Dr Kristin Aune

Faculty: Education, Health and Sciences

School: School of Education

Subject Area: Social Science

As Senior Lecturer in Sociology, I teach a range of modules across the Sociology programmes at undergraduate level, mostly in the areas of gender and religion. I am the Director of the University's Centre for Society, Religion & Belief. Additionally, I supervise PhD students and am available for PhD supervision on topics related to the sociology of religion, sociology of gender and contemporary feminism.

In Autumn 2012 I will be a Visiting International Fellow at Grinnell College, Iowa.

Teaching responsibilities

At undergraduate level in 2012/13, I am teaching the following modules:

• Gender & Society (level 4)
• Gender & Work (level 5)
• Religion & Society (level 5)
• Women & Popular Culture (level 6)
• Independent Studies (level 6)

Research interests

Most of my research focuses on gender and religion. My MA research looked at the role of single women in the contemporary church. For my PhD research, I undertook a study of contemporary evangelical Christians and their approach to gender.

Since then, I've written about gender and religion more generally. Commitment to traditional religion seems to be declining amongst women, and I'm interested in the impact of changes in women's lives on their religious commitments. Women and Religion in the West is my co-edited book exploring these issues. I am currently working on feminists' approaches to religion; my most recent article on this is published in Feminist Review.

I'm also interested in young women's position in contemporary society and their relationship with feminism, post-feminism and third-wave feminism. With Catherine Redfern, I completed a survey project on new forms of feminism in the UK that have emerged since 2000, mainly amongst young women. The findings are published in the book Reclaiming the F Word: The New Feminist Movement (Zed Books, 2010). The second stage of the project comprised semi-structured interviews with 30 'third-wave' feminists.

With colleagues from Durham University and University of Chester, I am currently undertaking a three-year project investigating student Christianity in universities in England. The project - called Christianity and the University Experience in Contemporary England - is funded by a large grant from the AHRC/ESRC Religion and Society scheme.

Membership of professional bodies and advisory committees

I belong to the British Sociological Association, the British Sociological Association Sociology of Religion Study Group, the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, the National Women's Studies Association and the Feminist and Women's Studies Association (UK and Ireland).

I regularly act as a peer reviewer for a range of journals including Sociology, Social Compass and European Journal of Women's Studies. I am on the international editorial board of the journal Religion and Gender.

Recent Conferences

• Accounting for feminist non-religion: How UK feminists negotiate religion, spirituality and secularism, Centro de Estudos Sociais, Lisbon (July 2012)
• Negotiating Feminist Waves and (Mis)representations: Third-wave feminism in the twenty-first century UK, at the 8th European Feminist Research Conference, Central European University, Budapest (May 2012)
• The University as a Contested Site of Religious Identity, at the BSA Sociology of Religion Study Group Conference, University of Chester (March 2012)
• Third-wave Feminism: Reflections on the Deployment of a Generational Marker (panel discussant), at the National Women's Studies Association conference, Atlanta (November 2011)
• The Corporate Multiversity: Teaching Sociology of Religion in the Era of the Great Retrenchment (panel discussant) and Christianity and the University Experience in Contemporary England: The Methodological Challenges of Researching Student Religion (paper), at the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion conference, Milwaukee (October 2011)
• Christianity and the University Experience in Contemporary England, at the Nordic Sociological Association conference 'Power and Participation', University of Oslo (August 2011)
• Feminism and Religion, Religious Studies Teachers Conference, St John's College, Durham University (July 2011)
• Much less religious, a little more spiritual: The religious and spiritual views of third-wave feminists in the UK, at the Feminist & Women's Studies Association conference 'The Futures of Feminism', Brunel University (July 2011)
• Teaching Religion and Gender to undergraduate sociology students, at the Higher Education Academy Subject Centre for Philosophical & Religious Studies Conference 'Teaching Theology/Religious Studies and Gender', University of Leeds (May 2011)
• Christianity and the University Experience Project: Reflections on method, at the BSA Sociology of Religion Study Group Conference 'Religion and Social Theory', University of Birmingham (April 2011)
• Reasons for Hope: Third-wave feminism and pedagogy in the 21st century university, at the conference 'Feminism and Teaching', University of Nottingham (April 2011)
• Cultural Activism and the New Feminist Movement, (with Catherine Redfern), at the conference 'A Carnival of Feminist Cultural Activism', University of York (March 2011) 
• Our Feminisms: Intersectionality and the Women's Movement, at the National Union of Students Women's Conference, Oxford (March 2011)
• Much less religious, a little more spiritual: The religious and spiritual views of young British feminists, at the ESRC seminar series 'Motherhood, Markets and Consumption', seminar 6 Intergenerational perspectives: Mothers, Daughters and the Feminine/Feminist, University of Oxford (September 2010)
• Reclaiming the F Word: Younger feminists in the new millennium (keynote, with Catherine Redfern), at the conference 'Women's Liberation @ 40: Continuities and Changes', Ruskin College, Oxford (March 2010)

Media experience

I have published comment pieces and feature articles in a variety of media formats (including The Guardian, Church Times, The Sydney Morning Herald, Ms Magazine and The F-Word). I have featured as an academic commentator on BBC TV, cable TV, BBC Radio 4 and local radio.

Postgraduate qualifications

• MA in Women's Studies, University of York

Research qualifications

• PhD Sociology of Religion, King's College, University of London

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