Religion in Modern Cultures

In light of the current revival of religion, the proposition of an irreversible secularization process in various cultures of modernity is currently brought into question. Research in the humanities and social sciences at the Göttingen Research Campus has shown that the field of religion is particularly sensitive to social and cultural mentalities and their transformations. In close cooperation with the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, research in Göttingen concentrates on the current debate around multiple modernities by focusing on historically informed cultural studies perspectives.




Cognition | Practice | Norm: Different Rationalities in the Cultures of the Sciences and the Humanities
The research focus examines the discipline-specific discourses and terminologies within the humanities and social sciences as well as in relation to the natural sciences and seeks to establish dialogues. Experimental fields such as cognitive ethology or primate research increasingly turn to cultural-studies based concepts of culture while recent approaches in linguistics, literary studies, and history integrate concepts from experimental neurosciences and cognitive sciences. In addition, the processes of knowledge transfer, the discursive formation of expert cultures as well as the relationships between actions and norm building are investigated. Recent findings, especially in biomedicine and information technology, challenge current conceptions and need to be assessed.