After a peripatetic existence that’s involved four international moves over the past eight months, and eight countries visited over the summer, I have now landed in Stockholm, Sweden. (Big thanks to everyone who offered their hospitality along the way – from the Holy Land to the Pacific coast, and the French riviera to the Scottish highlands!) Having been on six temporary contracts over the past three years (with a few short stints of unemployment in between), I am happy to announce that I am taking up a position as assistant professor in the history of religions at Stockholm University. As their in-house heterodoxologist, I will be teaching a course this autumn on “New religions and spiritualities” with a heavy focus on the alternative and esoteric, and contribute to courses on stuff like “Mysticism and meditation” and “Theory and method” in the study of religion. Next year, I’ll also reboot an introductory course on Western esotericism that has existed as a summer course at the department since 2007 (although not always taught). I also look forward to start collaborating with the growing community of colleagues here in Sweden who share these interests, on all levels, and both within and outside of academia.
The new position will, of course, also allow me to continue the various strands of my existing research, such as the CogSci oriented Occult Minds project, started in Santa Barbara. But in line with my job description (covering new religious movements and processes of religious change), I’m also expecting to return to a stronger emphasis on contemporary esotericism and social scientific approaches. Updates on further developments are, in other words, certain to follow, so watch this space (and this space, too)!
This blog post by Egil Asprem was first published on Heterodoxology. It is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Heterodoxology 
Congratulations on the new position, Egil!