Jason Ānanda Josephson Storm received his master’s degree from Harvard University and his Ph.D. from Stanford University. He has held visiting positions at Princeton University, Harvard University, École française d’Extrême-Orient (Paris), Ruhr-Universität, and Universität Leipzig.

Storm is a historian and philosopher of the human sciences. His archival research, in multiple languages, traces how the categories of religion and science have been constructed, contested, and remade across Europe and East Asia. His philosophical work engages core questions of knowledge, power, and meaning in the human sciences—approaching them through historical and cross-cultural analysis, and building new theoretical frameworks from that vantage.

He has published nearly forty articles and book chapters in English, French, Spanish, and Japanese, as well as several standalone translations from Japanese. His scholarly contributions include four single-authored monographs, two of which have received book awards. Storm has also coedited a monograph and two special journal issues. His books have been translated into Spanish, Turkish, and Vietnamese. As of August 2026, Google Scholar lists over 3,000 citations, reflecting its wide uptake across disciplines.

Intellectual Biography:

Storm's scholarship initially concentrated on Edo-Meiji Era (1600-1912) Japan. Drawing on archival sources written in Japanese, Chinese, French, Spanish, Portuguese, German, and Dutch, he examined the importation of Euro-American concepts of “religion,” “science,” and “secularism” into Japan and traced the sweeping changes—intellectual, legal, and cultural—that followed.

This work culminated in The Invention of Religion in Japan (2012), which reveals how Japanese officials, under intense international pressure, came to terms with the Western concept of religion by “discovering” religion in Japan and formulating policies to guarantee its freedom.

Storm also works on European history (especially in English, French, and German sources) from 1600 to the present, particularly in relation to the history of religion, science (and increasingly technology), esotericism, and the emergence of the human sciences in particular.

In The Myth of Disenchantment: Magic, Modernity, and the Birth of the Human Sciences(2017), Storm challenges the dominant account of modernity and its rupture from the pre-modern past. Based on archival research in five different countries, he traces the history of disenchantment narratives in philosophy, anthropology, sociology, folklore, psychoanalysis, and religious studies. Ironically, the "myth of mythless modernity" was forged while Britain, France, and Germany were in the midst of occult and spiritualist revivals. Indeed, many of the disciplines’ founders were enmeshed in these milieus; and they crafted notions of a disenchanted world in response to a burgeoning culture of spirits and magic.

Alongside this historical scholarship, philosophy has been a persistent focus of Storm's work. His graduate training focused on East Asian philosophy (Buddhism, Confucianism, and Daoism), continental philosophy (including Nietzsche and Foucault), and the history and philosophy of science. He subsequently deepened his engagement with Hegel, Weber, and Frankfurt School critical theory, and then returned to an earlier interest in analytic philosophy. His work brings these philosophical traditions into conversation with one another and with postcolonial theory to address problems in epistemology, social ontology, virtue ethics, philosophy of language, and the philosophy of science and the social sciences.

In Metamodernism: The Future of Theory (2021), Storm advances a methodological paradigm for the humanities and social sciences beyond the impasses of postmodernism. It develops a Process Social Ontology that reimagines social kinds as temporarily stabilized clusters of powers, alongside an expanded philosophy of language, grounded in animal communication studies, that reaches into non-human forms of signification. It reframes the relationship between knowledge and value toward a plural, constructive epistemology, opening space for a more inclusive and future-oriented scholarly practice. The book’s influence extends beyond the academy through Metamodern Theory & Praxis, a journal Storm co-founded to advance scholarship, activism, and art informed by metamodernist and allied approaches.

Storm's most recent book is The Genealogy of Genealogy: Nietzsche, Foucault, and the Coils of Critical History (University of Chicago Press, April 2026),  a critical examination of genealogy--a mode of historical analysis that shows that what looks timeless is in fact contingent, bound to shifting relations of meaning, knowledge, and power. Turning the method back on itself, the book traces its development through Nietzsche, Deleuze, and Foucault while uncovering entanglements with eugenics, race, and sovereignty. The book reconstructs genealogy’s rise as a dominant paradigm, challenges received views of Nietzsche's philosophy of history, and revisits unresolved debates in Foucault studies. More than critique, The Genealogy of Genealogy explores alternatives to genealogy and invites scholars to rethink its assumptions, limitations, and future.

Work in Progress:

Storm is currently working on “Transcendent Machines: Religion and the Philosophy of Technology” (under contract with Cambridge University Press) which brings religious studies into direct conversation with science and technology studies and the philosophy of technology. By exploring the function of organizing technics and artifacts and the emergence of the notion of technological society, it revises the analytical distinction between “religion” and “technology,” revealing their intrinsic entanglement.

Storm is also writing “Glimmering Gods of the Electric Age,”  a monograph that takes as its point of departure the Japanese deification of Thomas Edison to explore how the cultural history of electricity contributed to the formation of “religion” and “science” as transnational categories. Working with archives from Japan, Europe, and the Americas, it situates theosophy and esoteric currents within the history of science and technology, and demonstrates how techno-animism was constitutive—not peripheral—to global constructions of “modernity.”

Looking further ahead, Storm is developing a book-project tentatively titled “The Power of Powers,” which seeks to first provide a historical account of how concepts of power and causality became philosophically estranged; and second, advance a unified, conceptually robust new model of power—integrating power, causation, and social status—with implications for social ontology, political theory, and the philosophy of the human sciences.

· Religion, Science, & Technology in East Asia (1600–present): Japanese Religions; History of Science and Technology in East Asia; Japanese and Chinese Philosophy; Buddhism, Confucianism, Daoism, and Shinto.
· Religion, Science, & Technology in Europe (1600–present): History of Science and Technology (including Social/Human Sciences); History of Religion; Esotericism (including spiritualism, occultism, theosophy, and magic).
· Philosophy & Critical Theory: History of Philosophy; Continental Philosophy (esp. Nietzsche, Foucault, Benjamin, Adorno); Philosophy of Science & Social Science; Science & Technology Studies; Philosophy of Religion; Sociological Theory (esp. Max Weber); Metaphysics (esp. Social Ontology); Critical Theory (Frankfurt School, postcolonial theory, critical race and gender theory).

Single-Authored Monographs

The Invention of Religion in Japan.
University of Chicago Press, 2012.

Winner: Society for the Scientific Study of Religion—Distinguished Book of the Year Award
Finalist: American Academy of Religion—Best First Book in the History of Religions

The Myth of Disenchantment: Magic, Modernity, and the Birth of the Human Sciences.
University of Chicago Press, 2017.

Link to Audiobook Version published by Tantor Media

Metamodernism: The Future of Theory.
University of Chicago Press, 2021.

Winner: American Academy of Religion—Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion—Constructive-Reflective Studies.

Translated into:
Spanish, Turkish, & Vietnamese

The Genealogy of Genealogy: Nietzsche, Foucault, and the Coils of Critical History.
University of Chicago Press, 2026.

Coedited Monograph & Special Issues

“Beyond Disenchantment: Science, Technology, and New Religious Movements,”
Nova Religio (special issue), coedited with Grant Shoffstall, 2021.

“Metamodernism and the Study of Religion,”
Religious Studies Review (special issue), coedited with Brian Collins, 2022.

Theosophy and the Study of Religion,
monograph, coedited with Charles Stang (Aries Book Series, Brill, 2024).

• Distinguished Book of the Year Award, Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, for The Invention of Religion in Japan.
• Finalist, Best First Book in the History of Religions, American Academy of Religion, for The Invention of Religion in Japan.
• Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion: Constructive-Reflective Studies, American Academy of Religion, for Metamodernism: The Future of Theory.

Articles and Book Chapters

1. “Francis Bacon and Secularity” in Johannes Duschka et al edts. Global Secularity: A Sourcebook: Volume 7, De Gruyter, forthcoming.
2. "Beyond Postcolonial Buddhist Studies: Imperial Entanglements and Decolonial Possibilities” Pacific World, forthcoming.
3. "Apotheosis in Japan,” in Matt Dillon edt., Varieties of Mystical Experiences, Harvard University Press, forthcoming.
4. “Metamodern Theory for the Study of More-than-Human Cultures,” Cultural Science Volume 15, no. 1 (2026): 146-155.
5. “The Hegemony of Genealogy,” boundary 2, Volume 53, Issue 2 (2025), 27-84.
6. “Sex, Magic, & Rockets or the Implications of the Babalon Working for Theories of Belief and Rationality,” Method & Theory in the Study of Religion, Volume 37, Issue 3, (2025), 323-335.
7. “Prefacio a la Edición Española,” in El futuro de la teoría: Un manifiesto metamodernista, Spanish translation of Metamodernism: The Future of Theory, Madrid: Mutatis Mutandis Editorial, 2024, 29-32.
8. “Introducing Metamodern Theory & Praxis” co-written with Brendan Graham Dempsey, Metamodern Theory & Praxis, Volume 1, Issue 1 (2024), 1-6.
9. “The Starry Heavens Within: Roy Bhaskar and the Theosophical Depths of Critical Realism” in Pitkänen edt., Philosophical Perspectives on Esotericism, 2024, 300-316.
10. “Nightmen, Troglodytes, and other Phantoms of the Classificatory Imagination,” Aries: Journal for the Study of Western Esotericism, (2024) 24 (2), 257-259.
11. “Breaking the Postmodern Deadlock: Metamodernism’s Methodological Revolution,” Method and Theory in the Study of Religion, 2024, 1-15.
12. “Introduction” co-written with Charles Stang in Theosophy and the Study of Religion, 2024, 1-20.
13.  “Language, Mind, Cosmos: The Theosophical Roots of Linguistic Relativism” in Stang and Storm, edts, Theosophy and the Study of Religion, 2024, 327-343.
14. “Metamodernism as the Pedagogy of Revolution,” Religion and Theology (2024) 30 (5): 1-8.
15. “The End of Theory of “Religion”?” Religious Studies Review, (2024) 50 (1):61-67.
16. “The Secular Incarnation of the God of Time: Postcolonial and Decolonial Insights from Beyond the Horizons of Euro-American Secularism” Journal of the American Academy of Religion, (2023) 91 (1): 64–68.
17. “Dark Gods in the Age of Light: The Lightbulb, the Japanese Deification of Thomas Edison, and the Entangled Constructions of ‘Religion’ and ‘Science’” Sheldon, Ragab, and Keel edts. Critical Approaches to Science and Religion, Columbia University Press, 2023, 127-158.
18. “Metamodernism and the Study of Religion” Special issue introduction with Brian Collins. Religious Studies Review (2022) 48 (4): 1-2.
19. “An Interview with Moyo Okediji on Metamodernism” Religious Studies Review (2022) 48 (4): 3-7.
20. “Excavating the Hall of Dreams: the Inventions of “Fine Art” and “Religion” in Japan”Religions (2022) 13, 1-21.
21. “A Theosophical Discipline: Revisiting the History of Religious Studies” Journal of the American Academy of Religion, (2021) 89, (4): 1153–1163.
22. “Monism and the Religion of Science: How a German New Religious Movement Birthed American Academic Philosophy” Nova Religio (2021) 25 (2): 12–39.
23. “Beyond Disenchantment: New Religious Movements and Science & Technology Studies” Special issue, Introduction with Grant Shoffstall, Nova Religio (2021) 25 (2): 5-11.
24. “Revolutionizing the Human Sciences” Method & Theory in the Study of Religion, Volume 33, issue 1, 2020, 82-88.
25. “Max Weber and the Rationalization of Magic,” Yelle and Trein edt., Narratives of Disenchantment and Secularization, Bloomsbury, 2020, 31-50.
26. “Religious Studies and the Jargon of Authenticity” in Smith, Führding, and Hermann edts., Hijacked: A Critical Treatment of the Public Rhetoric of “Good” and “Bad” Religion, Equinox, 2020, 23-33.
27. “Paradoxes of Diversity in Contemporary Japan” in Schilbrack, edt. The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Religious Diversity, Blackwell, Forthcoming, 2019.
28. “The Mystical 'Occident' or the Vibrations of Modernity in the Mirror of Japanese Thought,” Rambelli edt., Spirits and Animism in Contemporary Japan, 2019.
29. “The Superstition, Secularism, and Religion Trinary or Re-Theorizing Secularism” Method & Theory in the Study of Religion, Vol. 30, No.1 (2018), 1-20.
30. “絶対的妖怪―井上円了、仏教哲学の課題、心霊の棲むポストカント思想の境界領域/Monsters of the Absolute: Inoue Enryō, the Task of Buddhist Philosophy, and the Haunted Borderlands of Post-Kantian Thought,” 国際井上円了研究, Issue 5, (2017), 1-21.
31. “Specters of Reason: Kantian Things and the Fragile Terrors of Philosophy” J19: The Journal of Nineteenth-Century Americanists, Vol. 3, No.1 (2015), 204-211.
32. “L’invention des religions japonaises : Les limites de l’orientalisme et de l’universalisme”Asdiwal: revue genevoise d'anthropologie et d'histoire des religions Vol.10 (2015), 77-96.
33.  “The Politics of Buddhist Studies in Early Twentieth-Century Japan” Japanese Religions, Vol.29, No. 1&2 (2014), 1-9.
34. “The Paradoxes of Secularism in Contemporary Japan” Nonreligion and Secularity, 2014, n.p.
35. “The Invention of Religions in East Asia” in Turner and Salemink edts., The Routledge Handbook of Religions in Asia, 2014.
36. “God’s Shadow: Occluded Possibilities in the Genealogy of ‘Religion’” History of Religions, Vol. 52, No. 4 (May 2013), 309–339.
37. “The Empowered World: Buddhist Medicine and the Potency of Prayer in Japan” in Stolow, edt. Deus in Machina: Religion, Technology, and the Things in Between, 2012.
38. “The Invention of Japanese Religions,” Religion Compass, 2011. 5, 589–597.
39. “Evil Cults, Monstrous Gods, and the Labyrinth of Delusion: Defining Heresy in Meiji Japan” Bochumer Jahrbuch zur Ostasienforschung. 2009. 33, 39–59.
40. “アメリカにおける近代日本仏教史研究,” 日本思想史, 2009. 75, 145-166.
41. “When Buddhism Became a “Religion”: Religion and Superstition in the Writings of Inoue Enryō.” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies. 2006, 33/1, 143–68.

Standalone Translations

1. Inoue Enryō 井上円了, “Prolegomena to an Argument for the Revival of Buddhism” (佛教活論序論, Bukkyō Katsuron Joron) translation, critical apparatus, and introduction, in Buddhism and Modernity: Sources from Nineteenth-Century Japan, 2021.
2. Arai Hakuseki 新井白石, excerpt from “Tidings from the West” (西洋記聞, Seiyō Kibun) in A Concise Introduction to World Religions. 3^rdedition, Roy C. Amore et al, edt. New York: Oxford University Press, 2015.
3. Yamada Toshiaki 山田利明, various Japanese entries. Encyclopedia of Taoism. Fabrizio Pregadio edt. London: Routledge, 2007.

Book Reviews

1. “Darwin, Dharma, and the Divine: Evolutionary Theory and Religion in Modern Japan by Clinton Godart” Review. Monumenta Nipponica, 2020 75(2): 381-384.
2. “Magic in the Modern World, edited by Edward Bever and Randall Styers” Review. Magic, Ritual, and Witchcraft,Summer 2018 13(2): 299-302.
3. “Buddhism, Unitarianism, and the Meiji competition for Universality, by Michel Mohr” Review. H-Shukyo, H-Net Reviews, 2015, 1-3.
4. “Death and the Afterlife in Japanese Buddhism, edited by Jacqueline Stone and Mariko Walter.” Review. New Zealand Journal of Asian Studies, 2010, 12(2): 148-50.
5. “Death and Social Order in Tokugawa Japan: Buddhism, Anti-Christianity, and the Danka System, by Nam-lin Hur.” Review. History of Religions, 2009, 49(2): 206-8.
6. “Presenting Japanese Buddhism to the West: Orientalism, Occidentalism, and the Columbian Exposition, by Judith Snodgrass.” Review. Journal of Buddhist Ethics, 2005, 12: 80-3.

Selected Public-Facing Scholarship

1. Occasional academic blog: Absolute-Disruption.com(2012-Present)
2. "The God in the Mirror," Center for the Study of World Religions, Harvard University, 2026
3. “Glimmering Gods of the Electric Age,” Center for the Study of World Religions, Harvard University, 2024
4. “Prospects of the Metamodern” Muftah Magazine, 2024
5. “The Thin Line Between Science and Magic” The Institute of Art and Ideas, 2023
6. “After Postmodernism” The Institute of Art and Ideas, 2022
7. “Metamodern Progenitors and Progeny” Ad Fontes, 2022
8. “God’s Casino, or Faith in Physics at the Chelsea Hotel” (with Nick Ruiz) Kritikos, 2019
9. “Against Disenchantment” Aeon, 2019
10. “The Enchanted World Today” Inference, 2019
11. “Why Do We Think We Are Disenchanted?” The New Atlantis, 2018
12. “What It Isn’t: Or, Historical Periodization by Erasure”TheImmanent Frame, 2018
13. “Magic Never Vanished” Cosmologics Magazine, 2016
14. “Modern Spirits” The Immanent Frame, 2014
15. “Reflexive Religious Studies: A Note” Bulletin for the Study of Religion, 2014
16. Various Entries Digital Dictionary of Buddhism, 2006
17. “Soka Gakkai in America: Tensions Between Sectarianism and Humanism.”The Pluralism Project Updates2002.

· REL 101: “Introduction to the Study of Religion”
· REL 102: “The Meaning of Life”
· REL 103: “The Way of Power: A History of Occult Knowledge and Practices”
· REL 200: “What is Religion? Theories and Methods in the Study of Religion”
· REL 217 (STS): “The Great Instauration: Monsters, Miracles, & Magic in the Scientific Revolution”
· REL 219 (STS): “Realizing Utopias”
· REL 250 (ASST): “Virtue Ethics in East Asia”
· REL 251 (ASST): “Zen Buddhism: History and Historiography”
· REL 257: “Gods and Demons in East Asian Religion”
· REL 259 (HIST): “Japanese Religions and the State”
· REL 271 (ASST/COMP/WGSS): “Erotic, Grotesque, Sublime: Ghosts & Monsters in East Asia”
· REL 278 (ASIA): “Tantra”
· REL 290T: “Explorations of the Afterlife”
· REL 297T (ANTH/COMP): “Theorizing Magic”
· REL 300: “Dialectics and the Archaeology of Knowledge: Adorno, Foucault, and the Philosophy of History"
· REL 301a: “Word Virus: Cultural Studies after the Linguistic Turn”
· REL 301 (COMP/STS/SOC/WGSS): “Social Construction”
· REL 308 (STS/SOC/POSCI): “What is Power?”
· REL 316 (STS) : “Social Ontology”
· REL 317 : “Disenchantment, Modernity, and the Death of God”
· REL 327 (COMP): “Theory After Postmodernism: New Materialisms and Realisms”
· REL 328 (SOC/STS): “From Swarms to States: Emergence and Complexity in Nature and Society”
· REL 337 (ASST/COMP): “Zen & Philosophy: The Kyoto School & Its Legacy”
· REL 350 (SOC/COMP): “Max Weber & Critical Theory or Rationalization & Its Discontents”
· REL 354 (COMP) “Friedrich Nietzsche: Philosophizing with a Hammer"
· REL 355 (STS/COMP) : “Michel Foucault: Confessions of the Flesh"
· REL 371 (STS/COMP) : “The Philosopher’s Stone: Alchemy, the Spiritual Life of Matter, & the Making of Modern Science"
· REL 375 (STS) : “Einstein, Bergson, and the Fight for the Future of Time"
· REL 401: Senior Seminar: “Genealogies of Religion”
· STS 411:  Senior Seminar Science & Technology Studies: “Monstrosity” 

Williams College (Selected):
· Chair, Science & Technology Studies Program, 2018-Present*
· Chair, Department of Religion, 2013- 2021*
· Gaudino Scholar,2020-2023
· Advisory Committee Member, Asian Studies Program, 2025–Present
· Advisory Committee Member, Richmond Professorship, 2022–Present
· Chair, Calendar & Schedule Committee, 2024-2025
· Chair, Information Technology Committee, 2015-2019*
· Organizer, Oakley Center Seminar Series (various themes in science, philosophy, and religion), 2007–2023

The Profession (Selected):
· Founding Co-Editor, Metamodern Theory and Praxis, 2024–Present
· Book Award Judge, American Academy of Religion, 2025–Present
· Cofounder & Steering Board, Scholarly Association for Global Esotericism Studies, 2024–Present
· Editorial Board Member, Cambridge Elements in Religion & Technology, 2026–present
· Editorial Board Member, Journal for the Academic Study of Religion, 2024–present
· Editorial Board Member, Method & Theory in the Study of Religion, 2019–present
· Editorial Board Member, Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 2018–present
· Grant Reviewer, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), 2022
· Grant Reviewer, SSHRC Research Council of Canada, 2016

*  Some sabbaticals exclusive.