Religion and knowledge must not, however, be understood as the relationship between the empirical and the meta-levels or that of the actual versus reflection upon it. Religion originates with its medial presentation. These forms of presentation are forms of knowledge, which cannot be considered apart from their mediality. This is important for every historical anthropology of religion and can be studied through the example of the depiction of gods, which constitute polytheism. “Modernization processes” are not to be understood as exclusively characteristic of the “modern” period. There are a series of questions connected to such an understanding:
How can religion as knowledge be perceived and described in theoretical terms? What are the forms of knowledge specific to a particular religion or to religion in general? In other words, what are the forms and modes of representation that articulate this knowledge or through which it becomes explicit? Knowledge of religion enters into problematic but also productive interactions with knowledge of other kinds. It was from these reciprocal relationships, mutual competition and aggregation around the turn of the twentieth century that cultural and media studies emerged; religion and history had long since been in competition as cognitive systems.
Such questions can be combined with those arising from issues raised by other areas: what aspects of practices, texts, images, signs, cultural techniques etc. can we identify as generating or transforming knowledge? What are the implications for the scientific study of religion, for the attempt to establish a formal history of the knowledge of religion? What types of knowledge of religion do the various different disciplines (and not just those represented by the Graduate School) generate, discard, formalize, or transform? What concepts of knowledge are evoked, passed on, developed? Under what conditions is something claimed as knowledge, or accepted as such? What is the relation between “cultures of experts in religion” and other knowledge-cultures, middlebrow or popular cultures?

‘Syncretism’ and ‘cultural transfer’ may be used as guiding concepts to open up a discussion about knowledge of religion in the fields of cultural studies and media theory. This discussion addresses the presuppositions, practical deliberations, and oscillations of this knowledge. The focus is thus on cultural techniques and practices in which structures of religious and of cultural knowledge relate to one another. They form the knowledge of religions, the cognitive power of religious signs, and processes of theoretical development.
From the perspective of the history of religions, the concept of syncretism stands for the explicit or implicit engagement with other religions, particular ideas, or rituals. Religious movements consolidate themselves through a process of self-differentiation or by re-working what they appropriate from outside: syncretism is a constitutive moment of religion.
The concept of ‘syncretism’ provides a means of looking at religious modes of representation through the lenses of cultural studies and media theory. The focus will then be on the modes of presentation and translation, which help to determine how religion is perceived.
The panel addresses the following problem areas: (1) The formation of knowledge in the history of religions and the history of theory-formation in religious studies; (2) The use of signs and media-cultural practices as performance of religious knowledge; (3) Religion as displaced object and concept of an (historical) self-description in the archaeology of cultural studies.

Beate Löffler

"Das Fremde als Eigenes. Religiöser Wissenstransfer und lokale Identitätskonstruktion während der Akkulturation des Christentums in Japan" more: Beate Löffler

Dorit Messlin

"Götterbild im Silenschrein - Die performative Inszenierung religiösen Wissens in Johann Georg Hamanns Sokratischen Denkwürdigkeiten" more: Dorit Messlin

Elena Berns

"Priester-Dichter der Avantgarde" more: Elena Berns

Gregor Rohmann

"Synkretismus in der frühmittelalterlichen Hagiographie? Der heilige Vitus als Kontrafaktur antiker Mythen" more: Gregor Rohmann

Judith Gruber

"Der Kanon-Eine normative Grammatik zum Umgang mit kulturell-pluralen Wissensformen in der christlichen Tradition" more: Judith Gruber

Ulisse Doga

"Das Luziferische: das Paradigma der Souveränität und der Gouvernementalität beim jungen Lukács" more: Ulisse Doga

When the question of knowledge in religion is posed, it is difficult to avoid the question of whether and how politics emerges from this knowledge. It is not by accident that the question of religion coincides on this point with a struggle for interpretation. Since the early 19th century historical studies have been engaged in a constant competition with theology for leadership in the academic embodiment of knowledge in religion.  Naturally, this happened within a background of massive interests that were not only academic but also political in nature. Under the title “Religion and History in the Struggle for Interpretation”, we therefore seek to address anew this conflict, which extends into the field of the political, and discuss it independently of its own history.
To thematize such problems under the changed circumstances of the 21st century is relevant because it seems that in secularized societies history plays precisely the same significant role in the formation of national and cultural identity, in legitimizing political rule, and in the determination of social life that was primarily occupied by religion in non-secularized societies. Hence, historical schemes, just like religions, are encountered as battle zones of elite spokespersons of interpretation, who strive to assert their perspectives in order to determine the fields of activity and the self-understanding of political communities. Current theses in this area of conflict will be tested and discussed.

Amir Engel

"Misreading and Mass Murder - Scholem’s attack on the Wissenschaft des Judentums as a case study in the use and abuse of the religious past" more: Amir Engel

Ermenegildo Bidese

"Das Leben der Metaphern. Zum epistemischen Gehalt religiöser und theologischer Begriffe vor dem Hintergrund der heutigen Wissenschaftslehre" more: Ermenegildo Bidese

Friedemann Voigt

"Historisches Bewußtsein" - Zur Karriere einer Kategorie in der Weimarer Republik und nach 1945" more: Friedemann Voigt

Philipp von Wussow

"Leo Strauss' Polemik gegen die Religionsphilosophie" more: Philipp von Wussow

Sigrid Rettenbacher

"Theologie der Religionen und die diskursive Konstruktion von religiösen Identitäten. Erkenntnistheoretische und ekklesiologische Reflexionen" more: Sigrid Rettenbacher

Thomas Meyer

"Historisches Bewußtsein" - Zur Karriere einer Kategorie in der Weimarer Republik und nach 1945 more: Thomas Meyer