Suzanne Owen received her PhD in Religious Studies from the University of Edinburgh in 2007, where she also received her MA (specialising in South Asian religious traditions), and currently lectures on ‘world religions’. In between, she completed a PGCE and taught in a Rudolf Steiner-inspired small school in Gloucestershire for three years. For her PhD, she studied issues to do with non-native ‘appropriations’ of Native American spirituality and conducted fieldwork among Mi’kmaq communities in Newfoundland researching the sharing of ceremonies. This led her to her current research investigating indigeneity and the category ‘indigenous religion’. In addition, she is currently researching contemporary forms of British and Irish Druidry.

Varieties of Religious Experience (TRS4902)

Method and Theory in the Study of Religions (TRS4802)

Sociology and Anthropology of Religion (with Dr Kim, TRS5912)

World Religions I: Texts and Traditions (TRS5802)

World Religions II: Cultures and Complexities (TRS6802)

Indigenous Religions and Local Christianities (with Dr Kim, TRS6722)

The category ‘indigenous religions’; contemporary Native North American religions and organisations; appropriation and inculturation; religious/cultural boundaries, including ethnicity; methodological issues in the study of religion, including research ethics and the ‘insider/outsider problem’.

Publications:

The Appropriation of Native American Spirituality (Continuum, 15^th December 2008)

 Book review: ‘From Primitive to Indigenous by James L. Cox (Ashgate 2007)’, BASR Bulletin 112 (May 2008), 28-9

Selected conference and seminar papers

2009    ‘Indigenous religious expressions? Mi’kmaq Tradition and British Druidry’, American Academy of Religion (AAR), Montréal, 7-10 November

2009    ‘Sources of contemporary Mi’kmaq spirituality’, American Academy of Religion (AAR), Montréal, 7-10 November

2009    ‘Production of “Sacred” Space in the Mi’kmaq Powwow’ at the British Association for the Study of Religions (BASR) conference, Bangor, Wales

2009    ‘No Prayer Without Pain? Ceremonial Suffering Among the Mi’kmaq’, Native Studies Research Network (NSRN) ‘Indigenous Bodies’ conference, University of East Anglia, 8-10 July

2009    ‘Performing Indigeneity in Newfoundland’, Narratives of Indigeneity conference, Birkbeck College, 22 May

2009    ‘Teaching Religions: can we cure the “World Religions” cancer?’ Critical Religion symposium, Stirling, 5 February