Dr Marion Bowman
Senior Lecturer

Current Research Interests | Publications | Societies | Conference Organisation

Follow this link to read an article about Marion and her research. (This first appeared in the Open Eye supplement in The Independent, September 2003.)

Current Research Interests include

• Vernacular/ folk/ popular religion - 'religion as it is lived' - and religious experience
• Contemporary religion (especially, New Age/Alternative Spirituality, Paganism, New Religious Movements, Vernacular Christianity)
• Contemporary Celtic Spirituality in Christianity, Paganism, Druidry, New Age/ Alternative Spirituality and New Religious Movements
• Methodology
• Pilgrimage and topophilia
• The relationship between religion and cultural tradition
• Innovation, adaptation and revival of custom and tradition
• Religious material culture (including foodways, devotional objects and costuming)
• The implications of religious pluralism and the contemporary spiritual marketplace
• Religion and healing
• Religion and locality: case studies of Glastonbury and Bath
• Changes in popular religion and the growth of religious pluralism in Newfoundland

Publications

Follow this link to find out more about Marion Bowman's Publications.

Societies

British Association for the Study of Religions – President (2006- ); Conference Organiser, 2001-06.

The Folklore Society – President, 2002- 2005; Vice-President, 2005 -

ESRC Research Seminar in European Ethnology – Steering Group, 2001-6

SIEF (Société Internationale d’Ethnologie et de Folklore); SIEF Working Group on Ethnology of Religion; SIEF Working Group on The Ritual Year; SIEF Working Group on Cultural Heritage and Property

European Association for the Study of Religion

British Sociological Association Sociology of Religion Study Group

Charles Rennie Mackintosh Society

Conference Organisation

Belief Beyond Boundaries

British Association for the Study of Religion (BASR) Annual Conferences:

'The Ethical Dimension', Bath Spa University 2006; 'Religious Studies: Mapping the Field', 50th Anniversary Conference, Harris Manchester College, Oxford, 2004; 'Religions in Transition', British Association for the Study of Religion Annual Conference, Chester College, 2003; 'Religion and the State', British Association for the Study of Religion Annual Conference, University of Surrey, Roehampton, 2002; 'Religion and Community', 1st European Association for the Study of Religion Conference, University of Cambridge, 2001.