I presented this paper, “You can do this with mushrooms?!”: Wonder and DIY mycology, at a conference called Wonder and the Natural World, June 20 – 23, 2016, at the University of Indiana, Bloomington. The topic was expressions of wonder and amazement among practitioners of DIY (do-it-yourself) mycology. The paper is based on my field work among such practitioners primarily in the SF Bay Area but also in urban areas in the Pacific Northwest. I discuss how these feelings of wonder are constituted and I consider their origins, inspired by the historical work by Katherine Park and Lorraine Daston and drawing on anthropological inquiry into potentiality.

This conference was hosted by the Indiana University Consortium for the Study of Religion, Ethics, and Society (CSRES).