Stef Aupers

Stef Aupers (1969) is a sociologist of culture. He works as an assistant professor at the Erasmus University Rotterdam, is a member of the Amsterdam School for Social Science Research (ASSR), and is an editor of the Dutch journal Sociologie

Stef Aupers published various articles in national and international journals on manifestations of ‘posttraditional religion’ in a supposedly secular, rationalized and ‘disenchanted’ world. Several of these are published in collaboration with Dick Houtman (Erasmus University Rotterdam). With Anneke van Otterloo (University of Amsterdam) he wrote the book New Age. Een godsdiensthistorische en sociolologische benadering (New Age. A historical and sociological approach; Kok, 2000). In February 2004 he defended his Ph.D.-thesis In de ban van moderniteit. De sacralisering van het zelf en computertechnologie (Amsterdam: Aksant (Under the Spell of Modernity. The Sacralization of Self and Computer Technology)).
For doing research on the enchantment of computer technology in Silicon Valley, he received a Fulbright Scholarship from the Netherlands America Commission for Educational Exchange.

His current research on online gaming is part of the research program Cyberspacesalvations. Computer Technology, Simulation, and Modern Gnosis. It started in April 2004 and is funded by the Netherlands Organization of Scientific Research (NWO) (main applicant: Peter Pels (Leiden University); co-applicants: Stef Aupers and Dick Houtman). The provisional title for his new book on online gaming is 'Gaming Together. Community, Identity and Spiritual Meaning in Online Computer Games' and will be finished in 2010.