Prof. Dr. Almut-Barbara Renger studied Comparative Literature, German Studies, Classical Studies and Religious Studies at the Free University of Berlin, the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and Stanford University in California (M.A. 1995, very good). in 2001 she obtained a doctorate at the University of Heidelberg (Dr. phil., summa cum laude), and in 2009 she habilitated at the Goethe University Frankfurt am Main. Her dissertation was published in 2005 under the title "Zwischen Märchen und Mythos" by Metzler, part of her habilitation thesis in 2013 under the title "Oedipus and the Sphinx" by Chicago University Press. After working as an instructor, co-worker and senior resident (1998-2008) in Greifswald and Frankfurt am Main, she was a university professor of ancient religion and culture and its reception history at the Free University of Berlin from 2008 to 2021. Since 2021, she has been teaching at the subject area of Religious Studies at the University of Basel and is a Distinguished Research Fellow in Religion and Sustainability at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, which has been linked to the management of a sub-project in the SAGRaS Research Hub at the University of Pretoria since 2022. Scholarships and fellowships have taken her to Harvard University (2007-2017), the University of Sassari (2009) and the University of Hamburg (2016), guest and substitute professorships in religious studies for one to two semesters each at the Imperial University of Groningen (2013), the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (2014), the University of Basel (2019) and the University of Bonn (2021-2022). Since 2012, she has held recurring short-term guest professorships and teaching assignments at the Institute for Religious Studies at the Faculty of Catholic Theology at the University of Vienna. Through extensive field research and lecturing in China, she has repeatedly worked at Peking University. In her research, she deals with forms of modern Buddhism and esoteric discourses since the 19th century, alternative religious milieus since the 1960s, in which the self-designation of spirituality is practiced, as well as histories of the impact of myths and legends within European cultural and religious history since Greek antiquity and in interactions between Asia, Europe and North America since the 18th century. More recent thematic focal areas are the relationship between religion and ecology as well as discourses surrounding the Anthropocene. She will be a full professor in the subject area of religious studies at the University of Basel in the fall semester of 2024. She lives in Berlin and Basel, loves classical music, mountain hiking and learning new spokespersons.