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Transformation of Contemporary Religious Culture 

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This research field encompasses the study of historical and contemporary transformations of religions and religiosity with regard to their respective development in historical as well as current social and socio-cultural contexts.
The Study of Religion in Marburg examines social issues such as pluralism, processes of transformation, as well as processes of demarcation and adaptation of majorisation and minorisation in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic traditions, as well as Hindu, Buddhist, and local, indigenous traditions in Europe and Asia. Particular attention is paid to individual, social and cultural dynamics, especially the tensions between individual and institutionalised, private and public, non-conformist and established religions. This includes, for example, the transmission, mediation and popularisation of religious ideas and practices. This way, we aimt to analyse the role and function of religions in shaping individual life worlds, but also collective affiliations and their significance for local and global conflicts.

A particular emphasis is placed on the transformation of contemporary religious culture in Europe. Here, religion is analyised within the context of social, societal and political processes such as secularisation, individualisation and pluralisation. This includes religious phenomena, groups and movements such as New Religious Movements (see image), New Age, (modern) Western esotericism, recent forms of alternative religiosity and spirituality.

Research

Prof. Dr. Edith Franke: „Konstellationen des Verhältnisses von religiösen Minderheiten und Mehrheiten in pluralen Gesellschaften, Cooperation with the DFG Network (MMK) JProf. Dr. Anna Neumaier, Dr. Sarah Jahn, CERES Ruhr University Bochum

Carre Dohe, PhD: Stewards of Creation and Children of Mother-Earth Bodhisattva: A Comparative Analysis of Religious Environmentalist Ethics and Action among Religion-Specific Groups and their Interreligious Networks in Germany

Renate Stegerhoff-Raab und Nikolas Magin: Cataloguing and integration of the REMID-archive in cooperation with the FID Study of Religion, duration 2019-2022

Anna Matter:  Meanings and Interpretations of Gemstones in Everyday Religious Culture: Processes of Appropriation and Negotiation of Material Religion in Contemporary Spirituality (PhD project)

Marita Günther: Religion, Gender and Knowledge in Contemporary Concepts of Matriarchal Spirituality in Germany: A Contribution to Gender Studies in the Studies of Religion (PhD project)