Concepts of religion and their 'scientification'
The history of religion in the 19th century in its relationship to the history of science is a central field of research in the study of religion in Basel. This interest is being taken into account as part of a project application to the Swiss National Science Foundation under the direction of Jürgen Mohn; the project is now in its final phase.
Under the title "Concepts of religion and their 'scientification' in the academic study of religion and related discourses in the 19th and early 20th centuries", three sub-projects will investigate the relationship between the history of religion and the history of science. Jahrhundert", three sub-projects on German and French-language religious studies (Mohn, Atwood), on the development of religious studies in Scandinavia(Johannsen) and on the psychology of religion(Gripentrog), the process of scientification of the understanding of religion was presented. The importance of different understandings of religion for the academic 'self-disciplining' of the humanities and social sciences, which are establishing themselves in relation to theology, philosophy and the natural sciences, was also worked out in the study.
Start: April 1, 2010
Duration: 36 months
In addition to various project-related publications, the results of the project will be made available in a joint publication. The documentation of the developed discourse material as an annotated bibliography within the framework of an Internet database will be published on this page (initially only visible to reviewers).
Project-related publication list:
Atwood/Gripentrog/Johannsen/Mohn: "Reden von Religion" (Introduction to the joint publication)
David Atwood: The Religion of Others. An analysis of religion-related African discourses between 1860 and 1920 (master's thesis)
Academic concepts of religion and their 'religionization' in science and society in the 20th century
On March 25, 2013, the Swiss National Science Foundation approved part of the planned follow-up project. The project by David Atwood and Jürgen Mohn deals with "Academic concepts of religion and their 'religionizations' in society and science"Duration: April 2013 to March 2016 The research project investigates the repercussions of academic concepts of religion as 'religionizations ' on social discourses on religion and focuses on threshold narratives of the 20th century. Thresholds such as 1914, 1945, 1989, "9/11" or the debate on the "return of religion" can thus be analyzed as master narratives of contemporary politics in their religious mode of action.
Content and aim of the research project Based on the insights gained in the initial project, the follow-up project will extend the period of investigation into the 20th century. In doing so, the historiographical perspectives already identified will be examined. The aim is to evaluate the discourse and constellation-historical approaches for the understanding of public religious debates in order to demonstrate the relevance of religious concepts in terms of social diagnosis. The focus here is on the 'religionizations' of the academicized concepts of religion: those processes in which (1.) (self-understood) religious concerns were elevated to concerns of science, (2.) domains such as politics, law and literature were shaped on the basis of such concepts of religion into the realm of religion and (3.) hybrid forms of 'academic religion' and 'religious science' emerged. At the interface of politics, social sciences and religious studies, postulated historiographical ruptures are analyzed as constructed 'threshold narratives' in order to grasp the scope and consequences of time-ordering and thus worldview-producing religious studies.
Approaches from the history of discourse and constellations are linked to approaches from the sociology of knowledge in order to ask genealogically how religiously based argumentations are used in academia. The aim is to close a research gap in the history of religious studies.
