Dr. Lina Marie Elisabeth Aschenbrenner

My current research focuses on the aesthetics of contemporary Hawaiian hula dance and its worldwide appropriations as global field of spiritual practices of worldview impact. The research is carried out as an ethnography tracing the global networks of different hālaus, hula schools, from periphery to center, the Hawaiian kumu hulas, hula teachers, and from center to periphery. The aim is to theorize the relational emergence of aesthetics and worldviews of religious and non-religious, social and cultural phenomena situated in global “contact zones.” I consider contemporary hula a research object of main interest to a postcolonial study-of-religion as its glocal aesthetics are closely linked to embodied discourses of (s)exoticization but also postcolonial processes of secularization and spiritualization. Furthermore, my hope is that the findings on hula advance the definition and hence the research of contemporary spiritualities based on their particular assemblage of aesthetics.

• Since 06/2021 research fellow at the University of Erfurt, funded by a program of the state Thuringia to support outstanding young female scientists
• 2020-21 member of “Mapping Religionswissenschaft: Vernetzen, Vertiefen, Sichtbar Machen,” funded by the German Rectors’ Conference (HRK) and the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF)
• 08/2020 PhD Religious Studies, Paris-Lodron-University Salzburg (Title: “The Gaga Effect – A Body-Focused Ethnography on the Aesthetics and Body Knowledge of a Neo-Spiritual Israeli Movement Practice”)
• 2016-20 member of “On the Move. People, Objects, Signs,” Paris-Lodron-University Salzburg
• 2017-18 lecturer Master-program Religious Studies, Paris-Lodron-University Salzburg
• 10/2015 Master Religious and Cultural Studies, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich (Title: "Maṣḥafä mǝśṭirä sämay wämǝdr - Konzepte von ‚Schrift’ und ‚Schriftlichkeit’ in altäthiopischer Tradition")
• 2013-16 research assistant to Prof. Loren Stuckenbruck, New Testament (Focus: Ancient Judaism), Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich

• 10/2020 Young Investigators Award 2020, Paris-Lodron-Universität Salzburg
• Since 2015 dance artist in Munich: contemporary dance projects, creative dance, ballet for children and young persons at schools, kindergartens, and dance studios; dance performances
• 10/2019-10/2020 parental leave

Aschenbrenner, Lina. 2020a. “Der Tanzende Körper Als Subjekt Und Austragungsort von (Religiösen) Identitätsdiskursen: Aushandlung israelischer und israelisch-jüdischer Identität mithilfe des Körpers.” In Identitäten, edited by Franz Gmainer-Pranzl and Barbara Mackinger, 581–600. Bern, Switzerland: Peter Lang. 

• Aschenbrenner, Lina. 2020b. “The Gaga Effect – A Body-Focused Ethnography on the Aesthetics and Body Knowledge of a Neo-Spiritual Israeli Movement Practice.” PhD Thesis, Salzburg: Paris Lodron Universität Salzburg.

In progress:

• Aschenbrenner, Lina, und Anne Koch. n.d. “Do Gaga, Be Well? Well-Being as Intersectional Dispositif in the Neo-Spiritual Israeli Movement Practice Gaga.” In New Spiritualties and the Culture of Well-Being, edited by Géraldine Mossière. New York: Springer.
• Aschenbrenner, Lina. n.d. Neo-Spiritual Aesthetics. Embodied Transformation in the Israeli Movement Practice Gaga. London: Bloomsbury.

Conferences:

• 11/2021 "The Extraordinary Ritual Effect of the Ordinary Movement Practice Gaga," American Academy of Religion (AAR) Annual Meeting 2021 in San Antonio, Texas
• 09/2021 Deutsche Vereinigung für Religionswissenschaft (DVRW) Jahrestagung 2021 „Religion(swissenschaft) in Relation,“ Leipzig:
  • Chair “Texte, Körperbewegungen und musikalische Kompositionen im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert als Verhandlungsorte religiöser und spiritueller Diskurse“
  • Co-Chair “Mapping Religionswissenschaft”
  • Paper "Die Jahrhundertwende als ‚Fundgrube‘ kolonial und imperial geprägter Ästhetiken: Hulas ästhetisches Erbe.“
• 08/2021 “Pandemic resilience in virtual space: How does practicing via Zoom affect aesthetics of the neo-spiritual movement practice Gaga?” Annual Conference of the European Association for the Study of Religions (EASR) 2021, Pisa
• (08/2020 “Wellbeing through Gaga – when leisure time activities turn essential,” Panel: Holistic Wellbeing Culture Between Coping and Resistance, IAHR Congress in Dunedin, New Zealand, canceled due to the Covid-19-pandemic)
• 02/2019 “Mobility and Transformation of Body Knowledge and Embodied Identity – Bodies under Construction in the Israeli Movement practice Gaga,” Understanding Societies Economies, and Environments on the Move, Conference, Paris-Lodron-University Salzburg
• 06/2018 “Creating individual identity through embodied experience in dance,” Annual Conference of the European Association for the Study of Religions (EASR) 2018, Bern