Ariane Kovac
Research Associate Project REDiCON – Religion, Digitality, ConfessionalityAreas of Research
- Christianity in the US and Germany, with a focus on contemporary evangelicalism
- Digital Religion, religion and social media
- Religious emotions, sociology of emotions
- Religious healing, “wellbeing,” and therapeutization
- Qualitative research on religion, ethnographic research methods, Grounded Theory Methodology
Since 2024: Research Associate in the Project REDiCON – Religion, Digitality, Confessionality at CERES
Since 2020: PhD Project “Taking Christianity to Therapy,” Leipzig University
2023-2024: Fulbright Visiting PhD Student, University of California at Santa Barbara, USA
2022: Empirical Research in Seattle and Los Angeles, USA
2020-2023: Research Associate, Project “When Healing Fails,” Institute for the Study of Religions, Leipzig University
2019: M.A. Sociology, Bonn University
2018: Empirical Research in Lima and Ayacucho, Peru
2017-2019: Student Assistant, Forum Internationale Wissenschaft, Bonn University
2016: B.A. Political Science and Human Geography, Jena University
2014-2016: Student Assistant, Institute for Political Science, Jena University
Selected Conference Activities
2023: Panel Chair, Creative and medialized practices of boundary drawing and identity work in evangelical and Pentecostal Christianity, with Nadine Walter. Under Construction. Religion as Practice and Process. XXXVth Annual Conference of the German Association for Religious Studies (DVRW), Bayreuth (Germany), September 25-28.
2023: Panel Chair, Online since before it was a thing. Digitalisation and religion beyond the pandemic, with Benedikt Römer. Religions and Technologies. 20th annual Conference of the European Association for the Study of Religions (EASR), Vilnius (Lithuania), September 4-8.
2023: Presentation, Taking Christianity to Therapy: Spiritual (Un-)Learning and Mental Health in a Global Megachurch. Conference “Religion and Spirituality as Sites of Learning”, Turku (Finland), May 15-17.
2022: Presentation, How to be Apolitical? Strategien “unparteilicher” US amerikanischer Megakirchen angesichts zunehmender gesellschaftlicher Polarisierung. 41st Conference of the German Association for Sociology (DGS), Bielefeld (Germany), September 26-30.
2021: Presentation, “Now it’s getting really personal.” Breaching the front stage in digital research
Resilient Religion. 18th Annual Conference of the EASR, Pisa (Italy), August 30 – September 3.
2019: Presentation, Political violence and religious change in Ayacucho, Peru. Conference “Latin American Transitions: Processes of Reconfiguration”, Leipzig (Germany), October 17-19.
Selected Lectures and Other Presentations
2024: Public Lecture, Taking Christianity to Therapy: Evangelical Conflicts Over (Therapeutic) Emotions. University of California at Santa Barbara (USA), January 31.
2023: Public Lecture, Redeemed, reborn, forgiven. Conversions to evangelicalism in the context of violence and civil wars in Latin America. Bayreuth University, November 16.
2023: Public Lecture, Jesus als Psychotherapeut: Emotionen und Therapeutisierung in einer evangelikalen Megakirche. Leipzig University, January 27.
2021: Workshop, “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might.” Neoliberale Ideologien und pentekostale Kirchen jenseits eines „harten“ Wohlstandsevangeliums. PhD Student Forum „Theology and politics“, Rostock University, November 4-6.
2020: Public Lecture, Politische Gewalt und religiöser Wandel: Versöhnung und Vergebung als lokale Konfliktaufarbeitungsmechanismen unter evangelikalen Konfliktopfern in Ayacucho, Peru. Eichstätt-Ingolstadt University, January 28.
Memberships
- German Association for the Study of Religions (DVRW)
- Working Group on Evangelical, Charismatic, and Pentecostal Movements of the DVRW
Research Associate of Center for Religious Studies and REDiCON