New Antiquities - Transformations of Ancient Religion in the New Age and Beyond - Dylan Michael Burns
‘From Aphrodite to Kuan Yin’ - 'The Tao of Venus' and its Modern Genealogy: Invoking Ancient Goddesses in Cos(met)ic Acupuncture
New Antiquities - Transformations of Ancient Religion in the New Age and Beyond - Dylan Michael Burns
Almut-Barbara Renger [+]
Freie Universität Berlin
Almut-Barbara Renger is Professor of Ancient Religion and Culture and Their Reception History at the Institute for the Scientific Study of Religion at Freie Universität Berlin since 2008, and Associate Fellow in the Department of Comparative Literature at Harvard University since 2011. After earning a M.A. from Freie Universität Berlin involving several years of studies at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and Stanford University, she obtained a Ph.D. from Heidelberg University in 2001, and completed her habilitation at Frankfurt University in 2009. Her research concentrates on the reception of Greco-Roman antiquity, diverse aspects of cultural and religious theory, dynamics in the history of religions between Asia, Europe and America, and the relationship of religion and literature.
Description
A recent development of the commercialization of New Age religiosity is the combination of ancient Asian traditions with elements of European history—even ancient mythography—and modern psychotherapy, on the assumption, increasingly prevalent since 1800, of a common origin of all religions. The original Asian methods and their religious and philosophical contexts are reinterpreted to make them compatible with the cognitive habits and needs of modern Western recipients, particularly as regards the contemporary ideal of beauty and youth.