The DFG is funding the CRC 1475 for another three and a half years

Coordinated at Ruhr University Bochum, the CRC investigates how religions use metaphors to express concepts of the divine and the transcendent—for example, through images such as “light,” “way,” or “heart.” To this end, the participating researchers analyze religious texts spanning approximately 4,000 years of cultural history.

In the second funding phase, the research network comprises 14 content-related subprojects as well as several transfer and infrastructure projects. More than 40 researchers from various disciplines, including religious studies, linguistics, various philologies, and the digital humanities, are collaborating within the CRC. The focus is on religious traditions from Europe, Asia, and the Middle East—including, among others, Christianity, Islam, Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, and Daoism.

In the future, images, material objects, and performances are to be examined more systematically in addition to written sources. One subproject is also dedicated to religious parodies and their metaphors. The goal remains to make the metaphorical forms of communication of various religions more comparable and to understand their social significance more precisely.

DFG press release (in German language): https://www.dfg.de/de/aktuelles/neuigkeiten-themen/pressemitteilungen/2026/pressemitteilung-nr-15
RUB press release (in German language): https://news.rub.de/presseinformationen/wissenschaft/2026-05-15-bewilligung-sonderforschungsbereich-metaphern-der-religion-wird-weitergefoerdert