Senior Research Fellow
Charles University, Prague

Zdeněk Vojtíšek is an associate professor and, since 2010, the Head of the Religious Studies Department at Hussite Theological Faculty of Charles University, Prague (Czech Republic). He holds an M.A. in Czech and English Language Education (1986), a Ph.D. in Bohemistics (1988) as well as a theological doctorate (2007), all three from Charles University, where, in 2009, he obtained his habilitation with a thesis on "Nová náboženská hnutí a kolektivní násilí" (New Religious Movements and Collective Violence). His first encounter with Religious Studies was at the end of communist era when listening to (unofficial) lectures by Jan Heller. In the 1990s, while studying sociology of religion as visiting scholar at London School of Economics he became particularly interested in contemporary religions and new religious movements. Over the past more than 20 years, he published extensively on new religious movements and violence, millenarianism, and postmodern religion, and authored and co-authored three encyclopaedias of religion in the Czech Republic. His current research focuses, among others, on the Twelve Tribes Communities and the Grail Movement. Since 1998, he is the editor-in-chief of Dingir, a journal of contemporary religion. While at the Department, Professor Vojtíšek will conduct research on the development of the Grail Movement in Austria.