Dr. Ben Feinberg

Ben Feinberg received a PhD in Cultural Anthropology from the University of Texas at Austin in 1996, and has been a professor at Warren Wilson College since 1997. He has conducted research in the Sierra Mazateca region of Oaxaca, Mexico, for over thirty years—focusing on issues of identity and representation, primarily involving the discourses surrounding the use of psychedelic mushrooms and the exploration and meaning of the area’s vast cave system. He is the author of The Devil’s Book of Culture: History, Mushrooms, and Caves in Southern Mexico (University of Texas Press, 2003).

See the abstract for Ben's presentation, “From the Book of Language to Self-Help Memes: Shifts in Huautla's Role Mediating Mushroom Encounters.”