Professor Mikel Burley

Profile

I have been at the University of Leeds since 2005. My main area of research is philosophy of religion, to which I take a radically cross-cultural and interdisciplinary approach, drawing upon ethnographic and narrative sources as well as more conventionally philosophical material. In addition to philosophy of religion, my teaching covers religious ethics and South Asian religions. Before coming to Leeds, I worked for the Devon School of Yoga and ran a yoga studio in Plymouth from 2001 to 2005.

Research Interests

• Philosophy of religion
• Religious ethics
• Comparative and cross-cultural philosophy and religion
• South Asian religious and philosophical traditions (esp. Hindu and Buddhist)
• Philosophical and interdisciplinary research methods
• Death, illness and emotion
• Conceptions of immortality and eternal life
• Rebirth and reincarnation
• Wittgenstein and Wittgensteinian approaches

Research Supervision

• Dr Mikel (Mik) Burley welcomes applications from students wishing to carry out research related to any of his research interests.

Funded Research Projects

• Philosophy of Religions: Cross-Cultural, Multi-Religious Approaches, comprising a two-day conference (3-4 July 2018) plus a special issue of Religious Studies in 2020, supported by Cambridge University Press and The Spalding Trust.
• Immortality and Human Finitude: A Philosophical and Theological Study (2014–15), funded by The Immortality Project, which is supported by a grant from the John Templeton Foundation.

Publications

Books

• Narrative Philosophy of Religion: Studying Religious Complexities through Literature and Myth (London: Bloomsbury, forthcoming 2027).

• A Radical Pluralist Philosophy of Religion: Cross-Cultural, Multireligious, Interdisciplinary (London: Bloomsbury, 2020).

• Rebirth and the Stream of Life: A Philosophical Study of Reincarnation, Karma and Ethics (New York: Bloomsbury, 2016).

• Contemplating Religious Forms of Life: Wittgenstein and D. Z. Phillips (New York: Continuum, 2012).

• Classical Samkhya and Yoga: An Indian Metaphysics of Experience (London: Routledge, hbk 2007; pbk 2012).

• Hatha-Yoga: Its Context, Theory and Practice (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 2000). German edition: Hatha Yoga: Einheit von Krper, Geist und Seele, trans. Elisabeth Liebl (Munich: Random House, 2005). Romanian edition: Hatha-Yoga. Context, teorie, practica, trans. Walter Fotescu (Bucharest: Herald, 2015).

Edited volumes

• Wittgenstein, Religion and Ethics: New Perspectives from Philosophy and Theology (London: Bloomsbury, 2018).

• Language, Ethics and Animal Life: Wittgenstein and Beyond, co-edited with Niklas Forsberg and Nora Hamalainen (London: Bloomsbury, 2012).

Journal special issue

• Guest editor of Religious Studies 56.1, special issue on ‘Philosophy of Religions: Cross-Cultural, Multi-Religious Approaches’ (March 2020).

Journal articles

• See my ORCID profile and Google Scholar profile

Annotated bibliography

• ‘Samkhya and Philosophical Yoga’, Oxford Bibliographies in Hinduism, ed. Alf Hiltebeitel (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013)

Selected Presentations

• ‘Making Sense of Genocide? Further Reflections on Retributive Karma and the Problem of Blaming the Victim’, IbnArabi Interreligious Research Initiative, Monash University, 28 June 2024.
• ‘Erotic Spirituality: Jayadeva’s Gitagovinda as Philosophy of Religion’, Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture, Kolkata, 3 January 2024.
• ‘Studying Yoga Philosophically: Ontology, Epistemology, Ethics’, SOAS Centre of Yoga Studies, 28 September 2020.
• ‘Samkhya Philosophy and Yoga Practice: How are They Related?’, SOAS Centre of Yoga Studies, 24 June 2020.
• 'Substance, Essence, and Soteriological Practice in Samkhya Philosophy', The Samkhya System: Accounting for the Real Conference, Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, 23 March 2018.
• ‘"A Certain Purity of Attention to the World": The Ethical Demands of Wittgensteinian Philosophizing', Doing Ethics after Wittgenstein Conference, Universität Zrich, Switzerland, 22–23 April 2016.
• ‘Imagining Philosophy of Religion Differently: Interdisciplinary Wittgensteinian Approaches’, Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain Conference, Gregynog, Wales, 29 July 2015.
• ‘“Being Near Enough to Listen”: Wittgenstein and Interreligious Understanding’, Wittgenstein and Interreligious Communication, Westminster College, Cambridge, 25 June 2015.
• ‘Immortality and Human Finitude: A Philosophical and Theological Study’, The Immortality Project Capstone Conference, University of California, Riverside, 30 May 2015.
• ‘Wittgenstein and Philosophy of Religion: Beyond Fideism and Atheism’, 13th British Wittgenstein Society Lecture, Bloomsbury Institute, London, 12 May 2015.
• ‘The Purported Realism of Classical Yoga’, Thinking with the Yoga Sutra: Translation, Interpretation, Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, 11 April 2015.
• 'Eternal Life as a Present Possession: Perspectives from Theology and the Philosophy of Time', Life after Death? Perspectives from Philosophy, Theology, Anthropology and Literature Symposium, University of Leeds, 20 March 2015.
• ‘Mounce and Winch on Understanding (or Not Understanding) an Indigenous Society’, Fourth British Wittgenstein Society Annual Conference, University of Wales, 17 July 2011.

Media appearances

• Keen on Yoga – on Samkhya and Yoga, 21 August 2022.

• INFORM Religion, ‘Conceptions of Immortality and Nirvana among Interpreters of Buddhism’, 30 July 2020.
• BBC Radio 4, Beyond Belief, 'Blood', 19 November 2018.

Elsewhere on the Web

• Philpapers

• Wikipedia

Responsibilities

• Academic Integrity Lead

Research interests

• Philosophy of religion
• Religious ethics
• Comparative and cross-cultural philosophy and religion
• South Asian religious and philosophical traditions (esp. Hindu and Buddhist)
• Philosophical and interdisciplinary research methods
• Death, illness and emotion
• Conceptions of immortality and eternal life
• Rebirth and reincarnation
• Wittgenstein and Wittgensteinian approaches

Qualifications

• PhD (Philosophy), University of Leeds, 2009
• MA (Philosophy), University of Leeds, 2006
• PhD (Indian Philosophy), University of Bristol, 2005
• MA by Research (Indian Philosophy), University of Nottingham, 1997
• BA (Philosophy and Sociology), University of Essex, 1993

Professional memberships

• British Society for the Philosophy of Religion
• British Wittgenstein Society
• Royal Institute of Philosophy

Student education

• Religion, Belief and Ethics
• Dharma Traditions
• Religions of India

Research groups and institutes

• Centre for Philosophy of Religion and Theology
• Centre for Religion and Public Life
• Philosophy
• Theology and Religious Studies

Current postgraduate researchers

• Annika Dahlin
• Shai Tubali
• Moses Estrada-Alvarez
• James Dylan Russell