Manon Hedenborg White
Associate Professor/Senior lecturer

Presentation

I am Associate Professor of History of Religions and research coordinator at the Department of Society, Culture and Identity (SKI). My research focuses on alternative religions, mainly from the late-19th century until today, including esotericism, New Religious Movements, and contemporary ("new age) spirituality. I have a particular interest in broader questions of gender, sexuality, and authority in religions.

In 2017, I obtained a doctoral degree in History of Religions at Uppsala University. I am the author of the monograph The Eloquent Blood: The Goddess Babalon and the Construction of Femininities in Western Esotericism (Oxford University Press, 2020), described by a reviewer as "one of the most important contributions to the field of contemporary occultism and alternative spiritualities in recent years, as well as to the intersections between gender and contemporary forms of religion more broadly". I have also co-edited the volume Esotericism and Deviance (Brill, 2023) and special issues of the journals Aries, The Pomegranate, and Religion & the Arts.

Between 2018–2018, I was funded by the Swedish Research Council for an international postdoctoral project. During my postdoc, I was a visiting researcher at the Center for History of Hermetic Philosophy and Related Currents at the University of Amsterdam.

In 2019, I co-founded (with prof. Christine Ferguson) the interdisciplinary research network Esotericism, Gender, and Sexuality Network. I am a member of the board of the European Society for the Study of Western Esotericism, and the editorial boards of the series Oxford Studies in Western Esotericism (Oxford University Press) and Palgrave Studies in New Religions and Alternative Spiritualities (Palgrave Macmillan).