Postdoctoral Position Religious Communities in a Virtual Age

The Department of the Study of Religion, School of Culture and Society, Faculty of Arts, Aarhus University invites applications for a 24-month fixed-term postdoctoral position in the Study of Religion, with a particular focus on the lived religion of religious communities in a digital and post-pandemic world.

The appointment begins on 1 November 2022 or as soon as possible thereafter.

The successful applicant will be based at the School of Culture and Society, Aarhus University, Department of the Study of Religion, Jens Chr. Skous Vej, Aarhus C.

The university is keen for its staff to reflect the diversity of society and thus welcomes applications from all qualified applicants regardless of their personal background.

Research context

This post is part of the project Religious Communities in a Virtual Age (Recovira), running between seven universities across Europe, funded by the CHANSE consortium and led by Dr Joshua Edelman. This project will document, compare and analyse the ways in which members of religious communities have been changed in the wake of the profound social disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, the core objective of the project is to understand the role of and turn to the digital in religious practices during the pandemic and afterwards. The overall project addresses the following research questions:

• How has the nature, structure, and experience of religious life changed as religious communities have replaced and supplemented established in-person gathering with virtual meetings and elements of digital culture?
• As the digitisation of religious practice and community life increases, how have the roles that religion plays in public life changed?

Each of the seven countries undertake independent but similar studies that examine the ways the social, ritual, communal, and personal lives of religious communities of different kinds have developed since the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly in terms of their embrace of the digital. For the Danish study, the main purpose of the postdoc is to undertake research in contemporary Danish religious life by preparing, conducting, analysing and disseminating studies of selected religious communities in the Denmark (both in person and online, as necessary) under the direction of the Danish PI, Henrik Reintoft Christensen.

The emergence of a digital age was evident already before the pandemic. The past few decades have witnessed the emergence of a rapidly growing and fast-expanding scholarship on religion, the internet and digital culture. Digital influences have been present largely at the margins of religious life, of great interest to academics but less important for the everyday practices of the majority of communities. With the pandemic and its restriction on in-person social gathering, however, religious communities have needed to turn to digital tools such as Zoom and YouTube more directly and more often in order to continue their practical work, and scholarship has followed this. The rapid expansion of digitised religious life during COVID-19 has led to shifts in authority, community organisation and practice that are likely to have a long-term effect on how Europeans of different backgrounds practice religion.

Qualifications

• Applicants for this position must hold a PhD degree or equivalent level in anthropology, sociology, study of religion, or similar disciplines.

Deadline: 13 October 2022

Read the full text and apply online