Video: Researching Alternative Rationalities

In this Gnoseologies event, Professor Giovanna Parmigiani speaks with Bernd Christian Otto (PD Dr. habil.) about alternative rationalities, esoteric practices, global comparison, practitioner-scholarship, and other ways of studying esotericism today. The conversation focused on his foundation of research at the Center for Advanced Studies, Alternative Rationalities and Esoteric Practices from a Global Perspective, at the University of Erlangen-Nuremburg, Germany (CAS-E), his involvement in the Research Network for the Study of Esoteric Practices, and his work in the study of history and magic.  

Bernd-Christian Otto is a scholar of religion located at the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU), Germany. His research focuses on magic and esotericism, where he combines different methodologies such as conceptual history, discourse analysis, social theory, and ritual studies. He has broad expertise in the history of “Western learned magic” and is particularly interested in its modern and contemporary manifestations (‘magick’). At FAU, Otto is co-founder and a research coordinator of the Center for Advanced Studies — Alternative Rationalities and Esoteric Practices from a Global Perspective. He is a board member of the European Society for the Study of Western Esotericism and the scientific director of the Research Network for the Study of Esoteric Practices (RENSEP). 

His books include Defining Magic: A Reader (co-Ed.). (Routledge 2013), Magical Manuscripts in Early Modern Europe: The Clandestine Trade in Illegal Book Collections (co-Auth). (Palgrave MacMillan, 2017), and Fictional Practice: Magic, Narration and the Power of Imagination (co-Ed.). (Brill, 2021).