Paulson Lectures in the Study of Religion
November 4-7, 2025, Tartu

This year the lectures will be held by Kevin Schilbrack. He is an internationally renown scholar of methodological and theoretical issues in study of religion. In his book Philosophy and the Study of Religions, he argued that philosophers of religion ought to expand their object of study beyond their traditional focus on religious beliefs to include embodied religious practices. In the three Paulson lectures, Kevin Schilbrack offers a new philosophical account that focuses on the creative power of those practices. Paulson Lectures in the Study of Religion are organized by the Estonian Society for the Study of Religions in cooperation with the School of Theology and Religious Studies, the Department of Philosophy and the Department of Estonian and Comparative Folklore of the University of Tartu. The lectures are open to everybody (and do not require pre-registration); the special seminar has limited seats and thus is available only with pre-registration.

SCHEDULE

Lecture I: Affordances

4.11.2025 – 16:15-17:45 Ülikooli 18-228

In the first lecture, I draw on tools developed in phenomenology of embodiment to outline how religious practices train their participants to be able to see “affordances,” that is, value-laden opportunities in their environment. Affordances emerge in the relationship between entities, and so the values they carry are not subjective or mental, but are instead properties that a trained person can discover in their environment. A benefit of this approach is that it locates not only facts but also values – including religious values – within a naturalistic account of the world.

Lecture II: Skills

5.11.2025 – 16:15-17:45 Ülikooli 18-228

In the first talk, I outlined the idea of affordances and the implication that religious values can be discovered as objective facts in the material world. In this second talk, I connect the idea of affordances to religious forms of life and illustrate it with examples drawn from Buddhist, Christian, and Confucian practices. This approach treats religious forms of life as offering opportunities for embodied training. Given this focus on transformation through practice, one should not consider religious practitioners simply as generic “insiders” but instead should see them as seeking and achieving different levels of skill – for example, novice, competent, or expert – at their religious practices. However, if religions train their members to see the world in new ways, this raises an important and difficult epistemological question that I will address: how can scholars understand the world of someone who is expert in a practice if the scholar is not even a novice?

Lecture III: Niches

6.11.2025 – 16:15-17:45 Ülikooli 18-228

In my second talk, I developed the idea that religious forms of life offer opportunities for training that enables participants to discover values in the world they otherwise could not see. In this final lecture, I want to develop the idea that this religious training can be a form of niche construction. “Niche construction” refers to the fact that some animals do not simply accept the natural environment as they find it but also transform it to make it a more congenial home – as, for example, when beavers build dams. Human animals also transform their environments, though, unlike beavers, human creative powers are not fully determined by human instincts and the cultural niches they create therefore vary widely. In this way, human cultures, including religious cultures, are rooted in human biology as human animals seek ways to flourish. In this closing talk, I explore how flourishing might provide a criterion not only for understanding but also for evaluating religious practices across cultures.

Special Seminar: The Concept of Religion as a Heuristic Device?

7.11.2025 – 14:15-15:45 Ülikooli 18-230

NB! Limited spots. Only with pre-registration! Contact: ipeedu@ut.ee

The seminar focuses on the matter of the trans-cultural applicability of general concepts such as religion in the study of religion. In dialogue with required readings the seminar will focus on discussing different possibilities and perspectives concerning this issue with particular focus on some competing ideas in this discussion. On the one hand, it has been proposed that general concepts should be understood as useful tools that do not necessarily correspond to anything specific in the world, on the other hand others have emphasized the necessity of a realist position that insists on a more direct relationship between the concepts and the phenomena.

Kevin Schilbrack is professor in the Department of Philosophy and Religion at Appalachian State University, located in the mountains of North Carolina, USA. A graduate of the University of Chicago Divinity School, he is the contributing editor of Thinking through Myths: Philosophical Perspectives (2002) and Thinking through Rituals: Philosophical Perspectives (2004) and the author of Philosophy and the Study of Religions: A Manifesto (2014). He is presently writing about the relevance of social ontology and embodied cognition for the academic study of religion.

Ivar Paulson Lectures is a lecture series that focuses on the most noteworthy topics, issues, and new developments in the contemporary study of religion. Ivar Paulson (1922-1966) was known for the wide range of peoples, religious beliefs and practices he was interested in and which he studied by combining a number of different research approaches. Similarly, Paulson’s lectures aim to highlight and bring together some of the more significant developments from various approaches and perspectives in the contemporary study of religion.

Paulson Lectures in the Study of Religion are organized by the Estonian Society for the Study of Religions in cooperation with the Estonian Doctoral School for Humanities and Arts, and the School of Theology and Religious Studies of the University of Tartu. This year, the lectures will be held by Catharina Raudvere, who is an internationally renowned scholar of Old Scandinavian religion and mythology and contemporary Muslim women’s practices and Sufi women in the Islamic world.

Schedule

19.11.2024 – 16:15-17:45 at Lossi 3-117, Tartu

Seeing and Being Seen. Community Life Beyond the Established Religious Institutions

Based on fieldwork materials from Turkey and Bosnia, this lecture will focus more generally on contemporary pious life outside the established religious institutions. To what extent are such constellations new in a more profound sense, and to what extent is it a question of visibility of practices with a long-term history? Muslim women’s prayer circles will be the point of departure for the discussion.

20.11.2024 – 16:15-17:45 at Lossi 3-117, Tartu

Claims of Religious Authority and Legitimacy. Spaces for Knowledge Production

As with other spaces for interpretation of texts and tradition, there are also other interlocutors on the scene who represent different aspects of gender and generation than usually among the dominating voices within the established religious institutions. A focal point in this lecture will be not so much on new messages but on the means and tools for mediation in a landscape of alternative voices. Who can claim legitimate religious knowledge, and in what situations? What historical imaginaries are deemed to be relevant for contemporary exegesis?

21.11.2024 – 16:15-17:45 at Lossi 3-117, Tartu

Between Transmit and Transform. Taking Ritual Responsibilities

Alternative forms for gatherings, teaching, and learning by necessity affect the mode of religious practices. For those who take ritual responsibilities in smaller piety communities, negotiations are essential for the legitimacy of both leaders and practices, as well as for keeping up the continuation of the activities. Also, in this lecture, a key theme will be the rhetorical entanglement of claims of historical lines and assurance of meeting today’s challenges when attracting new participants.

Catharina Raudvere is a professor of the History of Religions at the Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies, University of Copenhagen. She has published the monograph The Book and the Roses. Sufi Women, Visibility, and Zikir in Contemporary Istanbul (2003) and edited Contested Memories and the Demands of the Past. History Cultures in the Modern Muslim World (2016), Nostalgia – Loss and Creativity. Political and Cultural Representations of the Past in South-East Europe (2018) and Neo-Ottoman Imaginaries in Contemporary Turkey. Gendered Discourses, Agencies, and Visions (with Petek Onur 2022). Raudvere has together with Zilka Spahić-Šiljak produced the educational film Bosnian Muslim Women’s Rituals. Bulas Singing, Reciting and Teaching in Sarajevo (2016). Raudvere is PI for the Nordic network “Contemporary Muslim Lay Piety. Interpretations, Performance and Mobilization and PI for the research project “Pious Practices among Danish Muslims. Diversity, Devotion, and Aesthetics” 2023–2026.

Ivar Paulson lectures is a lecture series focuses on the most noteworthy topics, issues, and new developments in the contemporary study of religion. Ivar Paulson (1922-1966) was known for the wide range of peoples, religious beliefs and practices he was interested in and which he studied by combining a number of different research approaches. Similarly, Paulson’s lectures aim to highlight and bring together some of the more significant developments from various approaches and perspectives in the contemporary study of religion.

The lectures are supported by European Union

Paulson Lectures in the Study of Religion are organized by the Estonian Society for the Study
of Religions in cooperation with the School of Theology and Religious Studies of the
University of Tartu. This year the lectures will be held by Kocku von Stuckrad who is
widely known scholar of Western Esotericism, discursive study of religion as well as many
other issues related to the history of religion, science, and philosophy in Europe and North
America.

Dates and location:
07.11.2023 – 16:15-17:45 at Jakobi 2-114: The Colonial Invention of Animism
08.11.2023 – 16:15-17:45 at Jakobi 2-114: European Animisms Today
09.11.2023 – 16:15-17:45 at Jakobi 2-114: The Relational Turn and the Study of Religion

Detailed descriptions of the lectures:
The Colonial Invention of Animism
07.11.2023 – 16:15-17:45 at Jakobi 2-114
The concept of animism is deeply rooted in colonial structures. Introduced by the British
anthropologist Edward B. Tylor (1871) as the belief in the animation of nature and the
existence of spirits, colonial religious studies imagined animism as a ‘failed ontology.’ This
‘primitive religion’ could be found outside of Europe, mainly in Indigenous, Buddhist, and
Hindu traditions, but also in segments of European societies that seemed to be untouched by
the project of rational, disenchanted European modernity. The lecture situates the early
discourse on animism in an ambiguous European setting that is torn between fascination and
rejection of animism and related trends in religion and philosophy.

European Animisms Today
08.11.2023 – 16:15-17:45 at Jakobi 2-114

While postcolonial critique resulted in a rejection of the concept of animism in most
academic settings, since the 1980s, the term has gained a lot of traction in new religious and
spiritual movements, first in North America and then in Europe. Particularly in nature-based
spiritualities such as paganism or shamanism, animism became a positive identity marker for
many people, including environmental activists and artists. Scholars, too, revisited the
concept of animism and suggested new interpretations that look at animism as a relational
approach to the more-than-human world. The lecture describes these developments as a
general societal change, which involves ‘discourse communities’ formed by scholars,
practitioners, artists, and other actors.

The Relational Turn and the Study of Religion
09.11.2023 – 16:15-17:45 at Jakobi 2-114
The academic and popular work on the concept of animism is clearly linked to a broader
change that characterizes European and North American intellectual culture today. The new
scholarly interpretations of animism resonate with the ‘relational turn’ across academic
disciplines, the arts, and politics. Taking seriously the relationality, entanglement, and
situatedness of our knowledges is key for the study of religion as well. As it turns out, the
acknowledgment of animism as a European tradition may even contribute to attempts at
decolonization and de-Westernization. Against this background, the lecture formulates a few
programmatic ideas for the study of religion in the 21st century.

Kocku von Stuckrad is a professor of religious studies at the University of Groningen, the
Netherlands. He has published extensively on topics related to the history of religion, science,
and philosophy in Europe and North America. Using a discursive approach to religion, he has
worked particularly on nature-based and esoteric spiritualities as influential currents in
European tradition. His most recent book is A Cultural History of the Soul: Europe and North
America from 1870 to the Present (Columbia University Press, 2021).

Ivar Paulson lectures is a lecture series organized by the Estonian Society for the Study of
Religions that focus on the most noteworthy topics, issues and new developments in the
contemporary study of religion. Ivar Paulson (1922-1966) was known for the wide range of
peoples, religious beliefs and practices he was interested in and which he studied by
combining a number of different research approaches. Similarly, Paulson lectures aim to
highlight and bring together some of the more significant developments from various
approaches and perspectives in the contemporary study of religion.

In cooperation with the University of Tartu the Estonian Society for the Study of Religions is organizing the first Ivar Paulson lectures in the study of religion. This year the lectures will be held by the well-known scholar of Indian Tantra, Paolo E. Rosati. He is a distinguished scholar of Indian Tantra, in particular of its historical development in the wider social, cultural and religious context.

Dates and location:

02.11.2022 – 16:15-17:45 at Ülikooli 18-139: Tantra and Beyond

03.11.2022 – 16:15-17:45 at Ülikooli 18-139: The Cult of the Goddess Kāmākhyā (Assam)

04.11.2022 – 14:15-15:45 at Ülikooli 18-139: Blood, Sex, and Magic: The Power of the Yonipīṭha at Kāmākhyā

Detailed descriptions of the lectures can be found below:

Tantra and Beyond

02.11.2022 – 16:15-17:45 at Ülikooli 18-139

This lecture is a short introduction to Tantra as a religious phenomenon related not only to the Sanskritic élite and its textual production (such as, e.g., the highly philosophical Kashmiri Śivaism and its non-dualistic view of the universe) but also to the cross-cultural dialectic between Brahmanism and non-mainstream religions, such as tribal and folk traditions. After an analysis of the proposed definitions of Tantra in the history of the studies, the characteristics of Tantra will be point out in order to explain the problematic identification of Tantra as an univocal category because the extreme fluidity of its elements. Hence, also a differentiation between left-hand and right-hand or soft-core and hard-core Tantra emerges as a flawed attempt of classification. Finally, the controversial issue regarding the ‘birth’ of Tantra will be discussed highlighting the possibility of a multiple origin of what we call Tantra.

The Cult of the Goddess Kāmākhyā (Assam)

03.11.2022 – 16:15-17:45 at Ülikooli 18-139

The mythology of the goddess Kāmākhyā was introduced in the early medieval Kālikāpurāṇa (ninth–eleventh century CE), a Śākta text that linked the yoni of Satī to the Assamese goddess Kāmākhyā. This lecture will analyse the medieval and pre-modern Purāṇas and Tantras compiled in northeastern India—focusing on their mythological accounts of the cosmogony of the yoni-pīṭha—in order to outline the intersection of Kaula-Tantra and Purāṇic elements in the formation of the Goddess’s cult at Kāmākhyā.

Blood, Sex, and Magic: The Power of the Yonipīṭha at Kāmākhyā

04.11.2022 – 14:15-15:45 at Ülikooli 18-139

This lecture explores the connection between Tantra and the magic tradition of Nīlācala in Assam in order to explain the encounter between Brahmanism and magic. First, the doctrinal, ritual, and mythical background of the cult of the Goddess Kāmākhyā, whose roots go back to the esoteric sexual path of Kaula Tantra praxis will be discussed. Having traced the history to this path, which around the 10th century switched from blood sacrifice to a mystic-erotic ritual centred on the yoni-pūjā (worship of the vulva), homologizing blood offerings and erotic rituals focusing on the human body as a source of sexual fluids necessary to obtain such supernatural accomplishments (siddhis), this lecture then examines the concept of siddhi as a ‘magical power’ that can be acquired only by those belonging to the kula (clan), the only ones who know the yoni’s secret (the restricted transmission of siddhis over kula’s generations being a complement to the ideology of blood sacrifice). Finally, it considers the intersection of indigenous traditions and Brahmanical ritual praxis in Assam as the source of the peculiar cult of the yoni of Kāmākhyā. From this discussion, Assamese Tantra emerges as a religious phenomenon that crosses socio-cultural boundaries and encompasses apparently irreconcilable categories

Paolo E. Rosati is an independent scholar based in Rome (Italy). He obtained a PhD in ‘Asian and African Studies’ (South Asian Section) from Sapienza University of Rome (2017). Since 2016 he has regularly published articles on the yoni cult at Kāmākhyā in peer-reviewed journals and collective volumes. His publications include a double special issue on Tantra for Religions of South Asia (vol. 14, nos. 1–2) and a volume (coedited with Andrea Acri) entitled, Tantra, Magic, and Vernacular Religions in Monsoon Asia: Texts, Practices, and Practitioners from the Margins (Routledge Studies in Tantric Traditions). Actually, he is editing an upcoming volume Magic, the Supernatural, and Danger across Pre-Modern and Modern Monsoon Asia. Paolo’s main field of research is the medieval and pre-modern development of Assamese Tantra, although nowadays his research’s focus is expanding to the intersection of Tantra, magic, gender, and memory in the modern period.

Ivar Paulson lectures focus on the most noteworthy topics, issues and new developments in the contemporary study of religion. Ivar Paulson (1922-1966) was known for the wide range of peoples, religious beliefs and practices he was interested in and which he studied by combining a number of different research approaches. Similarly, Paulson lectures aim to highlight and bring together some of the more significant developments from various approaches and perspectives in the contemporary study of religion.