Joseph Sedgwick (BA (Hons), MA, MSc)

Thesis title: The relationship between online and in person activity in the formation of contemporary Scottish Pagans’ religious identities

Biography

Qualifications

BA (Hons) International Politics and International History

Aberystwyth University

MA International Politics

Aberystwyth University

MSc Religious Studies

University of Edinburgh

Research summary

Joseph's research focuses on contemporary Paganism and the construction of religious identities, with a particular interest in the differences between online and offline identity and religious activity. 

Current research interests

My research interests include the history of contemporary Paganism, digital religion, models of religious conversion, and theory on the problem of identity.

Current project grants

D W D Shaw Scholarship

Conference details

European Association for the Study of Religion: Religion and Technology

Vilnius (September 2023)

British Association for the Study of Religion

Cambridge (September 2023)

Sacred Dichotomies: Time and Space in Contemporary Pagan Rituals 

Workshop, University of Glasgow (25th November 2023)

 

European Association of Social Anthropologists: Doing and Undoing Anthropology 

University of Barcelona (July 2024)

European Association for the Study of Religion: Nature, Ecology, and Religious Responses to Climate Change

Gothenburg (August 2024)

Papers delivered

I presented the paper ‘The Relationship Between Online and Offline Identities Among Contemporary Scottish Pagans’ as part of the panel ‘Cyberhenge Revisited: Contemporary Paganism, Technology and the Internet’ at EASR 2023 and 'Understanding Paganism' at BASR 2023

The paper ‘Excluded from the Authentic? Modern Pagans’ scepticism and use of digital media and ‘profilicity’’ was delivered as part of the 'Sacred Dichotomies' workshop at the University of Glasgow, November 2023

I presented the paper ‘’Overlapping Fields’: Doing Ethnography of contemporary Paganism in Scotland as a Scholar-Practitioner’ as part of the panel ‘Doing ethnography of contemporary 'spiritual' practices: methodological challenges towards relationality, communication, and presence’ at EASA 2024 

 At EASR 2024 in Gothenburg, I convened the panel ‘‘A Serpentless Eden’? - Nature and Landscape in New Scottish Spiritualities’, on which I also delivered the paper ‘’Authentic’ nature and ‘mundane’ technomodernity – examining Scottish Pagans attitudes to nature’ 

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