10.1080/0015587X.2021.1905380.

Mencej, Mirjam (2019). Bosnian shehidi. Traditional narratives and their contemporary uses. In: Present and Past. Contemporary and Historical Perspectives in the Anthropological Study of Religious Life. Éva Pócs, Ágnes Hesz, eds. Budapest: Balassi. Pp. 269-296.

Mencej, Mirjam (2018). Something Came Over Him. Narratives on Being “Carried by Witches” and Altered States of Consciousness. Preternature, Vol. 7, No. 1: 50-87.

Mencej, Mirjam (2017). How and Why to Talk about Witchcraft? Discourses on Witchcraft and Uses of Bewitchment Narratives in 21st Century Rural Eastern Slovenia. Temenos 53/1: 143-179. https://journal.fi/temenos/article/view/65139