Dr Suzanne Newcombe

I joined the Religious Studies Department at the OU as a central academic in 2016, having previously been an Associate Lecturer for the university (since 2008). I spent a long period of mentorship under Professor Eileen Barker at the London School of Economics, being a researcher with an organisation she founded, Inform from 2002. Previously, I have been a part-time Lecturer in Sociology of Religion at Kingston University, done class teaching in the Sociology Department at the London School of Economics, and tutored in the Faculty of Divinity at the University of Cambridge.

I have broad and active research interests in the sociology and social history of religion (broadly understood) and extensive specialist knowledge in new and minority religious movements in modern and contemporary Britain and the modern history of yoga. My monograph on Yoga in Britain was published by Equinox in 2019. I also recently edited with Karen O'Brien-Kop the Routledge Handbook of Yoga and Meditation (2021). I am particularly interested in the interfaces between religion, health and healing.