Folklore: narrative, performance, the ethnography of communication, Islam, Central Asia and the Middle East
Benjamin Gatling (Ph.D., Ohio State University) is a folklorist specializing in the expressive culture of Central Asia and the Middle East. Prior to coming to Mason, he held a postdoctoral fellowship in the Thompson Writing Program at Duke University.
Expressions of Sufi Culture in Tajikistan, University of Wisconsin Press, 2018.
“Historical Narrative, Intertextuality, and Cultural Continuity in Post-Soviet Tajikistan,” Journal of Folklore Research 53.1(2016): 41-65.
“Abdulhaĭ Mujaxarfī and the Contemporary Reception of Tajik Oral Poetry.” In Iranian Languages and Literatures of Central Asia: From the 18th Century to the Present, eds. Matteo De Chiara and Evelin Grassi, Paris: Association pour l’Avancement des Études Iraniennes (Cahiers de Studia Iranica, 2015), 207-231.
“The Guide after Rumi: tradition and its foil in Tajik Sufism,” Nova Religio 17.1(2013): 1-23.