School of Social and Political Science

Profile

 Willow G. Mullins specializes in folklore, the study of vernacular culture, with a special interest in material culture, economics, tourism and museums, foodways, and death.  Mullins has been engaged in a number of research projects leading to publications on  felt; domestic horror and food in Shirley Jackson's novels; the unhomely and Irish national economics in Tana French's Broken Harbor; and a collaborative book on the gaps created by implicit disciplinary boundaries, entitled Implied Nowhere: Absence in Folklore Studies. Her current research largely returns to material culture: centering on the materiality of death and an edited volume on biopolitics, environmental sustainability, and weatherlore. New projects focus on cultural sustainability in domestic life and cultural sustainability in tourism.