Prof. Dr. Robert A. Yelle

Personal information

Robert Yelle is Chair of Religious Studies (with a focus on theory and methodology) at Faculty 10. He is furthermore an external member of the Faculty of Cultural Studies and a member of the doctoral program in Buddhism Studies. Prof. Yelle has degrees in Philosophy, Law, and History of Religion. His publications range from semiotic, structuralist, and linguistic analysis of rituals and mythology, via South Asian religions in the pre-modern and colonial periods, all the way to the influence of the Protestant Reformation on European culture and society, as well as the relationship between religion, politics, law, and economics.

Selected publications

1. Yelle, R.: Hobbes the Egyptian: The Return to Pharaoh, or the Ancient Roots of Secular Politics, in: A. Azfar Moin & Alan Strathern (eds.), Sacred Kingship in World History: Between Immanence and Transcendence. New York: Columbia University Press, 2022, pp. 223-48.
2. Yelle, R.: Do Crowds Need Leaders? Representing the Body Politic after the Decline of Monarchy in Western Europe, from Hobbes to Durkheim. Political Theology 24(1): 15-34 (2023).
3. Yelle, R. & Trein, L. (eds.): Narratives of Disenchantment and Secularization: Critiquing Max Weber’s Idea of Modernity. London: Bloomsbury, 2021.
4. Yelle, R.: Sovereignty and the Sacred: Secularism and the Political Economy of Religion. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2019.
5. Yelle, R., Handman, C. & Lehrich, C. (eds.): Language and Religion. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2019.
6. Yelle, R.: From Sovereignty to Solidarity: Some Transformations in the Politics of Sacrifice from the Reformation to Robertson Smith. History of Religions 58: 319-46 (2019).
7. Yelle, R.: The Language of Disenchantment: Protestant Literalism and Colonial Discourse in British India. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013.
8. Yelle, R.: Semiotics of Religion: Signs of the Sacred in History. London: Bloomsbury, 2013.
9. Sullivan, W., Yelle, R. & Taussig-Rubbo, M. (eds.): After Secular Law. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2011.
10. Yelle, R.: Explaining Mantras: Ritual, Rhetoric, and the Dream of a Natural Language in Hindu Tantra. London and New York: Routledge, 2003.

Academic distinctions

• 2021 Harris Distinguished Visiting Professor, Dartmouth College
• 2019 Finalist, American Academy of Religion Award for Excellence in Constructive-Reflective Studies for Sovereignty and the Sacred
• 2017 Visiting Professor, University of Turin
• 2013 - 2014 Joint Tikvah/Senior Emile Noël Fellow, Tikvah Center for Law and Jewish Civilization and Jean Monnet Center for International and Regional Economic Law and Justice, New York University School of Law
• 2006 - 2007 Fellow, John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation

Research projects

• The Religion of Thomas Hobbes: The Birth of Secularism and the End of Political Mythology: book in draft
• History and the Secular: an international conference, funded by the Fritz Thyssen Foundation, planned for June 2024, co-organised with PD Dr. Lorenz Trein (LMU) and Prof. Jonathan Sheehan (UC Berkeley)

Teaching

Prof. Yelle's current courses can be found on LSF.

If you wish to write a thesis (BA or MA) under Prof. Yelle's supervision, please contact him by e-mail.

Other activities

• 2017 - Co-editor, Semiotics of Religion book series, Walter de Gruyter publishers
• 2016 - Editorial Board, Method and Theory in the Study of Religion
• 2012 - 2022 Editor, Religion, Culture, and History book series, American Academy of Religion/Oxford University Press; member, AAR Publications Committee
• 2018 Member, external peer review committee for the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Groningen
• 2011 - 2013 Editorial Board, Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses
• 2007 - 2011 Executive Secretary and Treasurer, North American Association for the Study of Religion
• 2005 - 2007 Executive Council, North American Association for the Study of Religion
• 2005 - 2008 Chair, Law, Religion, and Culture Group, American Academy of Religion