Religion & New Religious Movements in Contemporary Crises
CAS-E Permanent Fellow Kelly Hayes hosts podcast with CAS-E Permanent Fellow Knut Graw, Daria Hartmann and Benjamin Zeller. This episode of Religion & delves into how contemporary religious movements address urgent political, cultural, and environmental crises, from technological transformation to ecological collapse. Looking across a wide array of new religious movements, participants will investigate how […]
Yezidi Religious Oral Tradition, Divination, Seers and Amulets in Northern Iraq
Eszter Spät I first started my field research among the Yezidis, a Kurdish-speaking ethno-religious minority of Northern Iraq, in 2002-03. At the time, it did not even occur to me to enquire about such “esoteric” practices as (written) amulets, or about seers (koçeks), who communicate with the “supernatural world,” that is the batinî (hidden, esoteric) […]
Call for Applications: Research Assistant (Part-Time)
The research project Translating the Ineffable: Sino-Muslim Engagement with Esoteric Knowledge across Han Kitab and Menhuan Networks, supported by a grant from Templeton Religion Trust and awarded via the Program in the Study of Mysticism (PRISM) at Tampere University, invites applications for the position of Research Assistant (part-time, 20 hours per week) for a fixed term of 12 months, […]
Rethinking Methodology: Sensory Modalities in Ethnographic Research
With: Prof. Dr. Andrew Gilbert – andrewgilbert.com (10:30–12:00) Dr. Zeynep Bulut – Queen’s University Belfast Profile (13:30–15:00) Limited places! For registration please contact maryam.abbasi@fau.de
Lecture Series Winter 2025/26
Buddhist Psychology as Esoteric Activism?
By Albrecht, Jessica A “Buddhist psychology” is a naming of a specific understanding of Buddhist teachings (such as mindfulness) and practices (such as meditation) that came up first in the late 19th century. Back then, it was one of the main interests of orientalist scholarship. The most prominent producer of such scholarship in the realm […]
The Mind in Hand: Introducing the Knowing Hands Project
Marta Hanson The opportunity to speak on May 27th (2025) in the CAS-E summer semester lecture series, turned out to be a timely and appropriate milieu to introduce the “Knowing Hands” project.1 The Agence nationale de la recherche (ANR) and Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) will jointly fund this project for three years (6.2025-5.2028). On the ANR […]
Warum lieben wir Magie, Dr. Bernd Christian Otto?
Montag, 26. Mai 2025. Die beliebtesten Traumreisen auf Entspannung wirkt tragen magische Titel: Der Magische Wintergarten, Magie der Erde, Der Magische Wunderladen. Aber warum ist das so? Warum zieht uns das Wort Magie so sehr an – auch als Erwachsene? Und warum hatte ich als Journalistin gleichzeitig oft das Bedürfnis, mich davon abzugrenzen? Weiter zum Interview hier.
CAS-E Newsletter 2025/02
Daoist Internal Alchemy and Science in Contemporary Taiwan
Workshop organized by CAS-E Fellow Prof. Fabrizio Pregadio. July 10-11, 2025, CAS-E, Big Seminar Room in D1, Hartmannstr. 14, Erlangen Open to the public For information: fabrizio.pregadio@fau.de This workshop addresses a subject barely explored in Western-language scholarship: the modernization and “scientization” of the Daoist practice of Internal Alchemy (Neidan) in contemporary Taiwan. […]
