Erick DuPree, PhD, is a cultural anthropologist, author, and historian of Western esotericism whose research examines the interplay of ritual, identity, and power as articulated through material culture, literary production, and lived practice.
A Victorianist by specialization, DuPree’s scholarship draws on anthropology, gender studies, and the history of esotericism to explore how questions of intimacy, embodiment, and authority shaped cultural practice and intellectual life in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Their current research in occult history investigates how talismans, ritual tools, and devotional images from Victorian ceremonial magic, Rosicrucianism, Spiritualism, and Theosophy carry esoteric meaning.
DuPree earned their doctorate from Queen’s University, where their dissertation examined religious pluralism and eleventh-century Japanese court literature, culminating in a modern translation and analysis of Murasaki Shikibu’s Court Diary and its enduring influence on marriage politics.
Alongside academic research, DuPree writes for wide audiences with work appearing in HuffPost, Tricycle: The Buddhist Review, New York Magazine, The Wild Hunt, Bitch, and Patheos. They are the author of Awaken to Mindfulness: Cultivating Daily Practice & Wellbeing—praised for its accessible approach to meditation—and a contributor to anthologies including Masculinity: An Anthology of Modern Voices and BOLD, as well as editor of Men and the Goddess. DuPree has lectured on mythopoetics at the University of Pennsylvania, taught courses in material culture at the University of the Arts, and served as literary reviews editor for Cleaver Literary Review. Their expertise has extended beyond the academy through consultation for the Netflix docuseries The Toys That Made Us and a feature on A Jaded Gay Podcast (Episode 89: “Beyond the Brawn”).
DuPree lives on the East Coast with their husband and beloved dogs.