Religious Studies in Munich
The plurality of values and lifestyles in modern societies cannot be truly understood without considering the role of religions, which today are interconnected, both dialogically and polemically, in a new and unprecedented ways.
To understand these interactions, study of a single religion is no longer sufficient, for in our religiously plural world we have become aware of both the profound difference in religious worldviews and of the value of understanding one’s own worldview in light of another. As an area of science of culture, religious studies investigate societal interconnections defined by specific structures of faith and values, rites and norms. The aim is to understand historical connections and develop methodologies.
The dynamic of religious studies is based on the study of individual religious traditions in an effort to carefully identify comparative observations and models for potentially universal application.. A program of religious studies requires thorough methodological reflection and ongoing revision on the basis of historical and current data, and it makes use of a variety of methods drawn from historical hermeneutics and aesthetics of religion.
A cornerstone of our current work is the effort to understand what the religions mean and how they can be related to each other. Comparisons focus not on individual abstract phenomena of religion (that would be the older discipline of phenomenology) but systemic fields of communication in their historical forms of representation and translations. Since these can be identified in a wide range of media, RS works with methods also applied to different perspectives in cultural sciences, such as philology and social science. Particular emphasis is placed on philologies, since history of religions in previous millennia manifested itself largely (albeit not exclusively) in literary traditions. This leads to in-depth collaboration with other disciplines (ethnology, regional studies such as Indology, Turkology, Sinology, Japanology and Theology).
Since the subject of religious studies comprises extremely diverse cultural regions with their languages, ethnicities and histories, it is essential to cluster resources, define areas of focus, make use of the specialities of the staff available in Munich, and introduce additional areas of expertise to the institute by establishing teaching positions. In addition to the theory and methodology of religious studies and comparative religion, we thus also have specialist fields in Hinduism and Buddhism and in aesthetics and economics of religion, and maintain cooperative partnerships with other disciplines in social sciences and cultural studies.
Religious Studies are designed to provide students with the expertise to perceive the value and lifestyle models of other cultures and to understand the dynamics in the present-day relationship between religions and cultures. Such expertise will have pertinent applications in the fields of politics, economics, culture and education because opportunities for cultural development and conflicts arise at precisely the interfaces formed when creative cultural processes grow from the encounter and collision of differing patterns of life and culture (religions) - a phenomenon that can be increasingly observed at national, European and global level. Having said this, we recommend that students strive to coordinate the range of teaching offered as closely as possible, taking their own interests into account. The staff at the Institute are happy to advise.