... the role of sensory experience, materiality, and heritage in anthropological research. Prof. Dr. Birgit Meyer will discuss her work on religion and colonial collections, introducing key concepts such as matters of sensation, aesthetic formations, and sensational form. Through these frameworks, she demonstrates how attention to the sensory and material dimensions of religion can open new perspectives  for ethnographic and theoretical inquiry into religion, media, and material culture.

Part 1 : Public session (09:30- 11:30) open for scholars of all levels;

Part 2 : Closed session  (12:00-14:00) interactive workshop with and for students of the MA course Matters of Sensation: Inquiries into the Anthropology of the Senses, Materialities, and Religion (taught by Martin Zillinger & Nina ter Laan).

The public session of the masterclass is designed as a participatory exchange. Participants are encouraged to engage with Prof. Meyer’s work and contribute questions or reflections arising from their own research and fieldwork.

A limited number of places are available for external participants to join the public session.
If you would like to join, please submit a 1-page application including a short abstract of your ongoing research, and a brief motivation outlining your interest in participating.

Send applications by 6 November to: nterlaan@uni-koeln.de and zillingm@uni-koeln.de

Prof. Dr. Birgit Meyer (PhD in Anthropology, 1995) is Professor of Religious Studies at Utrecht University and Director of the research program Religious Matters in an Entangled World (religiousmatters.nl). Trained as a cultural anthropologist, she studies religion from a material and postcolonial perspective, bringing together grounded ethnography and theoretical reflection. As one of the key thinkers of material religion, her work explores how religious experiences are mediated by sensory, material, and corporeal elements, and how objects, spaces, and aesthetics shape religious subjectivities and communities. Meyer’s research also engages deeply with postcolonial theory, offering critical insights into the enduring effects of colonialism on religious traditions and practices. She is currently affiliated to the University of Cologne as a Mercator Fellow (2024–2026) at the Collaborative Research Centre Media of Cooperation, subproject B04 Digital Publics and Social Transformation in the Maghreb.