Dr Steven Sutcliffe (BA Russian London, MPhil Religious Studies Stirling, PhD Religious Studies The Open University)
Senior Lecturer in the Study of Religion

Address
- Street
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Room 2.23, School of Divinity, Mound Place
- City
- Edinburgh
- Post code
- EH1 2LX
Background
My undergraduate degree was in Russian Language and Literature at the University of London. Later, as a mature student, I took a Masters degree in Religious Studies at Stirling University followed by a PhD in Religious Studies at The Open University. I taught Religious Studies at the universities of Stirling and Sunderland before joining the School of Divinity in January 2005. Since then I have served as Director of Undergraduate Studies, Convenor of Ethics and Director of Research and helped launch our new Taught MSc in Religious Studies in 2010. I have also served as President of the British Association for the Study of Religions (BASR) and in 2021 I led the organisation of the annual BASR conference at Edinburgh.
My main interests are the study of new and alternative forms of religion and spirituality in the UK and Europe from a social history and ethnographic perspective.
In particular I teach 'new age' and 'holistic' spiritualities and I'm currently researching two historical streams that feed the contemporary situation: 'life reform'/natural health, and the Gurdjieff movement, in the early -mid twentieth century based on archival sources and memoirs.
I am also interested in the history of Religious Studies since the 1960s including conflicting interpretations of the category 'religion'.
Qualifications
BA MPhil PhD
Responsibilities & affiliations
I am a member of the editorial boards of the following journals:
Religion
Culture and Religion
Journal for the Academic Study of Religion
e-Rhizome: Journal for the Study of Religion, Society, Culture and Cognition
Between 2013 and 2020 I served on the editorial board for the IAHR Book Series 'The Study of Religion in a Global Context', and since 2012 I have been a member of the editorial board for the Bloomsbury 'Advances in Religious Studies' series.
Undergraduate teaching
New Spiritualities: from New Age to Holistic (3rd/4th year)
Theories of Religion (3rd/4th year)
Studying Religions (1st/2nd year)
Religion in Modern Britain (1st/2nd year)
Postgraduate teaching
New Spiritualities (Level 11)
Contemporary Theories of Religion (Level 11)
Classes on Emics and Etics and Bourdieu's sociology of religion in the MSc Religious Studies core course Theory and Method in the Study of Religion.
Open to PhD supervision enquiries?
Yes
Areas of interest for supervision
I'm always interested in creative interdisciplinary projects in the areas below. Drop me a line!
alternative forms of religion in the twentieth century
holistic and vitalistic models of health, healing and diet
discourses on spirituality in modernity
atheism, humanism and the rejection of religion
history of the modern study of religion
I have first supervised nine successful PhD theses and second supervised seven more. I've also first supervised six MSc by Research dissertations. Several of my students have published journal articles and monographs based on their work.
Current PhD students supervised
I am currently first supervising five PhD students whose topics include divinatory/astrological practices in late modernity, kinship in a new religion in South Korea, aspects of modern postural yoga in 'the West' and Goddess religion in Glastonbury and beyond.
I'm currently second supervisor for three PhDs: new spirituality in Saudi Arabia, rationalism and politics in Kerala, and functions of the Mosque in Scottish society.
Past PhD students supervised
Topics of previous PhDs include:
Spiritualist medumship; conspiracy culture and 'new age' millenialism; narratives of atheist identity; magical practices and the body; spirituality in artificial intelligence; madness and religion; pilgrimage and tourism on the island of Iona; the work of the psychiatrist and spiritual teacher, Maurice Nicoll; and Dark Goddess narrative spirituality.
Research summary
More information about research projects by Dr Sutcliffe are available on hisEdinburgh Research Explorer profile.
Current research interests
'Life Reform' networks - vegetarianism, nature cure, conscientious objection, the Scottish journalist Dugald Semple Gurdjieff/Ouspensky movement - 'work' on the self Life and work of the Anglo-Scottish writer of supernatural/fantastic fiction, David Lindsay Social history and ethnography of New Age beliefs and practices Counterculture and spirituality in the 'long 1960s' Seekership and the Cultic Milieu Biography of religion and oral history as methods - traces of religion in narrated lives Religious Studies as a disciplinary formationKnowledge exchange
I have given illustrated talks on different aspects of new spiritualities to the Centre for Contemporary Arts (Glasgow), the annual conference of Counselling and Psychotherapy in Scotland (Stirling), and to the Arthur Conan Doyle Centre (Edinburgh).
I have given presentations on Dugald Semple and Life Reform networks in Scotland to Local History societies in Johnstone, Beith, Kilwinning and Campbeltown.
Project activity
More information about research projects by Dr Sutcliffe are available on hisEdinburgh Research Explorer profile.
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Seeking as a late modern tradition: Three vernacular biographies
Research output: › Chapter (peer-reviewed) (Published) -
Uusia näkökulmia etsijyyteen: Kuinka selittää liikettä sisään ja ulos uusista uskonnoista?
DOI: https://doi.org/10.21435/tl.275
Research output: › Chapter (peer-reviewed) (Published) -
Spirituality
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5040/9781350243842.ch-19
Research output: › Chapter (peer-reviewed) (Published) -
Religion and the 'Simple Life': Dugald Semple and translocal 'Life Reform' networks
Research output: › Chapter (peer-reviewed) (Published) -
'The work': The teachings of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky in Russia and beyond
Research output: › Chapter (peer-reviewed) (Published) -
‘What’s in a name?’: The case for ‘Study of Religions’
(8 pages)
In:
Religion, vol. 50, pp. 129-136
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/0048721X.2019.1685181
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (Published) -
The Emics and Etics of Religion: What we know, how we know it and why this matters
Research output: › Chapter (peer-reviewed) (Published) -
Absolutism and pragmatism in conscientious objection to military service during the 1914-18 war: The case of Dugald Semple in Scotland
(15 pages)
In:
Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte/ Contemporary Church History, vol. 31, pp. 43-57
DOI: https://doi.org/10.13109/kize.2018.31.1.43
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (Published) -
Oneness movement
In:
World Religions and Spirituality Project
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (Published) -
"Beating on your heart": Occultism and neoromanticism in the fiction of David Lindsay
DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781351168328
Research output: › Chapter (peer-reviewed) (Published)