Initiated at an opening workshop at the Center for Interdisciplinary Research on Religions (ZiR) at the University of Marburg in spring 2023 the international research group is expanding with the cooperating scholars of the Universities of Basel and Neuchâtel (CH), Bergen (NO), Marburg, Rostock and Tübingen (DE). 

• Colloquia: The research group organizes regular meetings to discuss current research and theory. 
• Workshop “HEXEN! Religionswissenschaftliche Perspektiven auf Wissen, Gender und Magie” (WITCHES! Study of Religions Perspectives on Knowledge, Gender and Magic), University of Basel, 1–3 June, 2024
• Panel „Gegenwärtige Spiritualitäten. Ästhetiken, Praktiken, Temporalitäten“ (Contemporary Spiritualities: Aesthetics, Practices, Temporalities), DVRW Conference, University of Bayreuth, 25–28 September 2023
• Presentation of the research group, Jour Fixe of the DVRW Working Group Aesthetics of Religion, March 2023 
• Workshop „Spirituelle Episteme“ (Spiritual Epistemes), University of Marburg, 3–5 March 2023

• AK Religionsästhetik
• ZIR Marburg. Zentrum für interdisziplinäre Religionsästhetik

Pflugfelder, L. (2023) “Spirituelle Episteme. Bericht zum Workshop »Spirituelle Episteme. ZIR-Forschungswerkstatt 2023«. An der Universität Marburg 03.-05. März 2023”, Zeitschrift für junge Religionswissenschaft, 18, online. Available at: 10.4000/zjr.2381.

Celica Fitz

Celica Fitz is an ind. curator and researcher working on the intersections of contemporary art, museum studies, and aesthetics of knowledge. She holds an MA in Art History and another in the Study of Religions, and worked as an research associate, lecturer and curator at the Institute for Sacred Architecture and Contemporary Art at University of Marburg. She curated exhibitions on art and cultures both in the public sphere and offspaces and in museums and academic collections. Her interdisciplinary Cotutelle de thèse dissertation at University of Neuchâtel (Museology and History of Art) and University of Marburg (Study of Religions) examines entanglements of the history of knowledge, spirituality and art, exemplified in epistemic practices of modern female artists, their historiography and rediscovery in recent exhibitions. 

Lisa Grellert

Lisa Grellert specializes in the interconnectedness of academic and pop culture ideas about history, historicity and spiritual practices. Currently a doctoral candidate and a former research associate at the University of Rostock in the GRK Deutungsmacht, she studied Religious Studies at the University of Erfurt and Groningen. 

Marita Günther

Marita Günther has a research focus on current developments in contemporary spiritualities and the dynamics of digitalization as well as religions and gender orders in plural societies – including topics like gendered spirituality in history and on social media or witches in culture, art and society. She gives workshops and classes on the intersection of religions, knowledge systems and gender; sociology and the body at Philipps University Marburg, Merseburg University of Applied Sciences and School of Social Work Villingen-Schwenningen.

Henriette Hanky

Henriette Hanky is a university lecturer in the Study of Religions at the University of Bergen, Norway. She recently finalized an ethnographic dissertation project on contemporary forms of the Osho/Sannyas movement in Scandinavia, Germany, and India. Her research and teaching interests include historical and contemporary guru and meditation movements;  contemporary forms of religion and spirituality in Europe and India; popular religion and therapeutic culture; mediatization and embodied religion; sociology of religion and qualitative research methods.

Anna Matter

Anna Matter specialize in contemporary religious culture, material religion, museum studies, and empirical and ethnographic research on religion She studied Cultural Anthropology, Sociology, Peace and Conflict Studies and the Study of Religion in Marburg. Currently a doctoral candidate and former research associate at the University of Marburg, she is investigating the role of aesthetic strategies (such as materiality, embodiment, and performance) in shaping identities within the fluid field of contemporary spirituality. Her research also focuses on the negotiation of knowledge systems concerning science and religion, particularly in the context of alternative healing and spirituality through the practice of "crystal healing". 

Starting this fall, she will be working as a project associate in an innovation project focused on knowledge transfer in museums using AI models.

Isis Mrugalla-Kalmbacher

Isis Mrugalla-Kalmbacher is an ethnographic researcher of contemporary magic and the magic scene with a systemic praxeological approach. She investigates the narrative, performative and emotional preconditions and realizations of practices in group settings of occult secretive societies. Mrugalla Kalmbacher is a research assistant at the Institute for the Study of Religions at Tübingen University.

Lavinia Pflugfelder

Lavinia Pflugfelder works as academic assistant at the Study of Religion Department at the University of Basel where she teaches introductory courses on the history of religion and theory. She researches exchanges and utilisations of validity claims between spheres of science and spheres of spirituality and esotericism. Her focus are figurations of the male god in contemporary pagan witchcraft. Her second research focus lies in approaches combining Metal Studies and the Study of Religion, for example in the use of religious symbols and imagery in visual and aesthetic programs.