Publications 2017

A fundamental work on the role of religion in modern societies by sociologists Detlef Pollack and Gergely Rosta from Münster University’s Cluster of Excellence “Religion and Politics” has now been published in English by Oxford University Press under the title of “Religion and Modernity: An International Comparison”.

“God Beyond Boundaries”, written by the Religious Studies Scholar and Theologian Perry Schmidt-Leukel of the Cluster of Excellence “Religion and Politics”, deals with the essential features and benefits of a pluralist approach in the theology of religions.

Time has always held a fascination for human beings, who have attempted to relate to it and to make sense of it, constructing and deconstructing it through its various prisms, since time cannot be experienced in an unmediated way.

The widely acclaimed monograph “The Culture of Ambiguity” by the Arabist and Leibniz prize winner Prof. Dr. Thomas Bauer of the Excellence Cluster “Religion and Politics” of the University of Münster has been recently translated into Arabic.

The monograph “Transformation by Integration” by the scholar of religious studies and theologian Prof. Dr. Perry Schmidt-Leukel from the Cluster of Excellence “Religion and Politics” has been published in Chinese translation by the Religious Culture Publishing House, Beijing.

Not just material for fantasy films: according to research findings, people have been concerned with “voices from the beyond” since antiquity until today in various works of art as well as life contexts. In a novel research project, researchers from various subjects at the Cluster of Excellence “Religion and Politics” analysed the medium of the “voice” in Hinduism, Christianity, Islam and other religions.

The new publication, co-edited by philosopher Dr. Matthias Hoesch of the Cluster of Excellence “Religion and Politics”, contains translations of essential texts by the philosopher Derek Parfit (1942-2017).

The habitation thesis of literary scholar Dr. Christian Sieg from WWU’s Cluster of Excellence “Religion and Politics” addresses the function of religion in the staging of political authorship. The monograph “Die ‘engagierte Literatur’ und die Religion. Politische Autorschaft im literarischen Feld zwischen 1945 und 1990” (‘Committed literature’ and religion. Political authorship in the field of literature between 1945 and 1990), as it is titled, was recently published by De Gruyter.

The God’s wives of Amun in the 1st mill. BC are in the focus of a recent publication, edited by Egyptologists Meike Becker, Anke Ilona Blöbaum and Angelika Lohwasser, members of the Cluster of Excellence “Religion and Politics”.

The relations between Buddhists and Christians in Asian countries shaped by Buddhism are at the center of a new publication edited by Professor Perry Schmidt-Leukel, a religious studies scholar and Anglican theologian working in the Cluster of Excellence “Religion and Politics”. The volume has just been published by EOS Editions as “Buddhist-Christian Relations in Asia”.

An omnibus volume regarding civil religion in 20th century USA has been issued by the Cluster of Excellence “Religion and Politics” and the Centre for Religion and Modernity (CRM), as edited by historians Prof. Dr. Heike Bungert and Dr. Jana Weiß.

The adjustment of Indian law with regards to questions of homosexuality to international human rights standards is the focus of a monograph by legal scholar Dr. Yeshwant Naik of the WWU. The jurist illustrates how the modernisation dynamic causes a “crisis of tradition” in Indian law.

The Cluster of Excellence “Religion and Politics” of the WWU presents “111 Books on Religion and Politics. A Selection”, a new brochure in English providing an overview of selected research findings from 2009 until 2017.

A new publication, which is edited by classical scholar Prof. Dr. Engelbert Winter from the Cluster of Excellence “Religion and Politics”, presents new research findings on archaeological finds from the temple of the god Iuppiter Dolichenus in south-eastern Turkey.

In Synagogues in the Works of Flavius Josephus, the protestant theologian Dr. Andrew R. Krause from the Cluster of Excellence “Religion and Politics” analyses the place of the synagogue within the cultural and spatial rhetoric of Flavius Josephus. The book “Synagogues in the Works of Flavius Josephus. Rhetoric, Spatiality, and First-Century Jewish Institutions” is published by Brill, Leiden.

On the occasion of the 300th birthday of Empress Maria Theresa (1717-1780), many clichés about one of the most powerful women in history need to be abandoned according to the latest research. “Maria Theresa embodies a myth that was to remind Austria of lost greatness for a long time, but this spell must be broken today”, says historian Prof. Dr. Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger, Cluster of Excellence “Religion and Politics” of Münster University. The book is nominated for the “Non-Fiction” Prize of the Leipzig Book Fair.

The Gifford Lectures of Prof. Dr. Perry Schmidt-Leukel have now been published in an extended edition by Orbis Books, Mariknoll, New York as “Religious Pluralism and Interreligious Theology.” Schmidt-Leukel, an Anglican theologian, is Professor of Religious Studies and Intercultural Theology and a member of the Cluster of Excellence “Religion and Politics” at the University of Muenster.

The attitudes of Christians and Theravāda Buddhists toward religious diversity are at the center of a new publication jointly edited by Prof. Dr. Perry Schmidt-Leukel, Professor of Religious Studies and Intercultural Theology, and Prof. Dr. Hans-Peter Großhans, Professor of Systematic Theology, from the Cluster of Excellence “Religion and Politics”, together with Dr. Samuel Ngun Ling, Principal of the “Myanmar Institute of Theology” in Yangon, Myanmar.

A new publication from the Cluster of Excellence “Religion and Politics”, edited by Catholic theologian Prof. Dr. Johannes Schnocks, is about laments in the biblical Psalms. In the anthology, academics from North America, Germany, Switzerland and Israel present new research approaches in the exegesis of Psalms.

The book shows that apocalypse and utopia are two historically significant visions of the future which created images and narratives that persist until today.

The first synopsis of faith in Germany since 1945, undertaken by contemporary historian Prof. Dr. Thomas Großbölting from Münster University’s Cluster of Excellence “Religion and Politics”, was published in English by Berghahn Books under the title of “Losing Heaven”.

Scholars of the Cluster of Excellence have continued their research on the national religious and ethnic diversity in Myanmar. Scholar of religious studies and theologian Prof. Dr. Perry Schmidt-Leukel and Protestant theologian Prof. Dr. Hans-Peter Großhans from the Cluster of Excellence discussed missionary work and religious education with Christian and Buddhist colleagues.

The first volume of the new book series “Blumenberg-Vorlesungen” (Blumenberg lectures) of the Cluster of Excellence “Religion and Politics” has now been published by Herder Verlag. The historian and first Hans Blumenberg Visiting professor, Prof. Dr. Lucian Hölscher writes about Protestant piety in Germany between the Reformation and the secular society in the volume.