Mario Katić, dr. sc.

Biography

Prof Mario Katić, PhD, (Odžak, 1984) is a Croatian ethnologist, cultural anthropologist, historian and an Associate Professor at the Department of Ethnology and Anthropology, University of Zadar. In his scientific work, he focuses on the anthropology of death, pilgrimages, historical oral traditions and historical anthropology.

Funerary customs and the mirila of the Dalmatian Hinterland occupy an important place in his research. Through many years of field and archival research, he studied mirila within the broader context of attitudes towards death, beliefs, community and space. The result of this research is the 2017 book Death in Dalmatian Hinterland: Mirila from Ritual to Theatre.

He continues his research into mirila using an interdisciplinary approach. Together with Marin Ćurković, he edited the book Mirila in Context, which places the phenomenon of mirila within the social, cultural, spiritual and landscape framework of Bukovica, Ravni Kotari and southern Velebit.

Selected works

• Death in Dalmatian Hinterland: Mirila from Ritual to Theatre (2017)

• Applying Contextual Analysis: The Example of Mirila of the Dalmatian Hinterland (2016)

• Mirila in context (eds. Mario Katić and Marin Ćurković, 2026)