Rate My Professor Carole Cusack

Cusack specializes in new religious movements, contemporary religious trends, religious conversion, European mythology, western esotericism, pilgrimage and tourism, modern Pagan religions, and religion and popular culture. Since the late 1990s, she has taught on contemporary religious trends. Among her key publications are Invented Religions: Imagination, Fiction and Faith (Ashgate, 2010; over 400 citations), The Sacred Tree: Ancient and Medieval Manifestations (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2011), Anime, Religion and Spirituality: Profane and Sacred Worlds in Contemporary Japan (Equinox, 2015, co-authored with Katharine Buljan), Charmed Circle: Stonehenge, Contemporary Paganism, and Alternative Archaeology (Numen, 2012), The Rise of Christianity in Northern Europe, 300-1000 (Cassell, 1999), and Play, Narrative and the Creation of Religion: Extending the Theoretical Base of 'Invented Religions' (Culture and Religion, 2013). She has edited volumes including Sacred Suicide (Ashgate, 2014, with James R. Lewis) and serves as editor of Literature & Aesthetics and Sydney Studies in Religion. Cusack received the University of Sydney Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Research Supervision in 2010. Her scholarship has profoundly influenced the study of invented religions, the role of fiction in religious formation, and modern spiritual landscapes.