Book-News

Münster legal historian Nils Jansen from the University of Münster’s Cluster of Excellence “Religion and Politics” has presented the first comprehensive overview of the historical process by which law became an autonomous system in society, independent of religion, politics and science.

In “New Paths for Interreligious Theology” eleven scholars from five countries discuss Perry Schmidt-Leukel’s theory that religious diversity displays fractal structures.

The sociologists of religion Prof. Dr. Christel Gärtner of the Cluster of Excellence “Religion and Politics” and Prof. Dr. Gert Pickel of the University of Leipzig have published a new collection entitled “Schlüsselwerke der Religionssoziologie” (Key Works of the Sociology of Religion).

"Buddha Mind – Christ Mind" by religious studies scholar and theologian Perry Schmidt-Leukel is a Christian theological commentary on the Bodhicaryāvatāra, an Indian Buddhist classic from the 7th or 8th century.

As high as the importance of dynasties for pre-modern history was, so weak was generally their social unity. In his dissertation “Einheit im Konflikt” (Unity in Conflict), historian Lennart Pieper analyses the formation of dynasties between the 15th and 17th centuries using the numerous conflicts in the comital families of Lippe and Waldeck as examples.

Legal scholars Nils Jansen and Reinhard Zimmermann provide rule-by-rule commentaries on European contract law, dealing with its modern manifestations as well as its historical and comparative foundations.

The new volume "Gender and Violence in Historical and Contemporary Perspectives" covers a range of issues and phenomena around gender-related violence in specific cultural and regional conditions.

In his dissertation, the historian Tobias Hoffmann of the Cluster of Excellence “Religion and Politics” has examined the significance of trickery in the Middle Ages using the example of bishops’ and abbots’ vitae.

The volume “Normative Crises” has emerged from the interdisciplinary work at the Cluster of Excellence. It analyses the structure of normative crises and normative transformation processes, particularly in the religious and political fields.

The Catholic theologian Prof. Dr. Michael Seewald of the Cluster of Excellence “Religion and Politics” has published a new book, “Reform – Dieselbe Kirche anders denken (Reform – the Same Church, Another Thinking). In it he explores possibilities and limits of reforms in the Catholic Church.