OpenLearn Profile

Graham Harvey

Graham Harvey

Religious Studies Department

Professional biography
Graham Harvey is a professor of Religious Studies,his research largely concerns “the new animism,” especially in the rituals and protocols through which Indigenous and other communities engage with the larger-than-human world. His recent teaching-related work has involved a focus on foodways and on defining “religion” as sensual engagement with the world. His publications include Food, Sex, and Strangers: Understanding Religion as Everyday Life (2013), and Animism: Respecting the Living World (2nd edition 2017). Graham was more recently an academic advisor for BBC Earth TV series Extraordinary Rituals(3 x 60-minute programmes August 2018 on BBC2). Graham'sresearch and teaching focus on rituals and other kinds of performance in the ways in which people live their religions. His bookFood, Sex and Strangers: Understanding Religion as Everyday Life(2013) argues that everyday practices as well as exceptional rituals should all be considered when we seek to understand religion(s). It is rooted in his research among Jews, Pagans and Indigenous peoples (particularly Anishinaabeg, Maori, Mi’kmaq, Sámi and Yoruba both in their homelands and in diaspora). His most recent research project has been at the Sámi organised annual cultural festival, Riddu Riđđu, in Sápmi, arctic Norway, and at Border Crossings’ ORIGINS Festival of First Nations, hosted biennially in venues across London. This has been part of aninternational project, “Reassembling Democracy: Ritual as Cultural Resource”, funded by Norwegian Research Council. Other project members have researched religious, cultural and political rituals in Canada, Denmark, France, Ghana, Hong Kong, Norway, Poland, UK, USA and Zimbabwe. Graham’s research informs his contributions to courses in Religious Studies at the OU, including discussions of religious foodways and Indigenous narratives for A227 “Exploring Religion” and the “new animism” and individualised “spiritualities” for A332 “Why is Religion Controversial?” He is also editor of the book series “Religion and the Senses” and co-editor of the journalBody and Religionboth of which encourage debate on the physical, bodily and sensual realities of religion. His publications include Animism: Respecting the Living World (2007), Contemporary Paganism (2011), and Food, Sex and Strangers: Understanding Religion as Everyday Life (2013).

Graham Harvey's activities

Browse 18 OpenLearn items Graham Harvey has worked on