Raymond Radford
Raymond Radford is a PhD candidate in the department of Studies in Religion at the University of Sydney. His dissertation focuses primarily on far-right and white supremacist conspiracy theories and how these theories are utilised in the creation of both history and narratives surrounding these groupings. His other work focuses on memory studies, the studies […]
Stretching Good Faith: A Response to Candy Gunther Brown
If Candy Gunther Brown’s work is so divergent with her peers in academia, how does one contextualize her understanding of yoga and her approach to it? In keeping with Bender’s assessment that Brown “exemplifies the ‘caveat emptor’ genre of popular writing about CAM,” I would argue that Brown’s writings on yoga are most similar to the genre of Christian-based criticism of yoga.
David Feltmate
David Feltmate is Associate Professor of Sociology at Auburn University at Montgomery. His research areas include the Sociology of Religion, Religion and Popular Culture, Humor Studies, Social Theory, New Religious Movements, and Religion and Family. He has published in a variety of journals and his book Drawn to the Gods: Religion and Humor in The […]
Elisha McIntyre
Dr Elisha McIntyre holds a PhD in Studies in Religion from the University of Sydney. Her research interests come under the broad umbrellas of religion and popular culture and New Religious Movements. She has published articles on Hillsong Church, religious kitsch and Christian and Mormon film. She has lectured and tutored for the Department of […]
Adam J. Powell
Adam Powell is COFUND Junior Research Fellow in Durham University’s Department of Theology and Religion. His research and publications involve sociological theories of identity, particularly the work of Hans Mol, and the application of such theories to Mormonism and other new religious movements. He is the author of Irenaeus, Joseph Smith, and God-Making Heresy (Fairleigh […]
Pagan Scholarship from a Pagan Perspective
Religious identifications that are alternative to the major world religions are relatively new to census questionnaires. However, there is a stark difference between the available options on religious identity in the 2012 US Census than there are in the 2011 UK Census.Ethan Doyle White, a PhD student in Anthropology of Religion at University College London, recently discussed his research into his 2015 book Wicca: History, Belief, and Community in Modern Pagan Witchcraft.
Milda Ališauskienė
Milda Ališauskienė is Associate Professor and Head of the Department of Sociology at Vytautas Magnus University, Kaunas, Lithuania. Her research interests include sociology of religion, New Age, New Religious Movements and secularisation. She co-edited (with Ingo Schroeder) Religious Diversity in post-Soviet Societies: Ethnographies of Catholic Hegemony and the New Pluralism in Lithuania (Ashgate, 2011). She […]
Paul Reid-Bowen
Paul Reid-Bowen is a Senior Lecturer in the Study of Religions, Philosophies and Ethics at Bath Spa University. His teaching and research interests include contemporary formations of religion (most notably paganisms, nature religions and new religious movements), ecological and environmental philosophy, Existentialism and feminist philosophies, and critical and reductionist theories of religion. He has published […]
Conversion and Deconversion as Concepts in the Sociology of Religion
For this interview with Lynn Davidman, we focus on the concepts of conversion and deconversion, illustrations of these processes in various contexts, what each term means and how each is experienced in someone’s life, the histories of these terms and their use in scholarship, and issues that arise from their conceptualization or use.
Music, Marketing and Megachurches
Music is a big part of a new “mediapolois”, part of a marketing matrix of people, places and industries. Today, music’s meaning is more often part of a branded ecosystem, not limited to entertainment, but part of the experience of everyday life, including religion.
Rethinking the Cognitive Science of Religion in Light of Explanatory Pluralism
It is my belief that the failure of CSR to adequately address its inherently interdisciplinary nature has been a detriment to the field and that by addressing these issues it will help the field to grow as well as to help non-CSR specialists understand more of the subtlety of this scientific approach to our subject.
In his recent RSP interview, Dr. Robert McCauley provides a brilliant overview of some of the founding philosophical principles that have been a foundation for the study of religion.
Dominic Corrywright
Dominic Corrywright is Principal Lecturer for Quality Assurance, Enhancement and Validations, and Course Coordinator for Religion and Theology at Oxford Brookes. Alongside other research interests, including alternative spiritualities and new religious movements, Dominic has a strong research focus on teaching and learning in higher education, and pedagogy in the study of religions. He is Teaching & […]
Susan J. Palmer
Susan J. Palmer is a researcher, sociologist and writer in the area of new religious movements (popularly known as “cults”). She received her Ph.D. from Concordia University where she is an Affiliate Professor and Part-time Instructor and teaches courses, including “Cults and Religious Controversy.” She is also a Member of the Religious Studies Faculty at […]
“Religion in Peru” — conference report, 2015
That this conference took place at the National University of San Marcos was quite inspiring. This was the first university on the continent with a theology and arts faculty during the second half of the sixteenth century. Now, almost five hundred years later, Peruvian academics still have an interest in studying religion. However, our current perspectives and methodologies are far more diverse, and ever broadening. I remain optimistic that, in the near future, the academic study of religion in Peru will be as widespread and supported as other research areas.
Sidney Castillo
Sidney Castillo is a doctoral student of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Helsinki, Finland. He has a Master of Arts in Sociology and Social Anthropology from Central European University, Budapest, Hungary; and a Bachelor’s degree in Anthropology from Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, Lima, Perú. Currently, he is an associate editor, writer, […]