Religion and Society
Professor Adam Possamai FASSA
Biography
Adam Possamai is the Deputy Dean of the School of Social Sciences, and Professor in the Sociology of Religion. He is renowned internationally for his work on popular religion, social theory, contemporary religion and Australian Aboriginal Peoples, and Muslim laws and society. He is a former President of the International Sociological Association’s Committee 22 on the Sociology of Religion, and of the Australian Association for the Study of Religions. He was t he 2002–2007 co-chief editor of the Australian Religion Studies Review and an editor of the Journal of Sociology 2012-2016. His work has been published in English, French, Spanish, Romanian and Slovakian. He was a visiting Professor at the Graduate Centre of the City University of New York, the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris, and the Summer Institute of Hokkaido University, Japan. He gave the 2007 Charles Strong Lecture and the 2021 keynote address at the International Society for the Sociology of Religion. He has successfully supervised more than 15 PhD students, and has chaired in 2011, 2013, and 2017 the Australian Sociological Association’s Jean Martin Award Panel for the best sociology thesis in Australia.
Qualifications
BSocSc(Hons); GDipEd (Leuven); PhD (LaTrobe)
Areas of Expertise
Sociology of Religion, Sociological Theory; Study of Popular Culture
Current Grants
Being a Transnational Muslim in Australia in an Era of Hyper-Security, with Farida Fozdar, Gerhard Hoffstaedter and David Tittensor, DP220101722, ARC Discovery (2022-2024)
Building resilience to the spread of misinformation and conspiracy theories: lessons from COVID-19, with Kevin Dunn, Rachel Sharples, Nida Denson, Alana Kamp, Lucy Nicholas and Craig McGarty, NSW Government (2022).
Recent Publications
Monographs
Possamai, A. and D. Tittensor (2022) Religion and Change in Australia, Routledge, London.
Giordan, G. and Possamai, A. (2018) Sociology of Exorcism in Late Modernity, Palgrave McMillan, Basinkstoke.
Possamai, A. (2018) The I-zation of Society, Religion, and Neoliberal Post-Secularism, Palgrave McMillan, Basingstoke.
Edited Books and Encyclopedia
Possamai, A. and A. Blasi eds. (2020) The Sage Encyclopaedia of the Sociology of Religion (Two volumes), Sage, London.
Giordan, G. and Possamai, A. eds. (2020) The Social Scientific Study of Exorcism, Springer, Leiden.
Michel P. and Possamai, A. and B. S. Turner eds. (2017) Religions, Nations and Transnationalism in Multiple Modernities, Palgrave McMillan, Basingstoke.
Fictions
Possamai, A. (2022) Amarama, Black Coat Press, Collection Rivière Blanche, France.
Possamai, A. (2021) Perles Noires, Black Coat Press, Collection Rivière Blanche, France
Possamai, A. (2018) La réflexion de Borgia (Tome 2 de la duologie, Les possédés de la Renaissance), Black Coat Press, Collection Rivière Blanche, France.
Possamai, A. (2017) L’histoire extraordinaire de Baudelaire, Black Coat Press, Collection Rivière Blanche, France.
Contact Details
Professor Adam Possamai (opens in a new tab)
