Neuigkeiten & Veranstaltungen


News & Religious Studies in the Media

  • Congratulations to Franz Dungl for completing the Master programme in Religious Studies with an M.A. dissertation on "Islam und Gesetz: Zur Berichterstattung über die Schließung von Moscheen und die Ausweisung von Imamen nach dem Islamgesetz 2015 in ausgewählten österreichischen Printmedien" [Islam and Law: On the Coverage in Selected Austrian Printed Media Regarding the Closing of Mosques and the Expulsion of Imams Following the Islam Law of 2015], supervised by Wolfram Reiss.
  • Congratulations to Wolfgang Müller for completing the Master programme in Religious Studies with an M.A. dissertation on "Monotheismus bei Jan Assmann" [Monotheism in the Work of Jan Assmann], supervised by Hans Gerald Hödl.
  • Congratulations to Johannes Endler whose doctoral project on "The Role of Birth in Contemporary Religious Culture" has received generous funding by the Austrian Academy of Sciences. Mr. Endler will commence his three-years research as an OeAW Fellow at the Department on 1 June 2019. More on Mr. Endler can be found here.
  • We cordially welcome Professor Irina Sotirova from Sofia University. While at the Department she co-ordinates a course on "Astronomy and Religion in East Asia." More on Professor Sotirova can be found here.
  • We cordially welcome Professor Teodora Codruta Sintionean from Babeș-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca. While at the Department she co-ordinates a course on "Religious Heritage in East Asia." More on Professor Sintionean can be found here.
  • The Austrian Science Fund (FWF) has approved the proposal for the three-year research project "Imagining Energy: The Practice of Energy Healing between Sense-Experience and Sense-Making." Professor Karl Baier will head the project. You can learn more here.
  • The executive board of the Austrian Society for Religious Studies (Österreichische Gesellschaft für Religionswissenschaft; ÖGRW) has been newly elected on a three years term. Birgit Heller will serve as President; Lukas Pokorny as Vice-President; and Hans Gerald Hödl as Advisory Member. Former President Johann Figl has been made the ÖGRW's first  Honorary Member.
  • Dominic Zoehrer, PhD fellow at the Department of Religious Studies, will begin a two-month research project on energy healing and professionalisation. The project is sponsored by the Cultural Department of the City of Vienna (MA 7).
  • Our graduates share the interesting career paths they took with a degree in Religious Studies. You can read more here.
  • The Department of Religious Studies is happy to announce to have received the Ron W. Walker estate on Mormon Studies. Following more than a year of negotiations, the Department was selected amongst several interested parties as the new home of the estate. Ron Warren Walker (1939–2016), famed Latter-day Saints historian, was Prorfessor at Brigham Young University and President of the Mormom History Association. With this endowment, the Department likely holds the largest book collection in the area of Mormon Studies in Europe.
  • Karl Baier, Lukas Pokorny, and Dominic Zöhrer have prepared an information brochure on the theme "RELIGION - WORLDVIEW – SPIRITUALITY: Perspectives from Religious Studies for the Application Field of Life and Social Councelling". The brochure has now been made available online by the Austrian Economic Chambers (WKO).
  • The student representatives of the Department of Religious Studies now have their own webpage on the departmental cyber space! You can find out more (including contact details and future events) here.
  • You can now follow the Department on Twitter!  


New Publications

  • Lukas Pokorny
  1. and Hans-Gerald Hödl, eds., Religion in Austria, Volume 4, Vienna: Praesens, 2018.
  2. "Austrian Unificationists Meet Their Messiah: The 1969 European Blessing, Its Context, and Aftermath." In: Hans Gerald Hödl and Lukas Pokorny, eds., Religion in Austria, Volume 4, Vienna: Praesens, 2018, 1–51.
  3. and Sara Kuehn. "On Inayati Female Visions in Austria: Female Leadership in the Western Sufi Tradition." In: Hans Gerald Hödl and Lukas Pokorny, eds., Religion in Austria, Volume 4, Vienna: Praesens, 2018, 53–114.
  4. and Sang-Yeon Loise Sung. "'Today Vienna, Tomorrow All of Europe': The History of the Vienna Korean Church." In: Hans Gerald Hödl and Lukas Pokorny, eds., Religion in Austria, Volume 4, Vienna: Praesens, 2018, 161–204.
  5. and Dominic Zoehrer. "Austrian Unificationist Perspectives vis-à-vis the Cheon Il Guk Constitution, with an Annotated Bilingual Translation of the Text." In: Hans Gerald Hödl and Lukas Pokorny, eds., Religion in Austria, Volume 4, Vienna: Praesens, 2018, 205–288.
  • Hödl, Hans Gerald and Lukas Pokorny, eds., Religion in Austria, Volume 4, Vienna: Praesens, 2018.
  • Sung, Sang-Yeon Loise and Lukas Pokorny. "'Today Vienna, Tomorrow All of Europe': The History of the Vienna Korean Church." In: Hans Gerald Hödl and Lukas Pokorny, eds., Religion in Austria, Volume 4, Vienna: Praesens, 2018, 161–204.
  • Zoehrer, Dominic and Lukas Pokorny. "Austrian Unificationist Perspectives vis-à-vis the Cheon Il Guk Constitution, with an Annotated Bilingual Translation of the Text." In: Hans Gerald Hödl and Lukas Pokorny, eds., Religion in Austria, Volume 4, Vienna: Praesens, 2018, 205–288.
  • Human-Friedrich Unterrainer
  1. et al. "Sense of Coherence is Linked to Post-Traumatic Growth after Critical Incidents in Austrian Ambulance Personnel." In: BMC Psychiatry, 19.89, 2019: 1–11.
  2. et al. "The Role of Mindfulness and Self-Compassion in Clinical Psychiatric Rehabilitation: A Clinical Trial." In: Mindfulness, 2019.
  • Nickolas P. Roubekas
  1. "Unexpected Encounters: Aristides the Philosopher, Friedrich Max Müller, and the Origins of Religion." In: NTT Journal for Theology and the Study of Religion, 73.1, 2019: 1–16.
  2. ed., Theorizing "Religion" in Antiquity. Sheffield, UK and Bristol, CT: Equinox Publ., 2019.
  3. "Theorizing About (Which?) Origins: Herodotus on the Gods." In: Nickolas P. Roubekas, ed., Theorizing "Religion" in Antiquity. Sheffield, UK and Bristol, CT: Equinox Publ., 2019, 129–149.
  4. "Whither Shall we Go? Tertullian and Christian Identity Formation." In: Nickolas P. Roubekas, ed., Theorizing "Religion" in Antiquity. Sheffield, UK and Bristol, CT: Equinox Publ., 2019, 289–306.
  • Johann Figl
  1. "Globaler Atheismus - Folge verfehlter Glaubensvermittlung und einseitiger interreligiöser Begegnungen? [Global atheism - the result of failed faith mediation and of one-sided interreligious encounters?]" In: Religionen unterwegs, 24 (4): 4–9.
  2. "Die Rede von Gott in der Religionswissenschaft [God's Speech in Religious Studies]." In: Chibueze Udeani and Klaus Zapotoczky, eds., Die Rede von Gott: Interdisziplinäre und interkulturelle Zugänge, Berlin: LIT, 2018, 139–156.
  • Marta Dominguez Diaz
  1. "The Struggle to Be Seen: Muslim–Christian Relations and Religious (In)Visibility at the Hispano–Moroccan Borderland." In: Journal of Contemporary Religion, 33.3, 2018: 527–548.
  2. "Between Two or Three Worlds: Reversion to Islam, Beur Culture and Western Sufism in the Tariqa Budshishiyya." In: Jamal Malik and Saeed Zarrabi-Zadeh, eds., Sufism East and West: Mystical Islam and Cross-Cultural Exchange in the Modern World, Leiden: Brill, 2019, 129–232.
  • Birgit Heller 
  1. and Karl-Heinz Steinmetz (Hg.) 2018. Spiritualität und Körper [Spirituality and Body]. Das Jahresheft Palliative Care/demenz/Praxis Pflegen 10. Hannover.
  2. "Können wir endlich den weiblichen Körper bedingungslos akzeptieren? Welche Einstellungen haben die großen Religionen zu unserem Körper und zur Sexualität? Kann das Christentum, das in der Vergangenheit eine stark körperfeindliche Einstellung hatte, zu einer positiveren Sicht der Leiblichkeit und Sexualität kommen? [Can we finally accept the female body unconditionally? What are the attitudes of the great religions to our body and to sexuality? Can Christianity, which in the past has had a strongly corporeal attitude, come to a more positive view of corporeality and sexuality?]" In: iTe. Das Magazin der Schweizer Kapuziner, 96, 2019, 14–17 [Simultaneously published in French as well].
  3. "Religion." In Gender Glossar / Gender Glossary. Available only here.