01.12.2023

How religion, culture and society interact

The Center for Religion, Culture and Society (CRCS) connects up religion-related research projects at the University of Tübingen

The Center for Religion, Culture and Society (CRCS) is part of the University of Tübingen's Excellence Strategy and forms a cross-faculty exchange platform for religion-related research topics. With lectures, lunch talks, a conference planned for 2025, financial support for doctoral workshops, and research projects organized by the CRCS, the aim is to strengthen exchange and cooperation beyond discipline boundaries. In the lectures, academics also refer to current topics and address, for example, the question of what role religion plays in the war in Ukraine.

“We have strong theologies in Tübingen - the Faculty of Catholic Theology, the Faculty of Protestant Theology, Jewish Studies and the Center for Islamic Theology - that are very active. We also have the Humanities Faculty’s Religious Studies institute, which is currently being reconstituted and sees itself as explicitly non-denominational," says Holger Zellentin, Professor of Religious Studies with a focus on Jewish Studies. "Furthermore, there is a lot of religion-related research throughout the Faculty of Humanities and the Faculty of Social Sciences, but frequently, it it not automatically in dialogue with related research areas within the University." 

Zellentin and Professor Monique Scheer comprise the CRCS management. Scheer is a Professor of Historical and Cultural Anthropology with a focus on cultural diversity and is currently the University’s full-time Vice-President for International Affairs and Diversity. The term "religion" is defined very broadly at the CRCS. "We are not only concerned with organized religion, but also with spirituality and atheism and secularism in general. Our focus is on the impact of religion, understood in a broader sense, on culture and society. For example, what is the relationship between the religious and the social ideas of physical integrity?" says Holger Zellentin, explaining the thematic focus of the CRCS. 

Support for research projects

The Center for Religion, Culture and Society was conceived in 2020 by Professor Monique Scheer and Professor Volker Leppin, who has since been appointed at Yale University. In 2021, Scheer and Zellentin were elected to the Center's Board of Directors; in 2022 the CRCS was officially founded as one of the University’s central institution, and an academic advisory board with representatives from participating disciplines was established. “Researchers at the University of Tübingen who have an idea for a research project in a religious context can contact Monique Scheer or myself for advice. We try to provide support either on the basis of our own expertise or with the help of a third party," says Holger Zellentin. The support options range from the application phase and fundraising to the content of the project. 

Well-attended special lectures

One of the CRCS's own projects is a 2025 conference planned jointly with the University of Toronto, which will focus on "Originalism as Innovation". At the previous lectures, it was mainly researchers from Tübingen who presented their work. "These are lunch talks or jour fixe events open to the University public, at which professors and colleagues in the mid-level faculty present their research to an interdisciplinary audience. For example, Professor Heidrun Eichner, Professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Tübingen, recently spoke about her research topic "Avicenna and Averroës as two paradigms of the history of philosophy in Islam" at one such jour fixe," reports Zellentin. The events have been very successful so far, and networking within the University has been strengthened. However, there is still plenty of room for closer collaboration. In the near future, the CRCS will be launching its own research projects. In 2024, there will also be a major conference organized jointly with the Center for Gender and Diversity Research (ZGD) under the working title "What Family Means". The CRCS is also involved in the content and logistics of many smaller events and contributes financial resources. For example, doctoral students in religion-related subject areas can apply for funding for workshops lasting several days. 

The role of religion in the Ukraine war

Some of the research projects presented at the CRCS relate to current events, such as the lecture by Professor Catherine Wanner from Penn State University entitled "Religion and the Russian Invasion of Ukraine". "Among other things, it was about the relationship between Russian and Ukrainian Orthodoxy. What role does religion play on the Russian side, for example, in legitimizing the war? And what role does religion play for Ukraine's own identity?" says Holger Zellentin.

At the beginning of July 2023, Professor Linda Woodhead from King's College London was also a guest, giving public evening lecture, "The Rise of Values and the Future of Religion", which dealt with values and the extent to which an ethical and moral discourse in society is developing independently of religion, so that values are becoming more central, but are no longer so determined by religion. "At first glance, such approaches may seem somewhat abstract, but they can be applied very concretely to all kinds of debates in the media, for example about ethnicity or gender - in other words, ultimately about values. Values were very religiously determined for a long time, but are now more post-religious," reports Zellentin. One of Linda Woodhead's central theses is that even people who still have a very clear connection to religion and are, for example, committed church members, follow a more or less secular value system in which religion no longer sets the tone.

Expertise in Tübingen on religion-related research

In future, there will also be book presentations as part of the CRCS events, where authors from within the University can present both monographs and important articles. "We are delighted that the CRCS has been able to initiate so many activities relating to religion-related research. And the revival of religious studies in Tübingen, which meets the established theologies, brings together a great deal of expertise. We have a lot planned and a lot to offer," says Holger Zellentin. 

Johannes Baral

Information on current events can be found on the CRCS website.