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Dr. Alexandra Grieser

Assistant Professor (School of Religion)
      
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Dr. Alexandra Grieser

Assistant Professor (School of Religion)

 griesera@tcd.ie

 


Alexandra Grieser is trained in the Academic Study of Religion, Rhetoric and German Literature at the University of Tuebingen. She worked as a researcher and lecturer in the Study of Religion at the University of Bremen, the LMU Munich and the University of Groningen (The Netherlands). Her PhD (University of Tubingen/LMU Munich: Transformations of Immortality. Changing Plausibility Patterns in Modern Religion, Peter Lang, 2008) studies religious change through the lens of "immortality", and how practices and imaginations interact in this turn away from taken-for-granted eschatologies. A concept of "plausibility patterns" is introduced to enable adequate studies of how people engage with religion in multiple ways. It is a constructive contribution to the critical debate about the limited understanding of religion as belief or individual experience. Focusing on material from around 1800 in German-speaking areas, it is shown how Immortality lost its plausibility in many contexts; yet, in the context of poetry and popular culture, the ideologization of war and heroism, literary fields such as "biographies of dying" in the context of the limits of scientific medicine, eco-centred funeral practices and Buddhist end-of-life care, as well as transhumanist visions of minds living on in robots, the religious repertoire of a life beyond death lives on and unfolds is formative potential. Research interest: Methods and Theories in the Study of Religion; intersections between the history of religion and the history of science; the Aesthetics of Religion; European Pluralism since 1800; Religion and Literature/Media; the History and Theory of Knowledge (in religion, science and art). As a co-founder of an international research network on the innovative approach of an Aesthetics of Religion, she introduced the concept internationally (Aesthetics of Religion: A Connective Concept, De Gruyter 2017). Research focused on the use of scientific imagery in the context of worldview production (aesthetics of the secular), and on the intersection of religion and media, religion and technology (transhumanism) in the light of a changing knowledge culture. The latest project develops the relationship between a stated global mental health crisis and the engagement with neo-spiritual (body) practices. The focus is on diverse free-dance movements, which relate to the life-reform movement of the 1920s, the development of modern subjectivities, and waves of seeking individual and societal healing by engaging in liberating body practices. Prof. Grieser accepts applications from engaged prospect Research Master or PhD students in these areas. PhD Projects: "Religion without God": The religious writings of quantum physicist Werner Heisenberg (completed)
  Aesthetics of Religion   Cultural history of religion   History of Science, Science and Religion   Religion & Literature   Religion and Theory   Religion in the Public Sphere   Religion, Modernity and Identity   Religious Pluralism
Project Title
 Aesthetics of Knowledge - framing Concepts for an Aesthetics of Religion approach
From
August 2015
To
August 2018
Summary
The newly emerging approach Aesthetics of Religion was awarded a Network programme to develop terms, concepts and methods; my sub-project is dedicated to the basic concept of an Aesthetics of Knowledge, focusing on the sensory forms by which human beings produce, impart, receive and authorize knowledge, and how they deal with what they do not know. Seeing religion as a knowledge culture enables us to investigate areas such as ritual knowledge, practices of healing, what needs to be known to be a member of a religion, but also how humans organize what can be known, and what not, or how they make political or ontological claims that can clash with other knowledge-producing spheres of society. The Aesthetics of Religion as an approach responds to the thriving field of material culture, the relevance of embodiment theory and the bridge-building between scientific (esp cognitive studies) and cultural studies' methodologies. It systematizes and synthesizes approaches to understanding religion as a sensory practice that is not confined to text, doctrines and beliefs, but literally creates ways of perceiving the world religiously. This approach allows us to explain better the strong binding forces, the emotional engagement and the variety of impacts religion can have on a wider culture. With the DFG-funded research network AESToR.net this new field will be established in the years to come. The volume "Aesthetics of Religion: A connective concept", De Gruyter, 2017, is part of this endeavour, and it is the first publication on the topic in English language. The group is working on a volume on "Narrative Aesthetics", and on a Handbook establishing the approach further (the Aesthetics of Knowledge will make a fundamental part of the epistemological section, together with a chapter on an "Aesthetic Subjectivity"). The Network aims at extending the collaboration by applying for a European research grant for the study of an Aesthetics of the Religious and the Secular, and the development of the "post-secular" societies. http://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/270644272 https://aestor.net/
Funding Agency
German Research Foundation
Programme
Research Network ASToR.net
Project Type
Scientific Networks (Wissenschaftliche Netzwerke)

Details Date
Managing editor of the IAHR book series "The Study of Religion in a Global Context" (International Association for the History of Religions with Equinox) 2020 -
President of the Irish Society for the Acadmic Study of Religion 2018
Founding Member, Chair (-2015), Internationalization Officer of the Working Group "Aesthetics of Religion", German Association for the Study of Religion (DVRW) 2007-
Invited Reviewer for Research Projects - SNF (Swiss National Fund) 2016
external examiner: PhD candidate Maren Sziede, University of Fribourg, Switzerland 2016-2019
Advisory Board Journal of the Irish Society for the Academic Study of Religion since 2014
Organisation of the Annual Conference of ISASR ("People, Places, Projects: The Study of Religion in Ireland") May 2015
Delegate of the ISASR at the Annual Conference in Groningen, The Netherlands 2014
Board member of the Journal for Religion in Austria since 2013
Chair of the newly set up panel "Cultural Studies" in the "Undergraduate Awards" international Essay Competition. 2015
Referee for Journal of Religion in Europe, Brill 2011-
Details Date From Date To
European Association for the Study of Religion (EASR) 2000
Irish Association for the Study of Religion (ISAR) 2014
International Association for the History of Religion (IAHR) 2000
Co-Founder and Speaker of AKAEST, Working Group "Aesthetics of Religion", DVRW 2007 2015
Member of AESToR.net, research network on Aesthetics of Religion, DFG-funded (German Research Foundation) 2015 2019
Alexandra Grieser, Studienbuch Religionsaesthetik, Baden-Baden, NOMOS Verlag, 2026, 1 - 220pp, Book, ACCEPTED
Alexandra Grieser, IAHR conference: OUT OF EUROPE: Studying Religion(s) in Interconnected Worlds, 24 - 30.08.2025, 2025, Krakow, Poland, "How Global is Global?" - an authors' roundtable on approaches to The Study of Religion in a Global Context, panel with speakers and respondents, Meetings /Conferences Organised, ACCEPTED
'Die Goetter sind eine Funktion des Stils'. Schoene Literatur als Medium von Religionskritik am Beispiel des Drama in Leuten von Fernando Pessoa. in, editor(s)Horst Junginger/ Richard Faber , Belletristische Religionskritik, Wuerzburg, Koenigshausen & Neumann, 2024, pp21 - 50, [Alexandra Grieser], Book Chapter, PUBLISHED
The Study of Religions in Ireland - an Entangled History in, H. O'Brien and B. McNamara , The Study of Religions in Ireland: Past, Present and Future, London, Bloomsbury , 2022, pp3 - 19, [ Alexandra Grieser with Brian Bocking], Book Chapter, PUBLISHED  URL
Christoph Auffarth, Alexandra Grieser, Anne Koch (eds), Religion in Culture - Culture in Religion: Burkhard Gladigow's Contribution to Shifting Paradigms in the Study of Religion, Tubingen, University of Tubingen Press, 2021, 246pp, Book, PUBLISHED
"European History of Religion" Revisited: Modelling a Pluralist Approach in, Christoph Auffarth, Alexandra Grieser, Anne Koch , Religion in Culture - Culture in Religion: Burkhard Gladigow's contribution to shifting Paradigms in the Study of Religion, Tuebingen, Tuebingen University Press, 2021, pp185 - 216, [Alexandra Grieser], Book Chapter, PUBLISHED
Religion in Culture-Culture in Religion: Introducing Burkhard Gladigow's Contribution to the Paradigm Shift in the Study of Religion in, editor(s)Christoph Auffarth, Alexandra Grieser, Anne Koch , Religion in Culture - Culture in Religion: Burkhard Gladigow's to shifting Paradigms in the Study of Religion, Tubingen, University of Tubingen Press, 2021, pp1 - 28, [Alexandra Grieser, Anne Koch], Book Chapter, PUBLISHED
"Aesthetics of Knowledge" in, Anne Koch and Katharina Wilkens , The Bloomsbury Handbook of the Cultural and Cognitive Aesthetics of Religion, London, Bloomsbury, 2019, pp111 - 222, [Alexandra Grieser, Arianna Borrelli], Book Chapter, PUBLISHED
Alexandra Grieser and Jay Johnston (eds), Aesthetics of Religion: A Connective Concept, Berlin and Boston, de Gruyter, 2017, 490pp, Book, PUBLISHED
Introduction: What is an Aesthetics of Religion? From the Senses to Meaning - and back again in, Grieser, Alexandra, and Jay Johnston , Aesthetics of Religion: A Connective Concept, Berlin and Boston, de Gruyter, 2017, pp1 - 49, [Grieser, Alexandra, and Jay Johnston], Book Chapter, PUBLISHED
  

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Alexandra Grieser, "In the Beginning was Movement" " Rethinking Religion and Dance from an Aesthetics of Religion Perspective, Lecture Series Department of Studies in Religion, University of Sydney, 23.03.2024, 2024, Department Studies in Religion, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, 1 - 8pp, Invited Talk, PRESENTED
"The Study of Religions in Ireland - an Entangled History in, editor(s)H. O'Brien and B. McNamara (Eds.), . 2022 [with Brian Bocking] , The Study of Religions in Ireland: Past, Present and Future, London, Bloomsbury, 2022, pp3 - 19, [with Brian Bocking], Book Chapter, PUBLISHED
Alexandra Grieser, "Beating Evolution": Transhuman Bodies and an Aesthetics of Absolute Progress, "Religion - Continuations and Disruptions", Tartu, Estonia, 25-29 June, 2019, Annual Conference EASR, 18pp, Invited Talk, PUBLISHED
Alexandra Grieser, Unsterblichkeit 4.0 - wie Robotik und virtuelle Realitaet die Perspektiven auf den Menschen veraendern, Special Issue Spiritualität und Körper. Das Jahresheft Palliative Care/demenz/Praxis Pflegen, 10 (year volume), 2018, p70 - 73, Journal Article, PUBLISHED
Alexandra Grieser, What is an Aesthetics of Religion - Introduction to a new approach in the Cultural Study of Religion, Catholic University Lisbon, 25 May, 2017, Invited Talk, PRESENTED
Alexandra Grieser, Conference of the German Association for the Study of Religion, 13-16 Sept. 2017, In:Double panel "Aesthetics of Religion: Methods and Didactics", 2017, University of Marburg, Meetings /Conferences Organised, PRESENTED
Alexandra Grieser, Workshop AESToR.NET Research Network, 11-12 Nov 2016, In: "Key concepts of a Handbook on the Aesthetics of Religion", 2016, University of NurembergErlangen, Meetings /Conferences Organised, PUBLISHED
Alexandra Grieser, Annual Conference EASR, July 2016, In:Pre-arranged international panel: "Thinking Pluralism: Models for Relational Histories of Religion", 2016, University of Helsinki, Meetings /Conferences Organised, PUBLISHED
Alexandra Grieser, AESToR.net Research Network Conference, June 2016, In:Discussion Panel "Aesthetics and Narrative Cultures", 2016, University of Oslo, Meetings /Conferences Organised, PUBLISHED
Alexandra Grieser, Welche Farbe hat das Universum? Ästhetisierung und die affektive Akzeptanz von Wissenschaft als Weltanschauung, Atmosphären und Stimmungen - zur Hintergrundaffektivität des Sozialen, Friedrich-Alexander-University Nueremberg-Erlangen, 11-12 Feb, 2015, Invited Talk, PRESENTED

  


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Award Date
Robert Kay Bassingthwaighte Fellowship, Visiting Fellow in the School of Humanities, University of Sydney Feb-May 2024
Conference Funding, Royal Dutch Academy of the Sciences March 2013
Scholarship Deutsche Forschunggemeinschaft: post-graduate research programme "The concept of experience in European religion and religious theory and its influence on the self-conception of non-European religions", LMU 1999-2002
My main areas of research are: Methods and Theories in the Academic Study of Religion; the History of the Study of Religion (including its colonial, ideological and institutional aspects); European religious pluralism (including secularist world views); the history of knowledge, and the interaction between religion and other societal sub-systems such as politics, art, literature and science. Historically, I am concerned with the processes leading to "multiple modernities" in Europe, from the Enlightenment period to early Romanticism; "Religion around 1800 until today". A special focus of my work lies in Religion and Media, Materiality, Body and the Senses and - more systematically - in the newly emerging approach of an "Aesthetics of Religion." I have developed and established this approach over the last decade in collaboration with a European research network. The approach is concerned with religion as a sensory practice (aisthesis) that cultivates and governs the body and the senses and creates religious ways of "world perception" rather than being limited to beliefs and convictions. The approach helps to better understand how religions come to influence wider cultures and meaning making, often in conflicting ways. I am a founding member of a working group on the topic (AKRelAest, German Association for the Study of Religoin); and a member of a research network (ASToR.net), funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG). My last project dealt with the de-differentiation between religion and science through the popular use of scientific imagery; my recent and future work is concerned with a comparative approach to "New Universalisms - global aesthetics", and with the conditions under which knowledge is produced, circulated, authorised and threatened in both religious and secular spheres.