This episode of Religion & delves into how contemporary religious movements address urgent political, cultural, and environmental crises, from technological transformation to ecological collapse. Looking across a wide array of new religious movements, participants will investigate how these movements reimagine ancient practices for modern concerns while creating new frameworks for living. Join us for a lively discussion at the intersection of modern-day crises and the ways religion shapes and is shaped by these shifts in religious tradition.

Host: Kelly E. Hayes

Kelly E. Hayes is Professor of Religious Studies at Indiana University Indianapolis. An ethnographer who conducts long-term fieldwork projects, she is an expert on alternative and new religious movements, Brazilian religions, religion and healing, religions of the African diaspora, and religion, gender and sexuality. She studies forms of human cultural production that outsiders label as "cults" or "black magic"—that is, ways of engaging the supernatural that are deemed illegitimate — and the communities that form around them. Her body of work centers these communities and the lived experiences of their members. It argues not only for the significance of these groups, but that taking them seriously yields important theoretical insights for the field of religious studies and the humanities more broadly.

Panelist: Knut Graw

Knut Graw (PhD) is a social and cultural anthropologist and a permanent research fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies for the Humanities and Social Sciences – Erlangen "Alternative Rationalities and Esoteric Practices in Global Perspective" (CAS-E) at the Friedrich Alexander-University Erlangen-Nuremberg. His research focuses on divination, migration, and religious practices in Senegal and the Gambia. His theoretical interests include phenomenological theory, ritual studies, and questions of anthropological methodology. He is the co-editor of "The Global Horizon: Migratory Expectations in Africa and the Middle East" (Leuven University Press).

Panelist: Daria Hartmann

Daria Hartmann is a PhD candidate at the University of Münster, where she also teaches in the Department of Religious Studies. She holds a BA in Religious Studies and Anthropology from the University of Münster and an M.Sc. in Conflict Resolution and Governance from the University of Amsterdam. Following training in non-violent conflict transformation, her research now examines the intersection of religion, politics, and digital culture, with particular attention to conspiracy theories. Her dissertation investigates QAnon as a case study for understanding how digital platforms reshape religious meaning-making and truth production.

Panelist: Benjamin Zeller

Benjamin E. Zeller is the Irvin L. & Fern D. Young Presidential Professor of Religion at Lake Forest College (Chicago, USA). He studies North American religion, focusing on such topics as new religions, the religious engagement with science, and the quasi-religious relationship people have with food and other forms of culture. He is the author or editor of six books, and co-general editor of Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions.

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