Erickson will continue his research of what he calls "the shamanic epic" with special focus on the Finnish national epic, "The Kavevala" and on John Milton's "Paradise Lost." He will also study Milton's poetry within the context of shamanism.
Hosting Erickson will be Juha Pentikainen, chairman of the Department of Comparative Religion at the University of Helsinki and a widely-recognized authority on Nordic shamanism.
Erickson, a specialist in 17th- and 18th-century English literature, has been on the UCSB faculty since 1966.