Dynamics in the History of Religions between Asia and Europe

The Käte Hamburger Center Dynamics in the History of Religions between Asia and Europe, headed by Prof. Dr. Volkhard Krech and funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research of Germany, has started working in April 2008. Within the center, 49 researchers from 13 academic disciplines are working on 28 individual projects. In addition, up to ten fellowships are granted to scholars from all over the world each year.
Researchers from Bochum's university disciplines like East Asian Studies, South Asian Studies, Islamic Studies, Jewish Studies, Protestant and Catholic Theology, Classical Philology and History, in close cooperation with Religious Studies, investigate the dynamics of formation and spread of religions, the interaction between different religious traditions as well as their densification within the complex structures of the so-called “world religions” in Asia and Europe. A special focus lies on the relational constellations in the emergence of the religious field. Based on this premise, cultural and religious traditions can be described as a combination of ongoing processes of orientation and exchange.
Methodologically, the Käte Hamburger Center combines material and systematic research on religion both in a synchronic and in a diachronic perspective. Accordingly, the work is structured, on the one hand, in historical research fields dedicated to formation, expansion and globalization of religious tradition as well as to the development of specific terminology. On the other hand, we will examine recurring analogous religious phenomena like “secrecy” or “purity” (with their differing modes of integration, ascription, and exclusion) that act as attractors of religious community formations. Both approaches mutually complement each other in the comparative examination of religious semantics and of the formation of religious concepts and ideas.
One of the scientific objectives of the Consortiums based on this relational approach is the formulation of a systematic typology of religious contacts, and the formulation of a comprehensive theory of religious transfer which includes both the interrelations between religious impetuses and the dynamics of intrareligious dissents.
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- Under a Serpent's Spell
- Gods, Heroes and Cults in Bronze Age Central Asia
- Negotiating Co-existence of the Buddhism, Vaiṣṇavism and Śaivism
- Interferences between Theology and the Sciences in the Formation and Diffusion of early Islamic cosmological Models
- Attractiveness through Ethics. Interactions between Jewish, Hellenistic-Roman and Christian Ethics in Antiquity
- Attractive Ethics
- The New Testament and Mystery Religions
- Changes in the West Phoenician "pantheon" due to cultural contacts with Greeks and Etruscans and the dominance of Carthage (6th-4th cent. B.C.)
- The Introduction of Liturgical Poetry into the Karaite Prayer Book
- The Reception of Hindu Religious Thought in Muslim India, with a Focus on Dārā Šikōh’s Majma‘ al-baḥrayn
- The Virgin Mary and the Expansion of Spanish Christianity in the Old and New Worlds (10th - 17th Century)
- Mediterranean Courts as Centers of Interfaith Encounters in the Middle Ages
- Doctrina Machumet
- The Conceptualization of a European History of Religions from a Comparative Perspective
- The Dialogical Dimension of Confucianism as a Religious Tradition
- Conceptualization of Religion in the Enlightenment
- Characteristics of the Concept "Jonggyo"(Religion) and the Network of its Related Concepts in Modern Korea.
- Genealogy of Religious Discourse in Modern Japan
- The Axial Age
- Society without "Religion"?
- Una sit religio
- Reconfigurations of the Order of Knowledge through Contact with "Western Learning" in Korea's Early Modern Period
- Purity and Impurity in the New Testament with Special Consideration of the "Cleansing of the Temple" and 1 Corinthians
- Diversity in German Jewry in the 19th century
- Gush Emunim and Hamas
- Sakralisierung und Desakralisierung in der arabisch-islamischen Sprachkultur im 20. Jahrhundert
- Säkularisierung und Weltlichkeit
- Die Bedeutung des Bibel- und Talmudkommentars Rabbi Shlomo Yitzhaqi (Raschi) für das lateinische Christentum
- Zur Konstitution und Identitätslogik der klassischen normativen Systeme Chinas
- Studien zur interreligiösen und interkulturellen Genese der Sunna
- Jewish Warriors in Distant Lands
- Portuguese Encounters with Buddhism in the 16th and 17th Centuries
- The Impact of Central Eurasian Religious Traditions on European and Asian Religions
- Attraktion und Repulsion in religiösen Bildakten
- The Evolution of Religious Ideas as Symbolic Markers
- The Sacral Kingship as an Antetype to the Ancient Mystery Cults?
- Taoism, Meditation and the Wonders of Serenity
- Mission Encounter and the Formation of China’s Local Knowledge of Religion
- Buddhist Narratives in Central Asia and China
- The Scripture within the Scripture
- Re-creating Religious Tradition in Northern Iraq
- Osiris in the Religious Field in the later Roman Empire
- The Pahlavi-Literature in Its Context
- Borders of Orthodoxy and the Charm of False Learning in Korean Confucianism
- Institutionalisation of Islam in Germany
- Sensory Devotion and Inter-religious Encounters
- Nyang ral nyi ma 'od zer's (1124-1192) Codifications of Tibetan Tantric Buddhism
- The Dimensions of Sound in Islam
- Seeing, Touching, Holding, and Tasting Sacred Texts
- Senses and Metaphysics in Korean Confucianism
- The Hellenistic Buddhism of Asia
- Self-Reflection in the Transmission of the Rival’s Message
- A Comprehensive Survey on Babylonian Jewry in the Sasanian Era
- Traces of Monotheism in the Material Culture?
- When two Religious Traditions interact
- The Golden Legend
- Sinophilia, Historical Writing, and Political Propaganda in Eighteenth-century England
- Structure and Interpretation
- Religion of the Third Reich
- A Conceptual History of Religion in Ancient and Medieval China
- The Significance of Purity/Impurity as an Internal or External Attribution in Medieval Christian-Islamic Relations
- Religious Globalization
- Transformationen buddhistischer Selbstrepräsentationen im globalen Kontext
- Westrom und Ostrom
- Taming Demons
- Muslims as Heretics in Spanish Medieval Sources
- Orthodox Christian and Islamic Anti-Westernism from a Comparative Perspective
- Iskandar the Prophet
- How to exhibit Religion?
- Transformation of Traditional Indigenous Religions of Siberia under Buddhist and Esoteric Influence
- Discourse Comparison
- Angels’ Tongues and Witches’ Curses
- The Labyrinth of Jericho
- Process Anthropology
- The Visualization of the Dharma
- Diffusion of the Worship of Ancient Mesopotamian Deities along the Trade Routes
- Jerome, the "Old" Testament and the Jews
- Martyrs, Mystics, and Muslims in the Medieval World
- Typology of Religious Contacts in the Old Testament
- Freethinking in Arab and Islamic History
- The Development of the Concept of "Religion" from an Intercultural Perspective
- "Spiritual Confucianism"
- Kontinuität und Transformation antiker Religionen im Christentum
- "Those who say that everybody can be saved in his/her own Faith"
- Late Antique Religious Literacies between the Eastern Mediterranean and North-Africa
- Analysis of the Visual Language of the Buddhist Reliefs from Andhra, their Roman Elements and what Distinguishes them from Gandhara
- Dynamics of the Religious Field in the Context of Early Buddhism
- The Modern, the Anti-Modern and the Religious
- The Forming of Purity Conceptions in the Torah and in the Book of Ezekiel as Precondition of a Cultural and Religious Basic-difference in early Judaism
- Bon, Buddhism and the Coproduction of Religion in early Tibet
- Legendary Accounts and Buddhist Monasteries
- Trade Networks and the Early Transmission of Buddhism throughout and beyond South Asia
- Fate. History and Facets of a Religious Concept in Modern Times
- Catholic Missions in the Early Modern World
- Argument to the Senses in Post-Avicennian Dialectical Theory
- Patterns of Buddho-Confucian Interactions in Premodern Korea
- Komparatistik und Theorie der Religionsgeschichte
- A Place at the Altar
- The Theatrical Space of Beliefs
- Die Verfügbarkeit des Unverfügbaren
- Otherness and Seafarers’ Religion
- Immanence and Transcendence in the Aesthetic Representation of Sleep from Antiquity to Modern Times
- The Evolving of the Distinction between Transcendence and Immanence as triggered by Intra- and Interreligious Encounter
- Divine Transcendence and Immanence in Antiquity
- Creating an Incorporeal Empire
- Immanent Transcendence?
- Divine Kingship in Medieval Sri Lanka
- Sharing Common Figures, Notions and Concepts
- From Orthopraxy to Orthodoxy – Christian Influences on Yezidism in the Diaspora?
- Traditional Religions of the Desecularizing State
- Forced Migration and Emergent Identities in a Networked Age
- The Buddha and the Drum
- Uyghur Donors and Old Uyghur Texts
- Imperial Preceptor Chos rgyal ’Phags pa Bla ma as a Tantric Adept in the Mongol Yuan Dynasty
- The Colours of Idolatry
- Forging Identity and Shifting Boundaries
- Hittite Texts and Greek Religion
- Shared Sacred Landscapes and Social Forgetting in Cyprus and Turkey
- The Concepts of “Tradition” and “Purity” in Interactions between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (late 16th – 17th centuries)
- Jews, Judaism, and their Imaginaries in Late Antique and Early Medieval Georgia
- Christian Systems of Knowledge and the Historiography of the Tagalog Religion
- Bar Hebraeus at the Mongol City of Marāgha
- Ḥunayn b. Isḥāq and Ādāb al-falāsifa in Context
- Sufi Tariqah in Contemporary Muslim World / Naqshbandiayh Sheikhs and Ideas in Western Sumatra
- The Desert Origins of God
- Religious Garment in the Jesuit Mission to Japan
- Intra-Religious Encounters and Formation of the Religious Field in the Post-Soviet Central Asia
- Reading Avicenna and Studying Plants in the Deccan
- Dhimma: The Status of Protection in a Mediterranean and Asian Context
- Plants, Magic & Medicine in the Indian Ocean and the Work of Garcia de Orta
- Mapping Modern Magic(k)
- A Place of One's Own
- Inter-Religious Contact in Early Modern Polish Livonia
- Buddhist Diversity and Inter-regional Connectivity in Southeast Asia
- Religious Encounters between Jews and Reformed Christians
- Evolution and Present Dynamics of Conflicting Religious Cosmologies in East Tibet
- Gender, Islamic Normativity and Cultural Critique in the Arab Region
- Debating Authorities
- Early Modern Visual Systems of Religious Encounter
- Entangled Rituals in Late Antiquity
- How to Negotiate “Sacrifice” and “Idolatry” in Religious Encounters
- Local Religion Meets the Ideals of the Elite
- Die Sprache der Neo-Sannyas-Bewegung in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland in den 1980er Jahren
- The Conception of the Soul in Early Medieval China
- Mapping the Global Middle Ages Through Computer Simulation
- The Formation of Mahāyāna Buddhism
- Religiosität und religiöse Indifferenz als "zweite Natur"
- Early Buddhists and their Ascetic Others
- Demons, Evil, and Illness in the Babylonian Incantation Bowls
- Religious Conversions between Asia and Europe
- Unfulfilled Prophecy and False Prophets in the Old Testament and its Cultural Environment
- ‘You Are Twinned with the Spirit’
- Spice as Soteriology
- Religion and Identity in Hungary and the Iberian Peninsula
- The Emergence of Religious Pluralism in Ancient Rome
- The Mongol Empire and the History of Religion
- A History of Religious Contacts between Jewish and Muslim Mysticism throughout the Ages
- Vom „Dach der Welt“ nach Deutschland?
- Intertextuality in the Transmission of Rational Traditions in the Religious Science of Islam from Safavid Iran to Northern India in Early Modernity
- The Interchange of Western Christmas Practices with East Easian Religions
- ‘Religion’, ‘Religions’, ‘Religiosity’ and the Hindu-Catholic Encounter in Goa
- Monotheism and Globalization
- The Zoroastrian Cult and Doctrine of Fire
- Forging Faith
- Encounters of Christianity with Korean Religions during 1875 - 1915
- Syriac and Malayalam Sources
- The Prophecies of Agaton in the Context of Other Medieval Apocalyptic Traditions
- The Prohibition and the Survival of Christianity in East Asia in a Regional Perspective (17th to 19th Century)
- Meanings and Symbology of the Sense of Smell in some Zhiguai Texts
- Religious Transfer and Cultural Diversity in Medieval and Early Modern Iberia and Beyond
- Jesuit Missions in South Asia during the 16th-18th century
- The Expansion of Buddhism in Central Asia
- Ghost Images of Modernity
- The Figure of the “Great Goddess” in the Near Eastern and Egyptian Contexts
- The Circulation of Divinities
- Politics and Religion Between the 8th and 11th Century in Central Asia, Tibet and Song China
- Mutual Adaptations and Borrowings in the Relationship Between Buddhism and Daoism in Medieval China
- Mantra and Dharani in the Religious Traditions of Buddhism, Jainism and Hinduism
- Römische Kultur, Religion, Literatur und Kunst im Zeitalter des Augustus
- Postsecularism in European and Asian Contexts
- Bio-Politics, Public Life and Sovereignty: Focault, Arendt and Agamben
- Biblical Prophet and Confucian Sages
- Rnying ma Transmission in the Tangut Empire
- Artistic Media as Religious Attractors
- The Power of Ritual
- The Cult of Astare in Egypt
- The Gospel of John and "the Jews"
- Formation and Diffusion of the Karaits
- Religious Pluralism and Contention in Chosŏn Korea
- Religion as a Culturo-Immunological System
- Othering, Otherness, and the Other in the Avestan Texts
- The Metaphorization of Sacrifice in Second Temple Judaism
- Die Macht der Freiheit
- Research Focus "Missionary Collections"