The CRS collaborates with relevant departments and academic units at the CEU. It crosses the borders of disciplines, confessional and geo-political categorizations, and covers historical periods from ancient to modern times. With institutional contacts throughout the region and worldwide, the CRS provides an important site for academic research and communication.

The interest of the CEU in the history of religions is not only motivated by purely academic or antiquarian interests alone, but also by concerns that arise from the University’s public mission.

The CEU finds itself in a region which was at the confluence of a variety of histories, religious and otherwise, and at the intersection of Ottoman (predominantly Muslim but by no means exclusively so), Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant and Jewish religious cultures. It would therefore seem appropriate to structure thinking about religious studies at the CEU from this confluence, working backwards into matters historical, and forwards into society and polity.

Institutional Structure and Profile

As an independent unit, the CRS is integrated in the History Department and works very closely with the Medieval Studies Department, with the first academic appointments made in these departments. The Center, thus, works through and supports the existing tissue of the university, while at the same time, it seeks to reach out to other institutions and organizations world-wide and to extend the present potential of CEU.

After several years of discussions and various levels of preparation, the CRS (formerly, the RSP) began operation with the generous support of the Carnegie Corporation in 2005.

International Cooperation

The Center for Religious Studies engages in a growing number of exchanges and joint activities with the international academic community. CRS participates in Erasmus student and faculty exchange and welcomes affiliate guest researchers. It is currently acting as the European location of the international project on the History of the Society of Jesus and has participated in the REFO500 International Project, dedicated to fostering and coordinating the study the impact of the Reformation on European society and beyond.

Research

• Faculty Research Project: Striking from the Margins: Religion, State and Disintegration in the Middle East
• Faculty Research Project: The Māppila: Christians, Muslims, and Jews of South-West India
• Paleo-Qurʾānic Manuscript Studies: State of the Field

Contacts

• Address: Center for Religious Studies, Central European University, 1051 Budapest, Nador u. 11, Hungary
• Phone: +36 1 327-3000 extension 2170
• Email: religion@ceu.edu
• Website: https://religion.ceu.edu/

Researchers from all over the world have studied the driving forces behind the evolution and expansion of religions at Bochum’s Käte Hamburger Kolleg Dynamics in the History of Religions between Asia and Europe since 2008.

The research program focuses on the formation and expansion of religions, the mutual permeation of religious traditions and their densifications into the complex figurations called ‘world religions.’ Regionally, the research covers these phenomena in Europe and Asia.

The Käte Hamburger Kolleg Dynamics in the History of Religions between Asia and Europe commenced its research activities under the direction of Prof. Dr. Volkhard Krech in April 2008. In addition to the visiting research fellows, numerous local scholars from Ruhr-Universität Bochum are involved in the institute’s research program, which brings together scholars from a wide range of academic disciplines: religious studies, Classics, Protestant and Catholic theologies, Islamic studies, Japanese studies, Korean studies, Sinology, Indology, Jewish studies, history, and philosophy.

In 2007, the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research launched the initiative ‘Freedom for Research in the Humanities.’ Concomitantly the Käte Hamburger Institutes for research in the humanities were introduced as an innovative funding measure. Their goal is to effectively establish core research areas in the humanities at German universities enabling them to compete internationally and also to promote world-wide collaborations with universities and other research facilities.

This is achieved by combining the benefits of individual and cooperative research through a fellowship program. Every year internationally renowned scholars from the humanities are invited to conduct research at the Käte Hamburger institutes for a prolonged period as visiting research fellows.

More information at: khk.ceres.rub.de/en/