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Roussou Εugenia

Roussou Εugenia

Assistant Professor

Academic field: Anthropology of Religion, Ritual and Symbolic Systems

Official Government Gazette, Issue: 1501/23.04.2025 τ. Γ ́

Eugenia Roussou is Assistant Professor of Social Anthropology at the Department of Social Anthropology and History of the University of the Aegean since May 2025. She holds a BA in History, Archaeology and Social Anthropology from the University of Thessaly (2003), a MA in Social Anthropology from Goldsmiths College, University of London (2004) and a PhD in Social Anthropology from University College London (UCL), University of London (2010). She has been a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for Research in Anthropology (CRIA), Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal, with a research grant by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT, 2011-2017), and an integrated researcher at CRIA, Instituto Universitário de Lisboa, Portugal (2018-2026). She is the Principal Investigator of the project ReSpell (“Religion, Spirituality and Wellbeing: A Comparative Approach of Transreligiosity and Crisis in Southern Europe»”), which is funded by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (2023-2026, FCT grant reference: 2022.01229.PTDC). She is also a team member of the project SPIRECTS (“Spiritual practices and psychedelic substances in ritualized emerging contexts: therapeutic and sociocultural implications”, principal investigator: José Alberto V. Simões), funded by FCT and with host institution the Interdisciplinary Centre of Social Sciences, CICS-NOVA, Portugal.

Her research focuses, and has published extensively, on the anthropological study of religion, contemporary, lived and vernacular religiosity, new religious movements of the so-called New Age and/or alternative spirituality, transreligiosity and spiritual elasticity, ritual healing practices, religious pluralism and creativity, cosmology, sacred spaces and the supernatural, complementary and alternative medicine, health and well-being, with particular comparative geographical reference to Greece and Portugal. Her monograph, entitled “Orthodox Christianity, New Age Spirituality and Vernacular Religion: The Evil Eye in Greece”, has been published in 2021 by Bloomsbury (ISBN: 9781350152816, soft cover publication: 2022).

She is a member of the editorial board of international peer-reviewed scientific journals, such as: Religion and Society: Advances in Research (Berghahn), Shaman: Journal of the International Society for Academic Research on Shamanism, Humanities and Social Sciences Communications (Springer Nature), Quotidiana: Journal for the Study of Lived Religion, and a member of international academic and of research networks, associations and groups, such as: International Society for Academic Research on Shamanism (ISARS), Network for the Anthropology of Religion (NAR-CRIA), Network for the Ethnography of Healing (HEAL), Contemporary Religions and Faiths in Transition (CRAFT), Circulation and Place-Making (CPL-CRIA), IN2PAST, European Association for the Study of Religions (EASR), European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA), International Society for Ethnology and Folklore (SIEF), Portuguese Association for Anthropology (APA), Association of Social Anthropologists Greece (ΣΚΑΕ)

Monograph

Orthodox Christianity, New Age Spirituality and Vernacular Religion: The Evil Eye in Greece. London: Bloomsbury, 2021, ISBN: 9781350152816.

Collective Volumes and Special Issues

  • (forthcoming) Transreligiosity: Religion, Spirituality and Wellbeing (co-edited with Anastasios Panagiotopoulos). London: Bloomsbury.
  • Special Issue: “Spiritual Elasticity and Crisis: From Non-religiosity to Transreligiosity” (co-edited with Silvia Rivadossi and Anastasios Panagiotopoulos). Religions, 14, ISSN 2077-1444.
  • Special Issue: “Transreligious Shamanisms: Exploring Contemporary Spiritual Practices and Healing» (co-edited with Anastasios Panagiotopoulos). Shaman 30 (1 and 2), Spring/Autumn 2022, ISSN 1216-7827.
  • Expressions of Religion: Ethnography, Performance and the Senses (co-edited with Clara Saraiva και István Povedák). Berlin: Lit-Verlag, ISBN: 9783643911100.

Peer-Reviewed Articles

Book Chapters

  • (forthcoming). “Elastic Religiosities, Transreligious Ruptures: An (Auto)Ethnographic Exploration of Religious and Spiritual Healing in Greece and Portugal”. In Eugenia Roussou and Anastasios Panagiotopoulos (eds.), Transreligiosity: Religion, Spirituality and Wellbeing. London: Bloomsbury.
  • “Religion, Spirituality, Episteme: Transreligious Epistemologies to Health, Wellbeing and COVID-19.” In Karen O’brien-Kop and Suzanne Newcombe (eds.), Competing Epistemologies, Religion and Public Health. London and Liverpool: The British Academy and Liverpool University Press, pp. 41-58.
  • 2024. “Kako Mati (Greece), Ch. 14 Informal Care and the End.” In Alena Ledeneva (ed.), The Global Encyclopaedia of Informality, Vol. 3: A hitchhiker’s guide to informal problem-solving in human life. London: UCL Press, pp. 574-577.
  • “Religião e Espiritualidade no Espaço Público, Privado e Remoto: uma Comparação Luso-Grega” (Religion and Spirituality in the Public, Private and Remote Space: A Portuguese-Greek Comparison). In Pedro Pereira and José Carlos Loureiro (eds.), Ensaios sobre Comida e sobre Religião.Viana do Castelo, Portugal: Centro de Estudos Regionais, pp. 125-136.
  • 2023. “Encountering Other Worlds through ‘Transreligiosity’: A Comparative Account of Healing, Embodiment and Transformation in the Field” (with Anastasios Panagiotopoulos). In Emily Pierini, Alberto Groisman and Diana Espírito Santo (eds.) Other Worlds, Other Bodies: Embodied Epistemologies and Ethnographies of Healing. Oxford and New York: Berghahn, pp. 133-152.
  • 2019. “Introduction: Expressions of Religion-Ethnography, Performance and the Senses” (with Clara Saraiva and István Povedák). In Eugenia Roussou, Clara Saraiva and István Povedák (eds.), Expressions of Religion: Ethnography, Performance and the Senses, Berlin: Lit-Verlag, pp. 7-14.
  • 2018. “Spiritual movements in times of crisis: an anthropological account of alternative spirituality in Portugal and Greece.” In George Chryssides (ed.), Minority Religions in Europe and the Middle East: mapping and monitoring. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 52-64.
  • 2017. “The Syncretic Religioscape of contemporary Greece and Portugal: a comparative approach on creativity through spiritual synthesis.” In Stefania Palmisano and Nicola Pannofino (eds.), Invention of Tradition and Syncretism in Contemporary Religions: Sacred Creativity. New York: Palgrave McMillan, pp. 155-175.
  • 2013. “The New Age of Greek Orthodoxy: pluralizing religiosity in everyday practice.” In Jose Mapril and Ruy Blanes (eds.), The Best of All Gods: Sites and Politics of Religious Diversity in Southern Europe, Leiden: Brill, pp. 73-92.
  • 2013. “Spirituality within Religion: Gendered Responses to a Greek ‘spiritual revolution’.” In Anna Fedele and Kim Knibbe (eds.), Gender and Power in Contemporary Spirituality: Ethnographic Approaches, London: Routledge, pp. 46-61.
  • 2011. “When Soma Encounters the Spiritual: Bodily Praxes of Performed Religiosity in contemporary Greece.” In Ruy Blanes and Anna Fedele (eds.), Encounters of Body and Soul in Contemporary Religious Practices: Anthropological Reflections, London: Berghahn, pp. 133-150.

Contact

  • Office: School of Social Sciences Building (SKE1), 2rd floor, office 1.2.18, University Hill, 81 132 Mytilene
  • Tel: +30 22510 36325
  • e-mail: eroussou@sa.aegean.gr

Undergraduate Courses

W/S-101 Contemporary Religious Movements
specialised general knowledge
SA-109 Ethnography of religion in the Greek context
special background, specialised general knowledge
SA-130 Anthropology of religion, ritual and symbolic systems
special background, specialised general knowledge

Graduate Courses

SHA-3 Anthropology of Religion, Ritual, and Symbolic Systems
MA in Social and Historical Anthropology

Courses taught

Undergraduate

W/S-101 Contemporary Religious Movements
specialised general knowledge
SA-109 Ethnography of religion in the Greek context
special background, specialised general knowledge

Postgraduate Courses

SHA-3 Anthropology of Religion, Ritual, and Symbolic Systems
Roussou Εugenia