William W. McCorkle

Dr. Lee McCorkle is an evolutionary and cognitive anthropologist interested in the psychology of human behavior, especially in regard to ritual, language, and communication. Currently, he serves as the Director of Experimental Research at LEVYNA (Laboratory for the Experimental Research of Religion - www.levyna.cz). He earned his PhD from the Institute of Cognition and Culture at the Queen's University, Belfast, one of the world's premiere centers for research on cognition, culture, and religion. He is the author of "Ritualizing the Disposal of Dead Bodies: From Corpse to Concept" (2010) and regularly gives papers and publishes internationally on evolutionary psychology and the cognitive science of religion. He has conducted fieldwork in India and Japan and devised original experiments to test his theory on the ritualized burial of dead bodies by humans. Dr. McCorkle is currently involved in several research projects concerning the evolution of ritual behavior by humans, primates, and other mammals. He is also the Treasurer for the International Association for the Cognitive Science of Religion (IACSR) and is an Associate Professor in the Department for the Study of Religions at Masaryk University (Czech Republic). In early 2013, McCorkle, along with Dimitris Xygalatas, will release an edited volume, "Mental Culture: Classical Social Theory and the Cognitive Science of Religion," and Dr. McCorkle will assume managing editor position for the Journal of Cognitive Historiography (Equinox).

Dr. McCorkle also has released several musical recordings under the acronym Leisure McCorkle. His music has appeared on MTV's reality shows, "The Real World" and "Road Rules."