Alfred Bodenheimer, Director of the Centre for Jewish Studies at the University of Basel and professor of Jewish literary and religious history, is the 2026 Hans Blumenberg Professor at the Cluster of Excellence “Religion and Politics” in Münster. He will speak at the Cluster on Tuesday 16 June 2026 on how historical and, in part, biblical events or models of behaviour are used to justify Jewish actions today. The evening lecture is titled “Forward into the Past: Contemporary Jewish Self-Definitions in the Grip of Historical Analogies”.Read more

The research project ‘News from China? –  Knowledge-ressources, Knowledge-acquisition and Knowledge-transfer of Missionaries in China in the 19./20. Century’ at the Cluster of Excellence ‘Religion and Politics’ addresses the key question of for what purpose and in what context Christian missionaries acquired so-called ‘knowledge of China’ during the period in question. Sinologist and project leader Kerstin Storm and doctoral candidate Lisa Kerl report on their work with the sources and their findings on how knowledge was transferred to individuals, groups and institutions across nations.
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Egyptologist Angelika Lohwasser from the Cluster of Excellence “Religion and Politics” is studying the relationship between cult and kingship in the ancient kingdom of Kush, Egypt’s southern neighbour. Since Kush was annexed to Pharaonic Egypt as a colony in the 2nd millennium BCE, later periods also show many Egyptian influences there. As a result, researchers have a strongly Egyptian or Egyptological perspective on Kushite culture and religion. In this interview, Lohwasser talks about how she takes a new, non-Egyptian perspective on the kingdom of Kush, and in particular the relationship between the Egyptian god Amun and the Kushite god Apedemak. Read more