Biography
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).
PhD (University of Tubingen/LMU Munich: Transformations of Immortality. Changing Plausibility Patterns in Modern Religion, Peter Lang, 2008. Studies how imaginations of immortality change over the last 200 years in European culture and introduces "plausibility patterns" as a way of studying religious repertoires in modernity.
Research interest: Methods and Theories in the Study of Religion; interferences 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). Her current research focuses on the use of scientific imagery in religion and non-religion (aesthetics of the secular), and on the intersection of religion and technology (transhumanism) in the light of a changing knowledge culture.
Prof. Grieser accepts applications from engaged prospect Research Master or PhD students in these areas.
Current PhD Projects: "Religion without God": The religious writings of quantum physicist Werner Heisenberg
Publications and Further Research Outputs
Peer-Reviewed Publications
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]
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]
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
"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]
"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]
The "Beauty Fallacy": Religion, science and the aesthetics of knowledge, Special Issue Approaching Religion, 7, 2, (2017), 72p, Alexandra Grieser; Arianna Borelli, [eds.]
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]
Religion und Literatur in populaeren Medien: Diversifizierung und Pluralisierung vom fruehen 19. Jahrhundert bis in die Gegenwart in, editor(s)Faber, Richard and Renger, Almut-Barbara , Religion und Literatur. Konvergenzen und Divergenzen, Wuerzburg, Koenigshausen und Neumann, 2017, pp300 - 305, [Alexandra Grieser]
Alexandra Grieser and Jay Johnston (eds), Aesthetics of Religion: A Connective Concept, Berlin and Boston, de Gruyter, 2017, 490pp
Alexandra Grieser and Arianna Borelli, Recent research on the aesthetics of knowledge in science and in religion, Approaching Religion Special Issue The "Beauty Fallacy": Religion, science and the aesthetics of knowledge, 7, (2), 2017, p4 - 21
Blue Brains: Knowledge Formation and Aesthetic Ideologies between Religion and Science in, Grieser, Alexandra and Jay Johnston , Aesthetics of Religion: A Connective Concept, Berlin and Boston, de Gruyter, 2017, pp237 - 270, [Alexandra Grieser]
Alexandra Grieser, Aesthetics of Religion - What It Is, and What It Is Good For, Aesthetics and the Analytical Study of Religion; International Workshop Critical Theory, San Antonio/Texas, 18 Nov, 2016, AAR/SORAAAD, 11 - 15pp
Alexandra Grieser, "Changing perceptions: mapping pluralism as aesthetic encounters", Annual Conference EASR, University of Helsinki, July 2016, 2016
Aesthetics, K. von Stuckrad, R. Segal, Vocabulary for the Study of Religion, 1, Brill, 2015, pp14 - 23, [Alexandra Grieser]
Imaginationen des Nichtwissens: Zur Hubble Space Imagery und den Figurationen des schönen Universums zwischen Wissenschaft, Kunst und Religion (Imaginations of Non-Knowledge: Hubble Space Imagery and Figurations of the beautiful Universe between Science, Art, and Religion) in, editor(s)Wilke, Annette, Traut, Lucia , Religion - Imagination - Ästhetik: Vorstellungs- und Sinneswelten in Religion und Kultur, Göttingen, Vandenhoek, 2015, pp451 - 486, [Alexandra Grieser]
Imaginationsgeschichte (A History of the Imaginary) in, Wilke, Annette and Traut, Lucia , Religion - Imagination - Ästhetik: Vorstellungs- und Sinneswelten in Religion und Kultur, Goettingen, Vandenhoek, 2015, pp383 - 386, [Alexandra Grieser]
Rhetoric, K. von Stuckrad; R. Segal, Vocabulary for the Study of Religion, 3, Brill: Leiden, 2015, pp227 - 234, [Alexandra Grieser]
Alexandra Grieser, EASR conference "Religion and Pluralities of Knowledge", 11-14 May 2014, In:Three Panels on Aesthetics of Knowledge: epistemologies for sensory side of religion and knowledge , 2014, Groningen, The Netherlands
Alexandra Grieser, Aesthetics of Knowledge as a Double Perspective: beauty as medium and message in scientific knowledge, EASR conference "Religion and Pluralities of Knowledge", University of Groningen, The Netherlands, 11-14 May 2014, 2014
Alexandra Grieser, We're beautiful, and we're one" - aesthetics as a unifying concept within the "religion and science-nexus, 6th International Conference of the European Society for the History of Science, University of Lisbon, 4-6 Sept 2014, 2014
Alexandra Grieser; Laura Feldt; Sebastian Schueler, EASR conference Religion,Migration and Mutation, In:Panel on Migrating Aesthetics: Senses, Spaces, and Media, 2013, Liverpool
Erzählte Gemeinschaft. Zur Multi-Funktionalität kollektiver Narrative und der dynamischen Rolle von Religion in, editor(s)Brahier, Gabriele/Johannsen, Dirk , Konstruktionsgeschichten. Narrationsbezogene Ansätze in der Religionsforschung, Würzburg , Ergon, 2013, pp319 - 333, [Alexandra Grieser]
Alexandra Grieser, "How Religion becomes effective" - Aesthetics as a connective Concept for the Study of Religion, 6 - 9 of March 2013, 2013, University of Groningen, Department of the comparative and historical study of Religion
Alexandra Grieser, Jahrestagung der DVRW: Empirie und Theorie, In:Panel on Religionsästhetik: Konzepte, Methoden, Gegenstände, 2013, Göttingen
Gefühl (Feeling); Kontinuität (Continuity); Prostitution (Prostitution); Tanz (Dance); Tradition (Tradition); Wissen (Knowledge); Wissenssoziologie (Socilogy of Knowledge), C. Auffarth, H.G. Kippenberg und A. Michaels , Wörterbuch der Religionen, Stuttgart, Kröner, 2011, pp5 , [Alexandra Grieser]
"Perspektivität als Arbeitsform: Ein Beitrag der Religionswissenschaft zur Bearbeitung komplexer Gegenstände, zur Plausibilität von Religion und Wissenschaft und den Rhetoriken der Genetik in, editor(s)Meier, Thomas/Tillessen, Petra , Über die Grenzen und zwischen den Disziplinen. Fächerübergreifende Zusammenarbeit im Forschungsfeld historischer Mensch-Umwelt-Beziehungen, Budapest, Archaeolingua , 2011, pp159 - 178, [Alexandra Grieser]
Alexandra Grieser (together with A. Herrmann, K. Triplett), "Museality as a Matrix of the Production, Reception, and Circulation of Knowledge Concerning Religion, Journal for Religion in Europe - Special Issue Relocating Religion(s) - Museality as a Critical Term for the Aesthetics of Religion, 4, (1), 2011, p40 - 70
"Religion als fascinans? - Der Faszinationsbegriff in der Religionswissenschaft und die Interferenz von Faszinations- und Wissenschaftsgeschichte"Religion as fascinans? - The term fascination in the study of religion and interferences between Faszinationsgeschichte and the history of science in, editor(s)Hahnemann, Andy/ Weyand, Björn . u.a. , 129-148. , Faszination. Historische Konjunkturen und heuristische Trag- weite eines Begriffs, Frankfurt/M. & New York, Peter Lang, 2009, pp129 - 148, [Alexandra Grieser]
Alexandra Grieser, Transformationen von Unsterblichkeit: Zum Wandel religiöser Plausibilitätsmuster in der Moderne (Transformations of immortality - Changing patterns of religious plausibility in modernity), Tübinger Beiträge zur RelWiss, Frankfurt/Main, New York, Peter Lang, 2008, 268pp
Rhetorik und die Erforschung moderner Religion: Zur (Dis-)Plausibilität von Unsterblichkeit (Rhetoric and research on modern religion). in, editor(s)Meyer, Holt/Uffelmann, Dirk , Religion und Rhetorik, Stuttgart , 2007, pp83 - 101, [Alexandra Grieser]
Alexandra Grieser, Die Götter sind eine Funktion des Stils". Schöne Literatur als Medium von Religionskritik am Beispiel des Drama in Leuten von Fernando Pessoa (Belles lettres as a medium of religious criticism: the example of Fernando Pessoa), Zeitschrift fuer Religionswissenschaft, 14, (2), 2006, p157 - 182
Sexuality, C. Auffarth, J. Bernard, H. Mohr (ed. by K. von Stuckrad), The Brill Dictionary of Religion., Leiden & Boston, Brill, 2005, pp1710 - 1717, [Alexandra Grieser]
Frieden, Konfliktlösung und Religion: Plausibilisierungsprozesse in modernen Friedensbewegungen (Peace, reconciliation, and religion: Plausibility processes in modern peace movements) in, editor(s)Makrides, V.N./Rüpke, J. , Religionen im Konflikt. Vom Bürgerkrieg über Ökogewalt bis zur Gewalterinnerung im Ritual, Münster , Aschendorff, 2005, pp181 - 199, [Alexandra Grieser]
Love, C. Auffarth, J. Bernard, H. Mohr (ed. by K. von Stuckrad) 4 vols., ed. by K. von Stuckrad: Brill: Leiden & Boston 2005: Gender Stereotypes, 779-784. ,, The Brill Dictionary of Religion, Leiden & Boston, Brill, 2005, pp1121 - 1123, [Alexandra Grieser]
Gender Stereotypes, C. Auffarth, J. Bernard, H. Mohr (ed. by K. von Stuckrad) , , The Brill Dictionary of Religion, Leiden & Boston, Brill, 2005, pp779 - 784, [Alexandra Grieser]
Non-Peer-Reviewed Publications
"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]
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
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
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
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
Alexandra Grieser, Annual Conference EASR, July 2016, In:Pre-arranged international panel: "Thinking Pluralism: Models for Relational Histories of Religion", 2016, University of Helsinki
Alexandra Grieser, AESToR.net Research Network Conference, June 2016, In:Discussion Panel "Aesthetics and Narrative Cultures", 2016, University of Oslo
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
Alexandra Grieser, Start-off conference of DFG-funded research network AESToR.net, August 2015, 2015, University of Erfurt
Alexandra Grieser/ Fred Cummins, The ground from which we speak, Welcome Disturbances: exhibition with UCD Art in Science, ART and SCIENCE LAB: Dublin, March 2015, 2015
Alexandra Grieser, World Congress IAHR, August 2015, In:Round Table "Integrating the Material, Bodily, and Sensual into the Study of Religion", 2015, University of Erfurt
Alexandra Grieser, Unthinkable; Is Religion just a matter of Taste?, 2015, - 1
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
Alexandra Grieser, Conference ISASR, TCD: People, Places, Projects: the Study of Religion in Ireland, , May 2015, 2015, Trinity College Dublin
Alexandra Grieser, Comparing what, and how!?: Analysing Religious Change from an Aesthetic Point of View., World Congress IAHR, Unmiversity of Erfurt, 23-16 Aug, 2015
"Wurzeln der Sprache als Ursprung von Religion? - F.M. Müller und die philologische Konstruktion von Religion zwischen Religions- und Sprachwissenschaft" in, editor(s)Robert Mailhammer & Theo Vennemann , The Linguistic Roots of Europe(Roots of language as roots of religion? - F.M. Müller and the philological construction of religion between linguistics and the study of religion)., Copenhagen, MuseumTusculanum Press, 2014, pp201 - 232, [Alexandra Grieser]
Alexandra Grieser/ Christopher Cotter, 'Religion and Memory', Interview , PodCast: http://www.religiousstudiesproject.com/podcast/religion-and-memory-an-interview-with-alexandra-grieser/), Religious Studies Project, 2014, -
Alexandra Grieser, Hostile brothers, or two ways to truth?" - theorizing the relationship between "religion" and "science, ISASR Conference "Religion and Conflict Transformation", Queen's University Belfast, 30 May 2014, 2014
Alexandra Grieser, Review of A.-B. Renger's "Meister und Schueler", Review of Meister und Schüler in Geschichte und Gegenwart Von Religionen der Antike bis zur modernen Esoterik, by Almut-Barbara Renger , Zeitschrift für Religions- und Geistesgeschichte Journal of Religious and Cultural Studies, 66, (1), 2014, p486-487
Alexandra Grieser, Aesthetics as a connective concept for the study of religion , The History of Religions in the Contemporary World , Stockholm, 19 February, 2014, The Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities
Alexandra Grieser, Discussing the exhibition of religion as an element of the HERA project "Iconic Religion", Start-off conference "Iconic Religion", Bochum, 17-19 Feb., 2014
Alexandra Grieser, Discussing religion and memory the other way around" - theories of memory as building blocks for the study of religion, Annual Conference ISASR "Religion and Remembering", Queens University Belfast, 23-24 May, 2014
Alexandra Grieser, Imaginationen zwischen Religion und Wissenschaft: Das Gehirn als religiöses Objekt, Annual conference DVRW: Empirie und Theorie, University of Göttingen, 12-14 Sept. 2013, 2013
Alexandra Grieser, "Free the mind, tune the body": Optimization as a matrix of the religious and the secular,, EASR conference "Migration and Mutation", Hope University Liverpool, 12-14 Sept, 2013
Alexandra Grieser, Wahrnehmung und Religion: ReligionsÃsthetik und die Frage nach den Teilen und dem Ganzen in der Religionswissenschaft., Erwaegen Wissen Ethik/ Deliberation Knowledge Ethics, 23, (2), 2012, p266 - 268
Religionswissenschaft in der Geschichte: Ambivalenzen des Fortschritts bei Friedrich Max Müller (The study of religion in history - ambivalent notions of progress in the work of F.M. Müller) in, editor(s)Glasbrenner, Eva-Maria/Hackbarth-Johnson, Christian , Einheit der Wirklichkeiten, München, Manya , 2009, pp354 - 375, [Alexandra Grieser]
Alexandra Grieser, Rhetoric of immortality - describing changes in modern religion, Online Publication, Second Conference: Rhetoric in Society, University of Leiden, 21 till 23 Jan. 2009, edited by Jong, J. de/ Haaften, T. van/ Jansen, H./Koetsenruijter, W. , CD-ROM ISB /EAN: 97, 2009, pp18
Alexandra Grieser, "Der Sexualforscher unter den Opernkomponisten?" - Religionshistorische Bemerkungen zur Thematisierung von 'Geschlecht und Geist' in Franz Schrekers Die Gezeichneten, Münchener Theologische Zeitschrift, Themenheft Ästhetik - Religion - Kunst, 55, (4), 2004, p343 - 353
Research Expertise
Description
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.Projects
- Title
- Aesthetics of Knowledge - framing Concepts for an Aesthetics of Religion approach
- 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
- Date From
- August 2015
- Date To
- August 2018
Recognition
Representations
Managing editor of the IAHR book series "The Study of Religion in a Global Context" (International Association for the History of Religions with Equinox)
President of the Irish Society for the Acadmic Study of Religion
Founding Member, Chair (-2015), Internationalization Officer of the Working Group "Aesthetics of Religion", German Association for the Study of Religion (DVRW)
Invited Reviewer for Research Projects - SNF (Swiss National Fund)
external examiner: PhD candidate Maren Sziede, University of Fribourg, Switzerland
Advisory Board Journal of the Irish Society for the Academic Study of Religion
Organisation of the Annual Conference of ISASR ("People, Places, Projects: The Study of Religion in Ireland")
Delegate of the ISASR at the Annual Conference in Groningen, The Netherlands
Board member of the Journal for Religion in Austria
Chair of the newly set up panel "Cultural Studies" in the "Undergraduate Awards" international Essay Competition.
Referee for Journal of Religion in Europe, Brill
Awards and Honours
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
Conference Funding, Royal Dutch Academy of the Sciences
Memberships
European Association for the Study of Religion (EASR)
Irish Association for the Study of Religion (ISAR)
German Association for the Study of Religion (DVRW)
International Association for the History of Religion (IAHR)
Co-Founder and Speaker of AKAEST, Working Group "Aesthetics of Religion", DVRW
Member of AESToR.net, research network on Aesthetics of Religion, DFG-funded (German Research Foundation)