Henriette Hanky is a guest researcher in the Study of Religions at the University of Bergen. In the autumn of 2025, she is a DAAD research fellow at the University of Freiburg in Germany. In 2024, she completed her PhD at the University of Bergen with the dissertation «‹Buddhafields› in Flux: Communicative Forms of the Post-Osho Sannyas Movement and the Formation of Sannyasin Selves». The dissertation is an ethnographic study of embodied self-formation processes at meditation centres associated with the guru Osho (Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh) in Scandinavia, Germany, and India. Henriette’s research and teaching interests include historical and contemporary guru and meditation movements, contemporary forms of religion and spirituality in Europe and India, therapeutic culture, mediatization and embodied religion, sociology of religion and sociology of knowledge, aesthetics of religion, and methods in qualitative research on religion.

Autumn 2024
RELV350: Study of Religions Master’s Thesis (course responsible)
RELV301: Theoretical Perspectives in the Study of Religions (lecturer)
RELV209: Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Modernities (seminar leader)

Spring 2023
RELV221/RELV321: New Religious Movements (lecturer)

Autumn 2021
RELV103/RELV103L: Hinduism, Buddhism and other Asian Religions (seminar leader)

Spring 2021
RELV101: What is the Study of Religion? (seminar leader)
RELV221/RELV321: New Religious Movements (lecturer)

Autumn 2020
RELV103/RELV103L: Hinduism, Buddhism and other Asian Religions (seminar leader)

Spring 2020
RELV202SEM/RELV302SEM: The Guru in South Asia and the West (course responsible)
RELV101: What is the Study of Religion? (seminar leader)
RELV221/RELV321: New Religious Movements (lecturer)
RELV224/RELV324: Hinduism (lecturer)
RELV306: Research Methods in the Study of Religion (lecturer & seminar leader)

Autumn 2019
RELV103/RELV103L: Hinduism, Buddhism and other Asian Religions (seminar leader)

Other presentation

• Henriette Hanky (2025). How Global is Global?” – an authors’ roundtable on approaches to The Study of Religion in a Global Context (IAHR Series). (external link)

Conference lecture

• Henriette Hanky (2024). On the Relations of Body, Buddhafield, and Beyond in the Contemporary Post-Osho Sannyas Scene. (external link)
• Henriette Hanky (2021). Ist das Meditation? Oshos „Dynamische“ als kommunikative Form im Rahmen von Meditationsretreats. (external link)
• Henriette Hanky (2021). Contemporary Receptions of Osho and the Sannyas Movement in Europe and India. (external link)
• Henriette Hanky (2023). Potentiale des Kommunikativen Konstruktivismus für die religionswissenschaftliche und religionssoziologische Untersuchung körperbezogener Spiritualität. (external link)
• Henriette Hanky (2025). Routinization, Renewal, and Reproach: Negotiations of Osho’s Legacy in the European Sannyas Scene. (external link)
• Henriette Hanky (2021). Taking Sannyas after Osho: Transformations of an Initiation Rite. (external link)
• Henriette Hanky (2019). «Einstein the Buddha»: Holdninger til vitenskap i Osho-bevegelsen og det samtidige Sannyas-miljøet. (external link)
• Henriette Hanky (2025). Kommunikative Formen der Verzauberung: Wissenssoziologische und religionsästhetische Zugriffe auf post-digitale Spiritualität. (external link)
• Henriette Hanky (2023). „Mich in mich hineinbringen“: Subjektivierung durch affektive Dramaturgien in Osho-Meditationen und -Therapien. (external link)
• Henriette Hanky (2021). Osho in a Nutshell? Dynamic Meditation and the Relationship of Bodily Practice and Discursive Framing. (external link)
• Henriette Hanky (2021). Dissolution without Disenchantment. The Sannyas Movement and the Refiguration of Religion. (external link)
• Henriette Hanky (2022). ‘Consciously go mad’”: Staging and Expressing the Self in OSHO Dynamic Meditation”. (external link)

Academic article

• Henriette Hanky (2021). Avkobling og transformasjon: Meditasjonsretreater på Dharma Mountain mellom popularisering og religiøst fellesskap. (external link)
• Henriette Hanky; Jan Ole Bangen (2015). Wissen über den Körper und Wissen des Körpers. Bericht über die interdisziplinäre Ringvorlesung „Körperwissen: Transfer und Innovation“. (external link)
• Almut-Barbara Renger; Christoph Wulf; Jan Ole Bangen et al. (2016). Körperwissen: Transfer und Innovation. (external link)

Academic book chapter

• Henriette Hanky (2024). Osho in a Nutshell? Dynamic Meditation and the Relationship between Bodily Performance and Meaning-Making. (external link)
• Henriette Hanky (2020). Neue Religiöse Bewegungen im Wandel: Mediatisierung, Unmittelbarkeit und Remarkierung von Wissen. (external link)
• Henriette Hanky (2026). "Byen mellom de syv chakra'er"? Bergens alternativmiljø i endring. (external link)
• Henriette Hanky (2026). Communicative Constructivism's Potential for the Study of Contemporary Body-Based Spiritualities. (external link)
• Kristoffer Løkken Økland; Henriette Hanky (2025). Når forskning blir kontroversiell: Unge religionsforskeres refleksjoner over møter med betente tema. (external link)
• Henriette Hanky (2023). Catharsis in the Spruce Forest: Osho Meditations and Therapy at a Spiritual Retreat in Norway. (external link)
• Henriette Hanky (2024). Introduction. (external link)

Editorial/Leader article

• Henriette Hanky; Kristoffer Løkken Økland (2025). Innledning. (external link)

Book anthology

• Istvan Keul; Henriette Hanky; Knut Axel Jacobsen (2024). Embodied Reception: South Asian Spiritualities in Contemporary Contexts. (external link)

Conference abstract

• Celica Fitz; Henriette Hanky; Lavinia Pflugfelder et al. (2025). Die Denkfigur der Hexe und Enchanted Epistemes: Alternative Wissenssysteme, magische Praktiken und die Wiederverzauberung der Welt. (external link)

Lecture

• Henriette Hanky (2024). “Buddhafields” in Flux: Communicative Forms of the Post-Osho Sannyas Scene and the Formation of Sannyasin Selves. (external link)
• Henriette Hanky (2020). Osho-bevegelsen i forandring. (external link)

See a complete overview of publications in Cristin.