From paganism to esotericism on the internet

Eight disciplines contributing to new research projects at the Cluster of Excellence

Research has begun on eight new projects at the Cluster of Excellence “Religion and Politics”. The Cluster explores the complex relationship between religion and politics across epochs and cultures.

The new research projects from eight different disciplines range historically from Hellenistic Babylon to the digital present, and deal, for example, with the visual representation of religious groups in the Philippines during the colonial period, Memories of paganism in Scandinavia, the transfer of knowledge in the Eastern Mediterranean and in China, and conspiracy theorists and other ideological movements on the internet.

The eight heads of the new projects are professors from Islamic Studies, Political Science, Education, History, and Communication Studies, as well as from Scandinavian Studies, Sinology and Ancient Oriental Studies. They were newly appointed to the University of Münster in 2022 and 2023. (spi/vvm)

The following projects are new to the Cluster of Excellence:

Projektleitung	Projekt	Titel
Prof. Dr. Svenja Ahlhaus (Political Science)	B3-45	Democratic Legitimacy of Strategic Litigation in the Context of Religion
Prof. Dr. Sarah Albiez-Wieck (Non-European History)	A3-39	Visual stereotyping of religious groups in the colonial Philippines
Prof. Dr. Philip Bockholt (Islamic Studies)	A3-40	Arabic-Ottoman translations of works of Qur’anic exegesis (Tafsīr) as an expression of knowledge transfer within Islam in the Eastern Mediterranean between 1400 and 1750
Prof. Dr. Kristin Kleber (Ancient Oriental Studies)	A3-38	The networks of the Babylonian elite in the Hellenistic period: Between continuity and change
Prof. Dr. Jürgen Overhoff (Education)	A3-41	Catholic Enlightenment in Europe, the Americas and Australia (1750-1840) - Balancing Loyalities between State, Nationality, Citizenship and Church
Prof. Dr. Thorsten Quandt (Kommunikationswissenschaft)	B3-44	Conspiracy theorists, esotericists and patchwork religions: Using computational methods to analyze new ideological movements in online environments
Prof. Dr. Roland Scheel (Scandinavian studies)	A3-36	Paganizations: Memories of paganism as an element of Scandinavian and European identities
Prof. Dr. Kerstin Storm (Sinology)	A3-35	News from China? Sources of knowledge, knowledge acquisition, and knowledge transfer among missionaries in China in the 19th-20th century