"Religion and Politics" – Cluster of Excellence at the UNiversity of Münster

The Cluster of Excellence “Religion and Politics. Dynamics of Tradition and Innovation” has been investigating since 2007 the complex relationship between religion and politics across eras and cultures. In the funding phase from 2019 to 2025, the 140 researchers from 20 disciplines in the humanities and social sciences analyze in transepochal studies ranging from antiquity to the present day the factors that make religion the motor of political and social change. The research network is the largest of its kind in Germany; and, of the Clusters of Excellence, one of the oldest and the only one to deal with the issue of religion. full story

Exc Rup D Digit Rgb 2zu1
© exc

No new funding phase for the Cluster of Excellence “Religion and Politics”

On Thursday, 22 May 2025, the German Research Foundation (DFG) announced the results of the first funding round of the Excellence Strategy of the German federal and state governments: the Cluster of Excellence “Religion and Politics” will not receive further funding. “In recent years, the Cluster of Excellence ‘Religion and Politics’ has produced internationally acclaimed research that has contributed much to our understanding of complex social relationships. It is regrettable that no further funding will be provided”, said Rector Prof. Dr. Johannes Wessels. Read more

Thumbnail Mccall Video
© exc

Video of the lecture „Planetary Bodies“

In medieval medicine, healing the body was inseparably tied to conceptions of the micro- and macrocosm and the Christian worldview: To better understand these ideas, medieval thinkers developed diagrams and images to translate complex information an medical knowledge into simplified graphic forms. 
US art historian Taylor McCall, who has conducted research at Cambridge University, sheds light on this connection in her English-language lecture which opened the lecture and reading series “Aesthetic Conceptions of the Body between Religion and Politics”. Now in video. 
Read more

Minislider Buch Body In Religion
© William Blake: The Reunion of the Soul and the Body 1813, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

The Body in Religion

Body and religion are closely linked. The human body, which is the most direct level of human experience, is used to express and project religious ideas. For example, ablutions, head coverings, gender roles and body modifications are often religiously charged and integrated into a religious frame of reference. Deities are presented with human bodies – or not.
The complex relationship between religious practice and corporeality is explored in the new English-language anthology “The Body in Religion: Images and Practices” from the book series of the Cluster of Excellence “Religion and Politics”. Read more

Recent Publications