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Professor Linda Woodhead

Professor of Sociology of Religion

Associated research centres and groups: Centre for Gender and Women's Studies

Current Teaching

From 2007-2013 I am directing the £12m UK research programme, the AHRC/ESRC Religion and Society Programme. Although I am still based at Lancaster, this buys me out of my normal duties at Lancaster, so I will not be available for undergraduate teaching. I will continue to supervise PhDs.

Research Interests

I have written widely on Christianity, its growth, decline and transformation in modern times. In An Introduction to Christianity (CUP 2004) and A Very Short Introduction to Christianity (OUP 2004) I took a sociological approach which paid particular attention to the ways in which power has been imagined and distributed within Christianity.

I am also interested in the rise of 'alternative' spirituality from the mid 19th century to the present. In The Spiritual Revolution (Blackwell 2005), on the basis of empirical research, Paul Heelas and I considered the significance of such spirituality and reasons for its rapid growth since the 1980s. In a recent paper (2011) I consider how spirituality and Christianity have constructed one another through both repudiation and borrowing.

Gender has been a central theme in all my writing. I have written several articles on the reasons for women's preponderance in spirituality. I have also proposed a 'gendering' of secularisation theory. I am currently carrying this interest forward in research on everyday, lived religion - which I characterise as 'tactical' religion.

My most recent book is A Sociology of Religious Emotion (2010), with Ole Riis. I am currently writing a book on Religion in Public: Realignments in State, Society and Market, based on the Wilde Lectures delivered at the University of Oxford in 2011. I show how political and economic transformation in the last 50 years has led to a 'deregulation' and reconstruction of religious life.

See CV for more details.

Potential Doctoral Proposals

I am happy to consider proposals in the areas of: religion and society in modern societies, contemporary Christianity, religion and gender, everyday religion, religious change.

Publications

BOOKS

A Sociology of Religious Emotion (with Ole Riis). Oxford University Press (2010).

Religions in the Modern World (co-edited with Koko Kawanami and Chris Partridge). 2nd edition. Fully revised. London: Routledge (2009).

God and Human Dignity (co-edited with Kendall Soulen). Grand Rapids, Michigan, Cambridge, UK: William B. Eerdmans, 2006.

The Spiritual Revolution. Why Religion is Giving Way to Spirituality (with Paul Heelas). Oxford, UK and Malden, USA: Blackwell, 2005.

An Introduction to Christianity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.

Christianity: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.

Congregational Studies in the UK (co-edited with Mathew Guest and Karin Tusting). Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004.

Predicting Religion: Christian, Secular and Alternative Futures (co-edited with Grace Davie and Paul Heelas). Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003.

Peter Berger and the Study of Religion (ed.) London: Routledge, 2002.

Religions in the Modern World. Traditions and Transformations (ed.) London: Routledge, 2002.

Reinventing Christianity: Nineteenth Century Contexts (ed.) Aldershot: Ashgate, 2001.

Religion in Modern Times (co-edited with Paul Heelas). Oxford, UK and Malden, USA: Blackwell, 200o.

Diana. The Making of a Media Icon (co-edited with Jeffrey Richards and Scott Wilson) London: I.B.Tauris, 1999.

Religion and Society Programme

I am Director of the Religion and Society Research Programme, which runs until 2013.This is funded by the AHRC (Arts and Humanities Research Council) and the ESRC (Economic and Social Research Council). It has commissioned 75 separate research projectson various themes related to religion and society.

Recent Appointments

Chair of the Theology and Religious Studies panel for REF 2014 (the national research assessment exercise).

Visiting Professor, University of Aarhus, 2008-

Eprints Publications Repository and Bibliographic Database

Linda Woodhead has 52 selected publication records listed on this webpage. Use links to access abstracts and full text where available. View all records to sort by date, type and title. For all ePrints records go to http://eprints.lancs.ac.uk

Woodhead, Linda (2011) Christianity and spirituality : the unfolding of a tangled relationship. In: Christianity and Spirituality. not known. (Submitted)

Woodhead, Linda (2011) Five concepts of religion. International Review of Sociology, 21 (1). ISSN 1469-9273 (In Press)

Woodhead, Linda (2011) Liberal religion and illiberal secularism. In: Religion in a Liberal State. Polity. (In Press)

Catto, Rebecca and Woodhead, Linda (2011) Religion. In: Europe in a global context. Palgrave, Basingstoke, pp. 103-115. ISBN 9780230285828

Woodhead, Linda (2010) "Religion or Belief" : identifying issues and priorities. Working Paper. EHRC.

Woodhead, Linda (2008) Gendering secularization theory. Social Compass, 55 (2). pp. 187-193. ISSN 0037-7686

Sointu, Eeva and Woodhead, Linda (2008) Spirituality, gender and expressive selfhood. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 47 (2). pp. 259-276. ISSN 0021-8294

Woodhead, Linda (2007) Gender Differences in Religious Practice and Significance. In: The Sage Handbook of the Sociology of Religion. Sage, Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore, pp. 550-570.

Woodhead, Linda (2007) Why So Many Women in Holistic Spirituality? In: The Sociology of Spirituality. Ahsgate, Aldershot, pp. 115-125.

Woodhead, Linda (2005) Why do Religious and Spiritual Movements Grow? In: Big Questions in History. Jonathan Cape, London, pp. 167-174.

Other Interests and Hobbies

Drag racing, American cars from the 60s and 70s, dogs, gardening.

Associated Keywords: Christianity, Emotions, Gender, Modernity, Religion and politics, Religion and society, Secularisation, Sociology of religion, Spirituality

View all research activities, ePrints, news and events associated with Linda Woodhead.

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