YouBeOn Map Release
26 January 2023, 6 pm
Venue: Brick-15, Herklotzgasse 21, 1150 Vienna
Release-party of the digital YouBeOn Map, developed by the research project Young Believers Online – mapping on- and offline identifications of urban religious youth (Astrid Mattes, Christoph Novak, Miriam Haselbacher, Katharina Limacher). During the evening, the digital map, representing religious lifeworlds on- and offline, will be officially presented. Additionally, the researchers will give a brief overview on selected findings from the project. Afterwards, there will be a chance to socialise during live music, snacks and drinks.
For more information click here.
Please register at youbeon@oeaw.ac.at
War in Ukraine. Theological, Ethical and Historical Reflections. Vienna Postgraduate Symposium
13-17 February 2023
Venue: Dean's Office of the Faculty for Catholic Theology, Universitätsring1 (Staircase 8, 2nd floor), 1010 Vienna
The symposium wants to align theological research, historical accounts and philosophical-ethical questions with the current situation in Ukraine as well as to reflect on the challenges that go along with the war and its containment. It aims to create a safe space for analysis and reflection, for the exchange of ideas and knowledge, for inspiring encounters and networking.
More information can be found here.
Masterclass and Public Lectures with John S. Kloppenborg and Jens Schröter
27 February 2023
Venue: Dekanatssaal, Dean's office Universitätsring 1, Staircase 8, 2nd floor
With Jens Schröter (Humboldt University Berlin) and John S. Kloppenborg (University of Toronto), the VDTR welcomes two internationally renowned experts in the field of early Christianity and the religions of Mediterranean antiquity, respectively.
Masterclass:
The two members of the VDTR Scientific Advisory Board will offer a Masterclass on the occasion of their stay in Vienna. The Masterclass is mainly aimed at PhD students and you can find the program here. Registration is requested by February 10, 2023 to contact.vdtr@univie.ac.at.
Public Lectures:
We cordially invite you to attend the two public lectures in the evening:
John S. Kloppenborg: The Cult of Christus in Civic Space
Jens Schröter: Anthropology and a Letter: The Image of the Human Being in Paul’s Letter to the Romans and the Purpose of the Writing
The lectures will take place from 5:30 to 7:00 p.m. in the Dean's Hall of the Faculty of Catholic Theology of the University of Vienna, Universitätsring 1 (Stiege 8, 2nd floor). Refreshments will be served afterwards.
RaT Workshop "Religious Exits: Transformative Trajectories and Transitions into Alternative Worlds”
31st January 2023
The members of the RaT research centre organise an internal workshop entitled "Religious Exits: Transformative Trajectories and Transitions into Alternative Worlds" on 31 January 2023. The topic is currently the research focus of the centre.
Our point of departure is the consideration that religions claim to transcend immanent world orders, i.e. experiences that can be classified in the individually and collectively determinable spatiotemporal categories of the everyday world. By means of leaving immanent orders, however, not only everyday experiences are transcended, but also exits from world orders are found that include the religious subject in existing symbolic and social world orders. In this way, religion can contain an exit strategy in which the subject creates alternative places (of refuge), thereby overcoming firmly established limitations and opening up new worlds of imagination. Of course, religious practices are themselves ambivalent in this respect: on the one hand, they can prevent possible creative exits from established orders, but on the other hand, they can also radically open them up, insofar as the world of transcendence neither contains a definitively fixed territory nor an immovable order of time.
Workshops with Martin Crowley: "Opacity" and "Recognition and its Discontents"
9-11 January 2023
Venue: University of Vienna
From 9-11 January 2023, we welcome Martin Crowley, Head of the Department for French Studies at the University of Cambridge, as a guest in Vienna. Together with him, we will hold workshops on the topics of "Opacity" and "Recognition and its Discontents". The topics will be addressed in a dialogue of postcolonial, deconstructive and classical philosophical discourses with references to Eduard Gliassant, Glen Sean Coulthard, Herman Gray, Catherine Malabou and Hegel.
Conference: Resurrection of the Body
When: December 16, 2022
Where: Dekanatssaal, Faculty of Catholic Theology, University of Vienna, Main Buildung
Conference Report: On 16.12.2022 the Department of Fundamental Theological Research (organization: Martin Eleven) in cooperation with the Research Center RaT organized a workshop on the topic "Resurrection of the Body - Theological-Religious-Philosophical Perspectives". The background of the event was the question of the genuine place of the body in contemporary theology: Is there not a certain body oblivion? Which concepts of the body, if it becomes a topic in its own right, are primarily used to interpret the Christian message of the resurrection? What can be said about the body of the resurrection?
The contributions of the speakers have tried from different angles - philosophical, aesthetic and political - to give answers to the question of the body of resurrection and to rethink traditional concepts and terms. After a general welcome and introduction of the workshop by Martin Eleven, who tried to illuminate theology in its ambivalent relationship to the body, Sibylle Trawöger devoted her lecture to the relationship between resurrection and decay. Both from a microbiological point of view and with the help of aesthetic considerations, she pleaded for the consideration of life processes of the body, which include the corpse. This perspective, Trawöger argued, allows one to subvert anthropocentric notions of what life after death might mean. Examples from art and literature served her as a guide to practicing this new view.
The following lecture was given by Sandra Lehmann on the Pauline distinction between sōma psychikon (earthly body) and sōma pneumatikon (redeemed body). Her focus was not only on the salvation-historical dimension of the sōma pneumatikon, but also, drawing on the tradition of the Stoa and the contemporary Philosophy of Mind, on the inner transcendence of the body, which has always pointed it beyond itself. Martin Eleven addressed the politics of the body. Starting from structuralist-phenomenological considerations, he devoted himself to the cinematographic realizations of corporeality in Pasolini's films. He interpreted the bodies and their gestures shown in Pasolini's films - with reference to the Emmaus narrative - as the afterlife of a historical horizon and its open and not yet redeemed potential, as well as a call to discipleship that takes human vulnerability seriously.
Marcello Neri gave a lecture on the naked body of Christ, which in its woundedness and vulnerability becomes a symbol of a God broken in himself. Starting from the Ascension of Christ, he asked how the return of the risen Son (with his wounds) to the Father can be understood and what consequences this event has for our conceptions of God. Isabella Bruckner then spoke about the role of the body in the baptismal rite, pointing out that baptism already signifies entry into the resurrection remnant. In addition, the concrete corporeality in liturgical practice was illuminated.
Finally, Kurt Appel devoted his lecture to the relationship between text and body. The starting point was the resurrection narrative of the Gospel of Mark. He emphasized that a closer reading shows how the body (of Christ), which in the narrative is only thematized as withdrawn, becomes a text, namely where the Gospel invites to discipleship and thus the resurrected body becomes a retreat for the faithful. These considerations were enriched with speculative thoughts from Hegel's science of logic.
Guest Lecture by Paolo Costa: "The Postsecular City"
13 December 2022, 6:30 to 8 pm
Venue: SE room 5 (1st floor, Schenkenstraße 8-10, 1010 Vienna) as well as via Zoom
“The Post-Secular City” is the first attempt to systematically map and assess the recent debate about secularization. It examines the alleged shift from a “secular” to a “post-secular” dispensation from the perspective of the ongoing de-construction of the secularization “theorem” (as Hans Blumenberg called it). Accordingly, the new secularization debate is described as being polarized between the “de-constructors” and the “maintainers” of the standard thesis of secularization. This is the assumption underlying an ambitious effort to map the field, which consists of a long introduction where “secularization” is analyzed as a deeply problematic concept-of-process and of eight chapters in which several protagonists of the recent debate are discussed as crucial junctions of a multidisciplinary conversation.
Open Research Day
On December 6, the next VDTR Open Research Day will take place, to which all interested parties are cordially invited! Visitors of the Open Research Day will have the unique opportunity to experience young research in the field of theology and religious studies up close. The day will be organized by young researchers from VDTR, who will offer insights into their dissertation projects in their presentations. There will be plenty of space for questions and discussions, and culinary delights will also be provided.
When: Di, 6. Dezember 2022
Where: Aula, Hof 1, Campus der Universität Wien
For more information please visit the homepage of the organizer Vienna Doctoral School of Theology and Research on Religion (VDTR)
Book Presentation
realised by four members of the cluster RaT-cluster "Transformations of Jewish and Christian Identities in the Past and Present"
When: 30th November 2022
Where: Buchhandlung "Herder"
MAIMONIDES LECTURES
15. Symposion: Die Ausübung Konfessionellen Glaubens und ihre Grenzen
Date: 23.-24. November 2022
Location: Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Sitzungssaal, Dr. Ignaz Seipel-Platz 2, 1010 Wien
Vienna University Press Reception at the American Academy of Religion (AAR)
20. November 2022, 19 - 20 Uhr
Veranstaltungsort: Sheraton Denver Downtown Hotel, 1550 Court Place, Denver, CO
Wir laden Sie herzlich zum Empfang der Vienna University Press im Rahmen des AAR am 20. November 2022 in Denver ein! Neben der Vienna University Press, die ein Imprint des renommierten Verlags BRILL ist, werden wir auch unsere interdisziplinäre Zeitschrift Religion and Transformation (JRAT), die JRAT Supplementa Reihe und unsere Buchreihe vorstellen. Wir laden Sie herzlich ein, am 20. November 2022 im Sheraton Denver Downtown Hotel dabei zu sein. Für Essen und Getränke ist gesorgt und wir freuen uns auf Ihr Kommen!
IPW Lecture: Uncivil religion? The rise of Christian nationalism in 21st century Europe
Wednesday, 16 November 2022, 5 pm
Venue: Konferenzraum (second floor), Neues Institutsgebäude (NIG), Universitätsstraße 7, 1010 Vienna
Lecturer: Anders Berg-Sørensen
Moderation: Fabio Wolkenstein
Link to the event.
The Beginning of the Truly Grand Narratives.
Serial Identity(ies) and Serial Existence
Organised by the Bonn Institute for Hermeneutics in cooperation with the Vienna Research Centre Religion and Transformation in Contemporary Society and the German Society for Philosophy of Religion.
11-12 November 2022
Based on the life-world observation of the increased enthusiasm for new media formats, the role of series in the formation of the recipient's identity will be discussed using the phenomenon of series as an example.
Venue: Hybrid event, Dean's office hall of the Faculty of Humanities, Am Hof 1, 53113 Bonn, Germany
Link to the poster.
Link to the conference dossier.
Poetics Lecture
Martin Mosebach "What is the Catholic Novel?"
8 November 2022, 7pm
Venue: University of Vienna, Lecture Hall 6, Oskar-Morgenstern-Platz 1
"I am a Catholic and have written a number of essays on Roman Catholic liturgy, but that is not my main business - that is writing novels. That these novels are not 'Catholic' is something that some readers find surprising from time to time and combine this with the suggestion that I could finally write a 'Catholic novel'. It is not easy for me to give a brief answer to this. I have therefore thought about what exactly the problem of the 'Catholic novel' is for me."
R20 Indonesia 2022: REVEALING & NURTURING RELIGION AS A SOURCE OF GLOBAL SOLUTIONS
With a speech by RaT member Rüdiger Lohlker
2-3 November 2022
Venue: Grand Hyatt, Bali
The G20 Religion Forum leverages the “Group of 20” (G20) Summit, an annual gathering of the world’s most economically powerful nations, to help ensure that religion in the 21st century functions as a genuine and dynamic source of solutions, rather than problems.
The programme can be found here.
Celebration in honour of Univ.-Prof. Sieglinde Rosenberger
13 October 2022
Sky Lounge, University of Vienna, Oskar-Morgenstern-Platz 1
The history of modern Tantra between Bengali local tradition and global interconnections
10 October 2022, 4.30 pm
PD Dr. Julian Strube: Semester lecture of the Austrian Society for the Study of Religions (ÖGRW)
Venue: Meeting room of the Dean's office of the Faculty of Catholic Theology Universitätsring 1 (Stiege 8, 2nd floor), 1010 Vienna
Link to the flyer.
Poetics Lecture
Elisabeth Schmidauer: Reading and discussion about the novel "Fanzi" (Picus, 2021)
11 October 2022, 7 pm
Venue: Buchhandlung Herder, Wollzeile 33, 1010 Vienna
"Fanzi" is a most extraordinary novel, gripping and touching, with great depth. How do feelings of guilt work over generations: Is it possible to make peace with a fate decades later? A story about the war, about the post-war generation, but also about our present.
BOOK PRESENTATION (JRAT SUPPLEMENTA VOLUME 2)
Paolo Costa: The Post-Secular City
11 October 2022, 12 - 1 pm
Venue: Online
Is it really possible to objectively map a debate on a topic as controversial as the fate of religion in modernity? How many contentious theoretical choices are needed to achieve this? And, with the benefit of hindsight, did we really need it?The author will discuss these issues with Matteo Bortolini, professor of General Sociology at the University of Padua. Register here.
Parting of the Ways. The Variegated Ways of Separation between Jews and Christians and its Consequences for Modern Jewish-Christian Dialogue
International Conference, 05-08 September 2022
Venue: Sitzungssaal, Faculty of Catholic Theology Dean’s office, Schenkenstraße 8-10, 1010 Vienna
Registration: Please send an email to bibelwissenschaft@univie.ac.at. Registration possible until 21 August 2022. There is no registration fee.