Past Moore Lectures

The 2023 Moore Lectures

Comtemporary Buddhism

The 2023 Albert Moore Lectures were the first lectures to be held after the interruption to the series caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Three lectures on topics in contemporary Buddhism were presented by Dr Dee Osto of Massey University, on 15-17 March.

Dr Osto presented two lectures and one seminar:

15 Mar	Contemporary Buddhist Tales of the Paranormal
16 Mar	Nonbinary Buddhism
17 Mar	Psychedelic Buddhism, Inner Space, Outer Space and the Limits of Human Knowledge

The 2019 Moore Lectures

Global History and the Problem of Religious Change

In 2019, the fourth Albert Moore lecture series was delivered by Associate Professor Alan Strathern, University of Oxford.

Alan Strathern's lectures presented some of the main themes of his recently published book: Unearthly Powers: Religious and Political Change in World History (Cambridge University Press, 2019). This important work provides a sophisticated analysis of religious change in the early modern world. Strathern sets out a new way of thinking about transformations in the fundamental nature of religion and its interaction with political authority. His analysis distinguishes between two quite different forms of religiosity - immanentism, which focused on worldly assistance, and transcendentalism, which centred on salvation from the human condition - and shows how their interaction shaped the course of history. A host of phenomena, including sacred kingship, millenarianism, state-church struggles, reformations, iconoclasm, and, above all, conversion are revealed in a new light, using case studies from multiple regions of the world including the Pacific.

19 Mar	Global History and the Problem of Religion
20 Mar	The Victory of Transcendence
21 Mar	The Conversion of the High Chiefs of the Pacific

The 2017 Moore Lectures

Fifty Years of Religious Studies at Otago

In 2017, the Religion programme celebrated the 50th anniversary of the establishment at Otago of the first formal programme in the academic study of religion anywhere in Australasia. To mark the anniversary, leading international figures in the academic study of religion were invited to reflect on the discipline’s history, its contemporary practice, and its future prospects.

View recordings of some of this series of lectures

7 Feb	Professor Russell Gray, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, Jena Did Religion Play a Causal Role in the Evolution of Large, Complex Societies?
8 Mar	Professor Jonathan Silk, Leiden University Institute for Area Studies What Does It Mean to Study Buddhism in the Academy?
23 Mar	Professor Mark Juergensmeyer, University of California, Santa Barbara The Global Study of Global Religion
8 May	Professor Richard Sosis, University of Connecticut Appraising the Academic Study of Religion: Perspectives from a Liminal Anthropologist
15 Jun	Professor Paul Morris, Victoria University of Wellington The New Religious Diversity and the Academic Study of Religion
26 Jul	Professor Wesley Wildman, Boston University Integrating the Sciences and the Humanities in the Study of Religion
19 Oct	Professor Carole M. Cusack, University of Sydney ‘Fake’ Religions, Fake News and the Allure of Fiction
2 Nov	Professor Greg Dawes, University of Otago To Bear the Fate of the Times: Resisting the Seductions of Myth
23 Nov	Professor Joseph Bulbulia, Victoria University of Wellington Religious Studies in New Zealand: The Last Twenty Years?
27 Feb 2018	Professor Kate Crosby, King’s College London Destroying the Dharma: Non-judgemental Awareness, Heretical Meditation, and Other Polarities of Modern Buddhism
15 Mar 2018	Professor Aaron Hughes, University of Rochester Rethinking the Study of Islamic Origins

The 2015 Moore Lectures

Anzac as the State Cult: Materialism, Authenticity, and the Study of Religion - An Australian Perspective

The second series of Moore Lectures was delivered by Dr Christopher Hartney of the Department of Studies in Religion at the University of Sydney.

14 July	How Can We Study Anzac? Civil Religion and the Death of Religious Studies
15 July	Brandzac Day: Consumerism, Materiality, the State Cult and the Hierophanic Shift
16 July	An Antipodean Narrative Ecology: Anzac as both State Cult and as Immunobiological Defence Mechanism

The 2013 Moore Lectures

Toi Karaitiana: Christianity and Maori Art and Architecture

The first Moore Lectures were delivered by Professor Jonathan Mane-Wheoki, Professor of Fine Arts at Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland.

Access lectures via the Humanities Podcasts

23 July	From Samuel Marsden to Frederick Bennett: Te Hahi Mihinare
24 July	Maori Art and Catholic Spirituality
25 July	Regret and Resistance: The Crucified Tekoteko