Fungi in popular culture reconsidered: Four more-than-human entanglements
The result's identifiers
Result code in IS VaVaI
<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F00216208%3A11210%2F25%3A10505282" target="_blank" >RIV/00216208:11210/25:10505282 - isvavai.cz</a>
Result on the web
<a href="https://verso.is.cuni.cz/pub/verso.fpl?fname=obd_publikace_handle&handle=uoHvRjZQRs" target="_blank" >https://verso.is.cuni.cz/pub/verso.fpl?fname=obd_publikace_handle&handle=uoHvRjZQRs</a>
DOI - Digital Object Identifier
<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/13675494251384046" target="_blank" >10.1177/13675494251384046</a>
Alternative languages
Result language
angličtina
Original language name
Fungi in popular culture reconsidered: Four more-than-human entanglements
Original language description
This article challenges the enduring binary of mycophilia and mycophobia, introduced by R. Gordon Wasson in 1957, which has long framed cultural perceptions of fungi. While the dichotomy distinguishes between cultures that embrace fungi as edible and culturally meaningful, and those that regard them with suspicion or fear, it remains rooted in anthropocentric assumptions. I argue that the conceptual opposition between mycophilia and mycophobia reflects an anthropocentric view of nature-culture entanglements by centring human affective responses and positioning fungi as mere passive projections of these emotions. The article first outlines relevant ethnomycological and posthumanist scholarship before analysing how these four entanglements reflect shifting environmental imaginaries in history and contemporary popular culture. Drawing on cross-cultural analysis of literature, film, television, and visual culture, this paper proposes a new framework for understanding human-fungal relations through the lens of more-than-human entanglements. I identify four such distinct human-fungal entanglements that transcend the mycophilia-mycophobia divide: (1) nationalised identity of the human, (2) the infantilized magic of mushrooms, (3) fungal horror and (4) environmental myco-optimism. These categories capture how fungi emerged in popular culture both as anthropomorphised, decorative elements and metaphorical instruments for reflecting human community and conflict, but also as agents that complicate human exceptionalism and invite new imaginaries of environmental sensitivity, identity and multispecies coexistence.
Czech name
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Czech description
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Classification
Type
J<sub>imp</sub> - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the Web of Science database
CEP classification
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OECD FORD branch
60101 - History (history of science and technology to be 6.3, history of specific sciences to be under the respective headings)
Result continuities
Project
<a href="/en/project/LX22NPO5101" target="_blank" >LX22NPO5101: The National Institute for Research on the Socioeconomic Impact of Diseases and Systemic Risks</a><br>
Continuities
P - Projekt vyzkumu a vyvoje financovany z verejnych zdroju (s odkazem do CEP)
Others
Publication year
2025
Confidentiality
S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů
Data specific for result type
Name of the periodical
European Journal of Cultural Studies
ISSN
1367-5494
e-ISSN
1460-3551
Volume of the periodical
28
Issue of the periodical within the volume
Neuveden
Country of publishing house
US - UNITED STATES
Number of pages
18
Pages from-to
1-18
UT code for WoS article
001614262700001
EID of the result in the Scopus database
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