RaT-Newsletter

Dear members and friends of RaT,

Welcome to our last newsletter for the academic year 22/23! This time, we are especially

proud to present many new RaT publications: The two recently published volumes in our

RaT book series: Vol. 23: Interreligiöser Dialog. Wissenschaftliche Zugänge zur

Begegnung der abrahamitischen Religionen and Vol. 24: Humanitarian Islam. Reflecting

on an Islamic Concept. Furthermore, the first volume of JRAT 9: Exploring Asian

Religions in Europe is out now.

Other than that, you can find new books and articles written by our members below, a look

back at the conference “Neutral State?” and at the two events of this semester’s Poetics

Lectureship and much more! Even though summer has just started, our members are

already busy planning conferences for the upcoming winter term, one of which you can

find below.
 

Our next newsletter will come out in October. Until then, we wish all our readers a nice

and relaxing summer!

Kurt Appel, Hannah Bleckenwegner, Noemi Call, Jakob Deibl, Magdalena Lorenz, Astrid

Mattes, Marian Weingartshofer
 

PS: Please consider forwarding our newsletter to those interested in the topics we work

on! Want to subscribe? Just click here.

PUBLICATIONS: JRAT and RaT Series

PUBLICATIONS: Monographs & Anthologies

PUBLICATIONS: Selected Articles

Kurt Appel: Divine Providence, Theodicy, Freedom and the Essence of Time,

in: Concilium. Internationale Zeitschrift für Theologie (3/2023), pp. 279-286.

This article outlines the meaning of the notion of divine providence. The thought leads, as

Leibniz shows, to a world sufficiently grounded in the love of God. This is not a matter of

mechanistic predestination, but of human freedom always responding to the infinite

openness and the related sense of divine creative power. Leibniz's reflection shows the

relational content of divine providence, Kant the meaning of autonomy, and Hegel the

"Mit-Sein" (Being-With) in solidarity that opens bodies in their vulnerability to one another

and makes them the site of God's experience. In all three thinkers, the idea of providence

offers a potential for resistance against a nihilistic devaluation of the world. The

conclusion of the paper shows that the temporal form on the basis of which the talk of

divine providence seems to make sense is the anticipated future.

Link to the publication.

Kurt Appel: Kritik an Repräsentationen der Macht. Die politische Dimension

des Evangeliums in der geschwisterlichen Alterität von Bibel und Koran, in:

Regina Polak (ed.): Interreligiöser Dialog. Wissenschaftliche Zugänge zur

Begegnung der abrahamitischen Religionen, Brill 2023, pp. 149-169.

Political theology aims at criticizing structures of power and power’s claim to self-

representation. On the basis of an examination of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, this

paper supports the idea that religion can be considered as a rupture in the projection of

the subject’s claim to power. Such a rupture becomes especially apparent in the biblical

canon and its core, the name of God, YHWH, and its New Testament equivalent, the

Cross. This is impressively demonstrated in the Gospel of John and in the Revelation of

John. In the final section, the paper presents the idea that the Koran and the Bible need

each other to ironise their respective claims to validity and power and thus open the way

to a true brotherhood of religions.

Link to the publication.

Kurt Appel: L’Europa, il sacrificio, l’apocalisse. Il contributo biblico per la pace,

in: Hermeneutica. Annuario di filosofia e teologia. Le ragioni della pace e le

ragioni della Guerra, Morcelliana 2023, pp. 85-104.

Firstly, the article considers the conception of the European Community as a peace

project. It examines which narratives and particularities characterise Europe and why the

European Union has assumed a special vocation to pioneer the realisation of a peace

order. Secondly, the significant contribution that biblical tradition offers to a rationality of

peace is examined philosophically. Two biblical categories are considered, namely the

apocalypse and sacrifice. The paper highlights how apocalyptic tradition represents an

ironic challenging of imperial order. Furthermore, the historiography of apocolypticism is

imbued with a memory of suffering, a dimension which also shapes the European Union.

The work reveals how the Bible reinterprets sacrifice as a gift of life and not of death;

furthermore, how the New Testament tradition rejects any imperial sacrificial logic. Thus,

secularisation ought not to be understood as a loss of religion, but as an abolition of

imperial ideology.

Link to the publication.

Kurt Appel, Martin Eleven: Hegel und das Offene der Gottesfrage mit einem

Ausblick auf Lacans Register des Imaginären, des Symbolischen und des

Realen, in: Esther Heinrich-Ramharter, Michael Staudigl (eds.):

Religionsphilosophie heute. Stimmen – Schauplätze – Systeme, Karl Alber

2023, pp. 65-109.

This article deals with Hegel's position on the question of God, which is known to have

been extremely controversial in the history of philosophy.  This part can also be read on

its own. A shorter second part establishes a connection to Lacan's psychoanalysis. In

doing so, it is intended to suggest, on the basis of a path of thought that has been strongly

received in recent decades, how fruitfully Hegel's conception of religion can also be used

in contemporary discussions of the philosophy of religion, many of which involve

psychoanalysis.

Link to the publication.

Kurt Appel, Daniel Kuran: La vita non è diversa dalla vita, perché la vita è

nella Divinità unificata. Amore e libertà negli Scritti giovanili di Hegel, in: M.

Moscini (ed.): Idea, in: Nova Theoretica, Inschibboleth Edizioni 2023, pp.

33-57.

This article examines the themes of love and freedom in Hegel's early writings (the

Frankfurt period, Frühe Schriften II) and in particular elaborates on their significance for

an understanding of Hegel's later works: the Phenomenology of Spirit and the Science of

Logic. By interpreting central passages on love in the early writings, Hegel's critique of

Kant, which is situated in the context of his interpretation of Christianity, is explained and

the extent to which Hegel’s understanding of love goes beyond the mere opposition of

subject and object as well as the theoretical and practical mastery of objects which is

implicit in transcendental philosophy is shown. In contrast, according to Hegel, love

implies a relationship free of domination that is able to encounter the world as subject and

the Other in its difference without unilaterally reducing the latter to a fixed object. For

Hegel, the - though insufficiently realized - significance of Christianity manifests itself in

the category of love, which, mediated by desisting from the claim to absoluteness of one's

own position, enables a compassionate approach to the world.

Hüseyin Çiçek: Humanitarian Islam, the State, fundamental rights and the

free democratic state, in: Rüdiger Lohlker et al. (ed.): Humanitarian Islam. Brill

2023, pp. 45-55.

Today’s religious-ideological pluralism in Germany has a long and challenging history to

show. Many different developments have led to the existence of a legal system that

guarantees the religious and individual rights of citizens. The idea of Humanitarian Islam

could possibly lead to new discussions with regard to Islamic law and state and possibly

initiate developments that lead to religious-ideological pluralism. This article attempts to

embed the ideas of Humanitarian Islam in the context of the liberal democratic state and

to demonstrate the added value for politics and society.

Link to the publication.

Hüseyin Çiçek: Diaspora und Religion. Religionspolitische

Herausforderungen in der jüngeren Geschichte der Aleviten in der Türkei und

Deutschland, in: Zeitschrift für Religion, Gesellschaft und Politik, 6, 2022, pp.

641–659.

This article will focus on recent Alevi history in Turkey and Germany. Developments in

Turkey and the Alevi diaspora in the Federal Republic will first be presented

independently and then related to each other in the summary. The decision to do so

follows from two important considerations: The Alevis are among the important followers

of the founder of the Turkish republic and were not supported in the founding period of the

republic, as well as in the era of Cold War, in establishing and expanding their own identity

and religious practice, and in practicing one. In this regard, the political, religious and

social demands of the Alevis in the Turkish Republic to this day are not ones that would

undermine the Turkish nation or identity. Rather, it is the failure of the Turkish state, for

example, to recognize the Alevis as equals in matters of identity and religion, which has

led, among other things, to the emergence of antagonisms and dichotomies.

Link to the publication (full access).

Jakob Deibl: Auf dem Weg zu einer ästhetischen Philosophie. Zwischen

Nostalgie für das Universale und Aufmerksamkeit für das Partikulare, in:

Caterina Genna (ed.): Quale filosofia ad inizio del XXI secolo? Introduzione di

Gianni Puglisi. FrancoAngeli, pp. 265–272.

Inspired by Gianni Vattimo's weak thought ("pensiero debole"), the article argues that a

renewal of philosophy cannot start from the idea of overcoming previous philosophical

conceptions, but from their reconfiguration. Today, the modern paradigm of overcoming is

itself deeply in crisis. Such a philosophy is a monument of the philosophy preceding it and

preserves its resources without exhausting or even destroying them. This approach of

reconstruction I call "aesthetic".

Jakob Deibl: The Concept of Religion in the Context of Aesthetics, in:

Christian Danz, Jakob Helmut Deibl (eds.): Transformation of Religion.

Interdisciplinary Perspectives,  BRILL/Schöningh 2023, pp. 133–162.

This article presupposes that a clarification of the concept of religion must also direct its

attention towards aesthetics. The questioning line starts from aesthetics and seeks to

contribute to an explanation of religion. However, it is not only the sought-after concept of

religion that is unclear; aesthetics also offers no secure terrain from which we can start.

We first ask whether their connection is merely a sub-discipline of other fields or, as the

discipline of Religionsästhetik claims for itself, whether it also touches on fundamental

reflections. With Kant and Hölderlin, we examine whether religion and aesthetics refer

directly to each other or can only be related to each other via a third moment. We then

ask with Vattimo whether the interrelatedness of religion and aesthetics can be

considered ahistorically or whether it provokes philosophical-historical questions.

Concluding, we ask with Hegel about the permeability of the categories of religion and

aesthetics.

Link to the publication.

Jakob Deibl: From Infinite Rapprochement to the Open. From Kant to

Hölderlin, in: Vítor Moura, Connell Vaughan (eds.): Proceedings of the

European Society for Aesthetics vol. 14 (2022), pp. 56–67.

For Hölderlin, Kant is the starting point of his thinking. However, religion for Hölderlin is

not primarily inscribed in the matrix of practical philosophy, but contains essential

impulses from its relation to aesthetics. Hölderlin wants to move from “philosophy to

poetry and religion” without taking the path via practical philosophy. In the “Fragment of

Philosophical Letters” Hölderlin concludes: “Thus all religion would be poetic in its

essence.” While Kant opens up ethically based religion to aesthetic categories only in

selected places, Hölderlin places the latter at the centre. This is particularly evident in his

reference to God in poetry from 1800 onwards, which borrows essential motifs developed

by Kant in the Critique of Aesthetic Judgment.

Link to the publication (full access).

Daniel Kuran: Religion and the Expressionless—A Religious Perspective on

Art in Benjamin, in: Religions 2023, 14(6), 703.

In this article, I investigate the relationship between religion and art in the work of Walter

Benjamin. I demonstrate how this relation is embedded in Benjamin’s understanding of a

dialectic of secularization, which has recently been examined by Sigrid Weigel and Daniel

Weidner. Within this context, I focus on the “expressionless” and its relation to the holy in

Benjamin’s thought. I follow different applications of the expressionless in Benjamin’s texts

from different periods and analyze their overall significance. My thesis is that the

expressionless is a specifically aesthetic category that can rescue the difference between

the holy and the profane, granting both spheres their own rights and thereby resisting any

sacralization of art in an aesthetic cult. Therefore, with reference to the holy and to the

expressionless, one can claim with Benjamin that a religious perspective on art in a

secular context is of irreplaceable value, while the expressionless simultaneously

safeguards the autonomy of art.

Daniel Kuran has been a member of the RaT-organizational team between 2016 and

2022. He is currently a post-doc assistant at the department of Systematic Theology and

Ethics at the Faculty of Catholic Theology.

Link to the publication (full access).

Karsten Lehmann et al.: School as the central place of contacts among

religious youth in rural Austria, in:  ÖRF-Österreichisches

Religionspädagogisches Forum 31 (2023), pp. 208-231.

This  study  examines  the  place  of  religious  pluralism  in  the  life  world  of 

adolescents  in  rural  areas  in  Austria  (Tyrol,  Voralberg,  Upper  and  Lower  Austria). 

15 group  discussions  (2021-22)  with  Alevi,  Sunni,  Catholic,  Protestant  and  secular 

youth groups demonstrate that the school appears as the central place of contact with

religious pluralism and participation at religion classes marks religious differences. These

contacts are described as marginal and knowledge-based.

Link to the publication (full access).

Karsten Lehmann, Alexandra Katzian: On the central role of religion-

teachers in the memories of former students, in: ÖRF-Österreichisches

Religionspädagogisches Forum 31 (2023), pp. 232-250.

The article looks at a dimension of the teacher-student interaction that has repeatedly

been discussed in the wake of John Hattie. Based on a total of 24 detailed oral history

interviews, it focuses on the longue durée of memories of (religion) teachers. The article

analyses how contemporary witnesses, who attended Viennese schools in the interwar

period, remember their teachers in the present. The analyses  show  on  the  one  hand 

that  teachers  who  were  generally  remembered  positively  can  still  be  present  as 

personalities  decades  after  their  pupils  attended  school.  Teachers  characterized  as 

negative,  on  the  other  hand,  are  very  rarely remembered in the long run. The same

applies to the concrete content of lessons.  Even  in  their  memories  of  a  clearly 

defined  subject  such  as  religious  education,  the  eyewitnesses  in  the  interviews 

hardly  ever  refer  to  concrete  subject content.

Link to the publication (full access).

Discover more publications by our members

RESEARCH: Projects

THIRD PARTY FUNDED PROJECTS

RESEARCH VISITS

Vienna Doctoral School of Theology and Research on Religion

A look back at the VDTR Public Lecture with Joe Moshenska

(University of Oxford): “Iconoclasm as Child’s Play: Dolls and

Idols in the Reformation”

On June 9, a workshop organized by VDTR PhD student Alisha Saikia in cooperation with

RaT entitled "Thinking Through Dolls: Religious Studies, Anthropological and Artistic

Approaches to Human Simulacra" took place. For one day, experts from different

universities and disciplines, among them RaT-member Hans Gerald Hödl, exchanged

ideas about dolls in their respective fields of research. In the course of the day, the

permeable boundary between religion and play was repeatedly addressed. It was also the

topic of the public evening event, where Joe Moshenska from Oxford University gave a

lecture entitled "Iconoclasm as Childs Play: Dolls and Idols in the Reformation" to an

interested audience.

EVENTS

UPCOMING EVENTS

12th International Symposium on "Commercialisation of

Religions in the Globalising World", organized by the Department

of Islamic Theological Studies, University of Vienna and

the Department of Theology at the School of Humanities and Social

Sciences, University of Nicosia

September 15-17, 2023

Religion and rituals have been part of being human and interpreting human existence

since time immemorial. Religion and the “sacred” belong together. Sacred places and

times, objects and persons, symbols and signs, words and writings take people into the

religious sphere.

Society and religions are always in motion in their relationship to each other. In secular

societies, economic aspects of institutions not only play a role in politics and people’s

personal lives, but are also in the interest of religious communities. This means that the

spiritual world is no longer an island of the spiritual and is no longer protected from

material power and greed. Due to far-reaching globalisation, the border between the

material and the spiritual is becoming thinner and thinner.

This international symposium will explore questions relevant to both religions and the

future of the global community, shedding light on the consequences of commercialisation

for society and religious communities.

More information on the symposium can be found here.

Workshop: "The Bible and Philosophy"

October 20, 2023, University of Vienna

The workshop will explore the manifold relationships between the Bible -- the New

Testament and the Hebrew Bible -- and philosophy. The focus will be on considerations

that identify the relationship between philosophy and the Bible as being relevant in today's

world. Transformations of concepts, narratives, minor and major theories that reach into

the present will be considered. Among other things, the workshop will serve to prepare a

volume that will be published in the J-RaT series.

With presentations by: Kurt Appel, Clarissa Breu, Isabella Bruckner, Jakob Deibl, Isabella

Guanzini, Esther Heinrich-Ramharter, Richard Heinrich, and Sandra Lehmann.

If you are interested, please register by sending an e-mail to:

marian.weingartshofer@univie.ac.at

Self-Annihilation as Self-Realization: Interreligious Perspectives.

International Conference

November 3–4, 2023, University of Vienna

With lectures by Max Rohstock (Neoplatonism), Frederek Musall (Judaism), Marco

Antonio Sorace (Christianity), Raid Al-Daghistani (Islam), Silvia Schwarz Linder

(Hinduism), Sebastjan Vörös (Buddhism), Claire Maes (Jainism), Friederike Assandri

(Daoism), and Fabian Völker (Global Philosophy of Religion).

Organization: Fabian Völker (Department of Intercultural Philosophy of Religion,

University of Vienna) and Raid Al-Daghistani (Centre for Islamic Theology, University of

Münster) in cooperation with RaT (Research Centre "Religion and Transformation in

Contemporary Society", University of Vienna) and APIG (Archivbibliothek für Post-

Neukantianismus und kritischen Idealismus der Gegenwart, Wuppertal).

More Information can be found on our website.

PAST EVENTS

On June 1, Austrian writer Sophie Reyer gave a lecture titled " Religion im Zeitalter der

Biomacht. Ein Kreuzweg" ("Religion in the Age of Bio-Power. A Way of the Cross"). Like a

Way of the Cross, the reading was divided into 14 stations. In doing so, the author

spanned an arc leading from the earliest experiences of death to narration: Each

sentence by Sophie Reyer is a plea against the loss of the ability to mourn and against

the extinction of narratives when addition (the quantified world) replaces narration. And

so, towards the end of her talk at the 14th Station, the author asks, "Will humans be the

first species to annul themselves? I don't know. In any case, one thing is certain: pain

always has to do with longing. If we want to revolutionize the system, we must spare each

other - that is, leave each other in our otherness and strangeness. We must comfort each

other - in our grief. This requires distance. It's a pain of the closeness of distance - one we

can no longer experience in the digital age where everything is defined by the distance of

closeness - see Facebook, Zoom, Skype." It was striking how many audience members

came forward after the lecture to engage in conversation with the author. Rarely have I

experienced such a respectful mood, even in the critical inquiries, which I think expressed

a little of the revolutionary power of taking care of each other.

THIRD MISSION ACTIVITIES

RaT members contribute to public discourse by writing in

newspapers, giving statements in television and podcasts, and by

publishing on our blog.

RAT BLOG

In their article, Tackling the Complex Issues of Migration and Religious Diversity at the

European Level: The International COST Action “COREnet”, Regina Polak and Gintarė

Pocė introduce us to the research network „COREnet: Connecting Theory and Practical

Issues of Migration and Religious Diversity“.The full article can be read here.

NEWSPAPERS

Hüseyin Çiçek has written comments on the presidential elections in Turkey and their

reception in the Austro-Turkish community for multiple Austrian media outlets. For one

example, see his commentary in the Austrian daily "Kurier" (30.05.2023): https://kurier.at

/politik/ausland/tuerkei-europa-nato-erdogan-aussenpolitik-usa-schweden/402468200.

RADIO

Katharina Limacher contributed from a religious studies perspective to a radio feature on

the topic of "Queer and Religious" that was broadcast by the Austrian radio station Ö1 on

June 17, 2023.

Under this link, you can also find an "interjection" by Regina Polak on the topic of "What

does Austria believe?", which was heard on the radio station Ö1 on June 4, 2023.

Coverfoto by Herbert Goetsch on Unsplash.