Teaching Assistant Professor - Social/Cultural Studies

Email: ksawden@mun.ca

Phone: (709) 639-2392

 

Research interests/expertise

My research is centered on exploring the presence and value of the supernatural in all aspects of life. I am currently completing work with divination practitioners to understand the ongoing relevance of divination in contemporary Canadian societies. Additionally, I examine the ways in which folklore about belief and the numinous is utilised within different forms of storytelling, especially in popular culture. Within all of my research I pay attention to the concepts of authenticity and truth and how they are defined, perceived, and complicated by people’s experiences and narrations of the supernatural.

 

Teaching

I teach a range of undergraduate courses that offer overviews of the discipline of Folklore as well as more specialised topics in both Folklore and Anthropology. Classes like Introduction to Folklore and Folklife familiarise students with the concepts, history, and methodologies of Folklore, while those including Oral Literature, Newfoundland Folklore, Language and Play, The Anthropology of Food, Supernatural Folklore, Folklore and Popular Culture, and Folk Religion allow for a deeper exploration of specific aspects of culture and cultural studies.

 

Representative scholarly contributions

• 2024. “One by friend, one by foe, and one by family”: How Prophecies and Curses Influence Identity Construction in the World of The Vampire Diaries.” In Vampires Fully Alive: The Vampire Diaries as Postmodern Storytelling, eds. Kimberley McMahon-Coleman, Iris-Aya Laemmerhirt, and Nina Vanessa Weber. 182-196. Jefferson: McFarland.
• 2024. “Say it Again: Belief and Narrative Repetition in the Candyman Stories.” Journal of Gods and Monsters 4, no. 1: 14-28.
• 2023. “Discovering Truth: Found Footage Horror and Systems of Knowing.” Horror Homeroom 7: 102-110.
• with Saeedeh Niktab Etaati. 2023. “Constructing Grief: Processing Tragedy through the
• Ritualization of Embroidery.” Peace Review: A Journal of Social Justice 35, no. 2: 264-273.
• 2020. “‘I have my version and you have yours’: Folklore, Narrative, and the (Re)Telling of Supernatural.” In Supernatural Out of the Box: Essays on the Metatextualityof the Series, eds. Lisa Macklem and Dominick Grace. 135-150. Jefferson, NC: McFarland.
• 2018. “This I Know to be True: Ethnology, Divination, and the Processes of Authenticity.” Ethnologies 40, no. 2: 93-110.
• 2017. “A Shared Inheritance: The Interrelationship Between Divination and Charming in 21st Century Canada.” Incantatio: An International Journal on Charms, Charmers and Charming, 6: 117-136.