Research Team

Dr Ruth Illman is the Director of the Donner Institute for Research in Religion and Culture in Åbo/Turku, Finland. She holds the title of Docent in the study of religions at Åbo Akademi University and in the history of religions at Uppsala University, as well as doctoral degrees in the study of religions and Jewish studies. Dr Illman’s main research interests include contemporary Judaism, interreligious dialogue, religion and the arts (especially music) as well as ethnographic research methodologies.

Among her latest publications are articles in journals such as Temenos: Nordic Journal of Comparative Religion, Journal of Contemporary Religion and Contemporary Jewry, chapters in the volumes Vernacular Knowledge (eds. M. Bowman; Ü. Valk, 2022) and The Georgetown Companion to Interreligious Studies (ed. L. Mosher, 2022) as well as the books Music and Religious Change among Progressive Jews in London: Being Liberal and Doing Traditional (Lexington, 2018) and Theology and the Arts: Engaging Faith (Routledge, 2013/2016) co-authored with W. Alan Smith. Since 2016 she is the editor of the journal Nordisk judaistik Scandinavian Jewish Studies. She is the director of the Boundaries of Jewish Identities in Contemporary Finland research project and local Co-PI of the Recovira project in Finland.