Biography

Ruth Illman holds the title of Docent (Associate Professor) in the study of religions at Åbo Akademi University, Finland, and in the history of religions at Uppsala University, Sweden. She has earned double doctoral degrees in the study of religions (2004) and in Jewish studies (2018). From 2013 to 2024, she was the Research Director of the Donner Institute for Research in Religion and Culture. Currently, she is Head of Research at the Society of Swedish Literature (SLS) in Finland, a major national financer of research in the humanities and social sciences. 

Illman’s main research interests include contemporary Jewish life in the Nordic countries and developing ethnographic research methodologies. Illman has published 96 scientific articles since 2000. Among her eight monographs are the titles Art and Belief. Artists Engaged in Interreligious Dialogue (2012), Theology and the Arts: Engaging Faith, co-authored with W. Alan Smith (2012), both published by Routledge, and Music and Religious Change among Progressive Jews in London: Being Liberal and Doing Traditional (2018: Lexington Books). Illman has edited 13 peer-reviewed volumes and has been active as journal editor for e.g. Nordisk judaistik – Scandinavian Jewish Studies (2015–24).

Illman has been co-PI of two international Centres of Excellence in research, focusing on religious change and the values of young adults globally. She has also acted as national PI (Finland) within the EU-funded research project Religious Communities in the Virtual Age (2022–24). Currently, she is part of the research project CoCo: Contested Constructions of Sense of Safety in Religious Spaces at the University of Helsinki (2024–27).