Martijn van Beek

Martijn van Beek (Ph.D., Cornell 1996) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology and the Interacting Minds Centre at Aarhus University in Denmark. He has lived and worked among Tibetan Buddhist communities for extended periods since the early 1980s, particularly in Ladakh. More recently, his research has focused on contemplative practices, lineages and communities in the contemporary world, in the West as well as in Asia. He has a particular academic and personal interest in the refiguring of contemplative life in the context of normative secularism and the scientific worldview. He is particularly interested in the methodological and conceptual challenges of experimental and experiential research on contemplative practices and contemplative life. In collaboration with colleagues in philosophy and cognitive science he is engaged in exploring the potential of “microphenomenological” elicitation interviews for contemplative research, teaching and practice. He lives at Vaekstcenteret, a contemplative community in Denmark.