Simion Pop
PhD candidate 2007 (Sociology and Social Anthropology), Central European University, Budapest, Hungary.
PhD working title: Modalities of religious transmission in contemporary Eastern Orthodox Christianity in Transylvania
Short description: My PhD research looks into the issue of religious change in post-communist Romania. It is focused on the multifaceted transformations of Eastern Orthodox Christianity in a particular region of Romania, Transylvania. In general terms, I think of the notion of “transmission” as referring to socio-religious processes whereby a religious tradition is variously articulated, elaborated and modified within individuals’ biographies and communities’ life under particular socio-historical conditions. Around this central notion one can develop an analytical framework that seeks to understand various affinities and tensions between “public” and “private” dimensions (or forms of piety) of the post-communist religious revival occurring in the region. How do different forms of religious revival articulate and interpret the Eastern Orthodox tradition? What are the emergent tensions between the demand of individual devotion, ethical reform and Eastern Orthodox Christianity’s public forms? How should one approach the various articulations of the reciprocal dynamics of differentiation between “the religious’ and “the secular” in the region?
MA 2007 (Sociology and Social Anthropology), Central European University. Budapest Hungary.
MA 2001 (European Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology), Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj, Romania.
BSc 1998 (Physics), Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj, Romania.
Areas of research interest: anthropology of religion (focused on Christianity), Eastern Christianity, Pentecostalism (evangelical movements), sociology of religion, theories of secularization/de-secularization, religious modernity.