Identities and Beliefs theme Research Forum and Showcase

What is the event about?

This research forum has two main parts. The first session brings three experts together to discuss the varied engagements between religions and secular societies around the contemporary world.

The second session will involve brief presentations on some of the HASS-funded research projects within the Identities and Beliefs theme.

In both sessions there will be opportunity for discussion and questions. 

Programme

Further Information:

Religions and the Secular: Conflict, Change and Renegotiation in the Contemporary World

Gavin Flood is Professor of Hindu Studies and Comparative Religion at Oxford University and Academic Director of the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies. Gavin's main research interests are Hindu traditions, particularly medieval tantric and Śaiva religions, Comparative Religion, and Theory and Method in the Study of Religion. His current research develops beyond India through the idea of Comparative Religion and in exploring the relation between self, text, and tradition across cultures. 

Professor Grace Davie, now emerita, was Professor of Sociology at the University of Exeter. In the course of her career Grace was the Director of Exeter's Centre for European Studies and enjoyed close collaboration with a number of European Universities and Grandes Ecoles, notably Uppsala University, the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes and the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris. Grace's research interests lie in the sociology of religion, with particular emphasis on patterns of religion in Europe, and her most recent research focuses on the notion of ‘multiple modernities’ and the interactions between religion and welfare, healthcare and law. 

Dr Brandon Gallaher is a recent addition to the University of Exeter’s Department of Theology & Religion as a lecturer in Christian Theological Studies. Brandon is an expert in modern Christian theologies, especially Russian Orthodoxy, but his latest research project examines changing notions of religious authority in secular contexts, comparing the experiences in Japan and Russia. Prior to his move to Exeter, Brandon was a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at Regent’s Park College, University of Oxford, with time spent as a Visiting Scholar at Doshisha University, Kyoto, Japan. 

Registration

To register your interest in attending or presenting at future events please contact research-events@exeter.ac.uk.