Partners and Research Associates

The REECR project collaborates with “The Evolution of Religion and Morality” led by Edward Slingerland, University of British Columbia. This six-year project brings together the expertise of over fifty scientists, social scientists and humanities scholars from universities across North America, Europe and East Asia—along with postdocs and graduate students—into a research network that will be called the Cultural Evolution of Religion Research Consortium (CERC). Over this six-year project, CERC aims to answer the question of what religion is, how it is linked to morality, and why it plays such a ubiquitous role in human existence.

Other partners and research associates

Nordic Network on “Socio-Cognitive Perspectives on Early Judaism and Early Christianity” directed by Petri Luomanen.

Context Group: A project on the Bible in Its Cultural Context. The Context Group is a working group of international scholars committed to the use of the social sciences in biblical interpretation.

Finnish Center of Excellence in the Philosophy of the Social Sciences directed by Uskali Mäki (Deputy-Director Petri Ylikoski). The CoE pursues a practically relevant philosophy of the social sciences with implications for scientific practice and its management. It also promotes a path towards a new philosophy of interdisciplinarity, with practical implications for the philosophy of science.

Veikko Anttonen, University of Turku (category of the sacred, boundaries, corporeality, territoriality, topography, landscape)

Tamas Biró, University of Amsterdam (linguistics and rituals, Jewish Studies)

Richard DeMaris, Valparaiso University (Social Scientific Criticism, Ritual Life of Early Christian Communities)

Jutta Jokiranta, University of Helsinki (Qumran and Second-Temple rituals)

Thomas Kazen, Stockholm School of Theology (purity, emotions)

Liv Ingeborg Lied, Norwegian School of Theology (pseudepigrapha/apocrypha; ritual and writing).

Petri Luomanen, University of Helsinki (Jewish Christianity, socio-cognitive modeling)

Ronit Nikolsky, University of Groningen (Jewish studies, cognitive narratology)

Ilkka Pyysiäinen, University of Helsinki (cognitive theory, counterintuitive agents)

Colleen Shantz, University of Toronto (Pauline studies, religious experience)