Lisa Bukhave Jensen

I am a PhD-student in the History of Religion focusing on Indo-European religions and religious evolution. My main interests are ancient religions and languages, but I am also interested in theories and methods in the Study of Religion.

Jag har en kandidat utbildning i Religionsvetenskap och Klassiska studier från Aarhus Universitet (Danmark), och en master i Religionsvetenskap från samma universitet. Dessutom har jag varit student på Indoeuropeiska studier, Avdeling för Lingvistik, Köpenhamns Universitet.

My research area is the religions of Indo-European-speaking groups. The linguistic relationship between the Indo-European cultures provides a unique opportunity to study how cultures from a shared point of departure develop and adapt when faced with new milieus and social realities. Thus, I wish to combine cognitive, cultural, and human evolution theories with classical Indo-European linguistics and comparative text analysis.

My thesis will mainly explore the relationship between developments in language, religion, and power structures in Indo-European cultures by focusing on ways of addressing gods and kings. My point of departure will be the Indo-Iranian title *asura and its later developments in Vedic and Avestan religion. This I will compare to studies of the (linguistically) related Hittite title Ḫaššu (meaning "king") and the Old Norse Æsir. Through comparing these studies, I hope to discuss how religious symbolic systems are affected by societal developments and different milieus, creating distinguished cultures through selection- and adaptation processes.