What can Burning Man culture teach us about humanity and human collaboration? Such questions fascinate academic researchers, and an ever-growing body of inquiry and scholarly analysis dives deep into Burning Man culture, unfolding its unique nature as it has emerged in the desert and spread around the world.
FEATURED STUDY: Is Burning Man Transformative?
Cite: Yudkin, D.A., Prosser, A.M.B., Heller, S.M. et al. Prosocial correlates of transformative experiences
at secular multi-day mass gatherings. Nat Commun 13, 2600 (2022).
Notable Research about Burning Man
From comparative religion to business to education, researchers have investigated Burning Man from every angle. Below, a small sampling of the wide array of academic research about Black Rock City and Burning Man.
For a more comprehensive listing, visit Google’s Scholarly Archive.
Bowditch, Rachel (Performance & Ritual)
(2010) On the edge of Utopia: Performance and ritual at Burning Man. Chicago, Il: University of Chicago Press.
Brooks, Caitlin & Soulard, Joelle
(2022). Contested Authentication: The Impact of Event Cancellation on Transformative Experiences, Existential Authenticity at Burning Man. Annals of Tourism Research.
Chen, Katherine K. (Organization & Sociology)
(2009) Enabling creative chaos: The organization behind the Burning Man event. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Clupper, Wendy (Performance Art & Erotic Politics)
(2007) The Performance Culture of Burning Man. Dissertation, Unive
rsity of Maryland, College Park. School of Theatre, Dance and Performance Studies.
Futerfas, Eric (Architecture)
(2025) Denial and Dissolution – Architecture’s Futile Battle Against Entropy. UC Santa Barbara React/Review.
Gauthier, Francois
(2015) Burning Man’s Gift-Driven, Event-Centred Diaspora. Revue du MAUSS permanente, 24 janvier 2015 [en ligne].
Gilmore, Lee (Spirituality & Ritual)
(2010) Theatre in a crowded fire: Ritual and spirituality at Burning Man. University of California Press. Gilmore, L., & Van Proyen, M. (Eds.).
Gomez, Manuel A.
(2013). Order in the Desert: Law Abiding Behavior at Burning Man. Journal of Dispute Resolution.
Hoover, Duane J. (Organization & Management)
(2008) Realizing the artful in management education and development: Smoldering examples from the Burning Man Project. Journal of Management and Organization.
Ji, Yuan (Business Law)
(2013) Burning Man: A case study of altruism thriving in a for-profit organizational form and the rationales for LLC-to-nonprofit conversion. In Hastings Business Law Journal. Vol 9-3. p.449-484. UCLA.
Kehoe, Kara Leeann (Communications)
(2011) Burning Man Was Better Next Year, a phenomenology of community identity in the Black Rock counterculture. California State University, Sacramento. Communication Studies Department.
Kozinets, Robert V & Sherry Jr., John F. (Marketing, Social Media & Consumer Culture)
(2007) Agents in paradise: Experiential co-creation through emplacement, ritualization, and community. Consuming Experiences, ed. Antonella Carù and Bernard Cova, London and New York: Routledge, 17-33.
McCaffrey, Jessica
(2012) Burning Man: Transforming Community through Countercultural Ritual Process. Masters thesis, Concordia University.
McCrae, Kateri S., Heller, Megan, John, Oliver P., & Gross, James J. (Emotional Regulation)
(2011) Context-Dependent Emotion Regulation: Suppression and Reappraisal at the Burning Man Festival. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 33:4, 346-350
Moore, Stephan and Smallwood, Scott
(2013) Sound Art at Burning Man: Sonic Interventions in an Extreme Environment. In Proceedings of the Symposium Musique et écologies du son / Music and ecologies of sound, Universite Paris 8, Paris, May 27-30, 2013.
Moore, Stephan, Ogawa, David and Smallwood, Scott
(2011) Metafiscal Services in the Middle of Nowhere. Radical Aesthetics and Politics: Intersections in Music, Art, and Critical Social Theory, Hunter College, CUNY, December.
Morehead, John W. (Religion and Culture)
(2011) Burning Man Festival: A Life-Enhancing, Post-Christendom, ‘Middle Way’. Saarbrücken, Germany: LAP Lambert Academic Publishing.
Neuhofer, B., Celuch, K., & To, T.
(2020) Experience Design and the Dimensions of Transformative Festival Experiences. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 32(9), 2881–2901.
Neuhofer, B., Egger, R., Yu, J., & Celuch, K.
(2021) Designing Experiences in the Age of Human Transformation: An Analysis of Burning Man. Annals of Tourism Research, 91, 103310.
Pike, Sarah (Comparative Religion)
(2022) Do avatars weep? Ritual and sacred space at virtual Burning Man. Religion, Volume 52, 2022
Radziwill, N. M. & Benton, M. C. (Integrated Science and Technology)
(2013) Burning Man – Quality and Innovation in the Spirit of Deming. Journal for Quality and Participation, April, p. 7-11
Rausser, Gordon & Strielkowski, Wadim
(2023) An Economic Analysis of the Burning Man Festival’s Marketing Evolution. Marketing and Management of Innovations, 14(4), 176–187.
Reisfeld Shafer, Stephanie
(2017) The Impact of Immersion: A Case Study of Burning Man and its Implications for Audience Engagement. American Journal of Arts Management, May 2017 issue
Rohrmeir, Kerry & Starrs, Paul F.
(2014) The Paradoxical Black Rock City: All Cities Are Mad. Geographical Review, 104(2), 153–173.
Rosenbloom, Rebecca E.
(2017) Aural Substance: An Ethnographic Exploration of Regional Burn Soundscapes. MA Thesis, Temple University, 2017
Rowen, Ian
(2020) The Transformational Festival as a Subversive Toolbox for a Transformed Tourism: Lessons from Burning Man for a COVID-19 World. Tourism Geographies, 22(3).
Sherry, John F. Jr.
(2025) bodies at burning man. The Journal of Somaesthetics, 11(1).
St. John, Graham
(2019) At Home in the Big Empty: Burning Man and the Playa Sublime. Journal for the Study of Religion Nature and Culture 13(3):286-313
St John, Graham
(2018) Civilised Tribalism: Burning Man, Event-Tribes and Maker Culture. Cultural Sociology (SAGE)
St John, Graham
(2020) Ephemeropolis: Burning Man, Transformation, and Heterotopia. Journal of Festive Studies, 2(1), 289–322.
St John, Graham & Vitos, Botond
(2021) Wurst Storm Rising: The Dadaist Legacy of Burning Man. Journal of Festive Studies, 3(1)
Turner, Fred (New Media Production)
(2009) Burning Man at Google: a cultural infrastructure for new media production. New Media & Society 11, no. 1-2: 73-94.
White, Carolyn L.
(2020) The Archaeology of Burning Man: The Rise and Fall of Black Rock City. University of New Mexico Press, 2020