Christoph Kleine

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Christoph Kleine

Christoph Kleine (* 1962 in Wilhelmshaven ) is a German religious scholar.

Life

Kleine grew up in Lübeck, Lauenburg and Geesthacht and did his Abitur at the Otto Hahn Gymnasium in Geesthacht . From 1984 to 1991 he studied religious studies, Japanese studies and philosophy at the Philipps University in Marburg and the Bukkyō University in Kyoto . He received his Magister Artium in 1991. With a dissertation on Hōnens Buddhism of the Pure Land : Reform, Reformation or Heresy , he received his doctorate in 1995 at the University of Marburg. With a grant from the European Science Foundation , he then researched Buddhist hagiography in East Asia at the Hōbōgirin Institute ( 法寶 義 林 研究所 ) in Kyoto from 1996-1997 . With a grant from the German Research Foundation , he completed his habilitation in 2001 in Marburg with a thesis on the subject of religious biographies in East Asian Buddhism: a study of the content, form and function of hagiographic texts using the example of collections of vitamins from China, Korea and Japan . From January 2003, Kleine was a private lecturer in religious studies at the Faculty of History, Art and Orient Studies at the University of Leipzig .

From the winter semester 2004 to September 2008 he was appointed professor for religion and philosophy in East Asia at the Japan Center of the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich . In autumn 2008 he switched to a professorship for the history of religion (W 3) with a focus on Buddhism at the Institute for Religious Studies at the University of Leipzig .

Christoph Kleine is currently (2015) Deputy Chairman of the German Association for Religious Studies (DVRW). Together with Oliver Freiberger, he is the editor of the Zeitschrift für Religionswissenschaft (ZfR), which appears every six months as a scientific journal of the DVRW by the De Gruyter publishing house . He is also a member of the DFG College for Religious Studies and Jewish Studies . He is also a member of the European Association for the Study of Religions and the International Association of Buddhist Studies , as well as the Media and Information Service for Religious Studies ( REMID ).

Small ongoing research project funded by the DFG is on the topic: Japanese religions in the context of globalization and secularization . From April 2016, Kleine will lead the DFG-funded research group “Multiple Secularities - Beyond the West, Beyond Modernities” at the University of Leipzig together with the Leipzig cultural sociologist Monika Wohlrab-Sahr .

In his research, Kleine combines historical-philological approaches with systematic comparative perspectives and theoretical reflections on the function of religion in different societies. His perspective is influenced, among other things, by Max Weber's sociology of religion and Niklas Luhmann's system theory . Contrary to the trend of current religious studies in German-speaking countries to focus on contemporary religious cultures in Europe, Kleine emphasizes the importance of the non-European history of religion, not least for the formation of religious studies theory. With the aim of strengthening the non-European history of religion within German religious studies, in 1999, together with Oliver Freiberger and Max Deeg , Kleine founded the Asian Religious History Working Group (AKAR) in the German Association for Religious Studies (DVRW), the aim of which was to “create a forum to link research activities and to exchange information in the field of the religious history of South Asia, Central Asia, East Asia and Southeast Asia ”. The results of the AKAR's annual meetings have so far been published in six anthologies. Against popular approaches in postcolonial studies within religious studies, Kleine postulates that the concept of religion can also be transferred to cultures that have no semantic equivalent to the modern European concept of " religion ". Kleine argues here on the one hand functionalistically, on the other hand with reference to the emic processes of the formation of polythetic classes: in almost all known cultures there were forms of social differentiation even before the encounter with European modernity and the adoption of the term religion, as a result of which cultural segments and Areas of activity emerged which, due to various family similarities and comparable social functions, were regarded as functional equivalents and which can be identified with the metalinguistic term "religion".

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Bukkyō University Department of Buddhist Studies (English)
  2. ↑ http://www.japan.uni-muenchen.de/forschung/associates/kleine/index.html
  3. ↑ Profile Christoph Kleine , curriculum vitae online on the website of the University of Leipzig
  4. ^ The board of the DVRW , German Association for Religious Studies 2015, accessed October 26, 2015
  5. ^ Journal for Religious Studies Editor-in-Chief: Freiberger, Oliver / Kleine, Christoph , accessed on October 26, 2015.
  6. ↑ Ongoing research projects - Institute for Religious Studies ( Memento of the original from February 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Univ. Leipzig, accessed October 26, 2015  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / mahara.uni-leipzig.de
  7. ↑ [1] , accessed February 26, 2016
  8. ↑ Kleine, Christoph. "Disenchanting Medieval Japan: Hōnen and Shinran in a Weberian Perspective." In Hōnen bukkyō no shosō 法 然 仏 教 の 諸 相, ed. v. Fujimoto Kiyohiko Sensei koki kinen ronbunshū kankōkai 藤 本 淨 彦 先生 古稀 記念 論文集 刊行 会, 101-125 (1178–1202). Kyōto: Hōzōkan, 2014; ders. "" Religious nonconformism "as a religious studies category." Journal for Religious Studies 23 (2015): 3–34.
  9. ↑ Kleine, Christoph. “On the universality of the distinction between religious and secular: A system-theoretical consideration.” In Religious Studies: A Study Book, ed. v. Michael Stausberg , 65-80. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2012; ders. "Religion as a conceptual concept and social system in premodern Japan: polythetic classes, semantic and functional equivalents, and structural analogies." In religion in Asia? Studies on the applicability of the concept of religion, ed. v. Peter Schalk, Max Deeg, Oliver Freiberger, Christoph Kleine and Astrid van Nahl, 225–292. Uppsala: Uppsala Universitet, 2013; ders. "Religion and the Secular in Premodern Japan from the Viewpoint of Systems Theory." Journal of Religion in Japan 2 (2013): 1-34; ders. “Secular identities in the“ magic garden ”of premodern Japan? Theoretical considerations on a historical basis. “In Secularity in Religious Studies Perspective, ed. v. Peter Antes and Steffen Führding, 109–130. Göttingen: V&R unipress, 2013.
  10. ↑ Kleine, Christoph. “Why non-European religious history? Reflections on their use for the formation of theories and identity in religious studies. ”Zeitschrift für Religionswissenschaft 18 (2010): 2–38; ders. “On the theoretical and methodological relevance of the non-European history of religion for religious studies.” In religious studies between the social sciences, historical sciences and cognitive research: An authors' workshop with Hubert Seiwert, ed. v. Edith Franke and Verena Maske, 77–90. Marburg: IVK - Religious Studies, 2014.
  11. ↑ currently Associate Professor at the University of Texas at Austin; see http://www.utexas.edu/cola/asianstudies/faculty/profile.php?id=of63 , accessed February 26, 2016.
  12. ↑ currently Professor of Buddhist Studies at Cardiff University; see http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/people/view/73012-deeg-max , accessed February 26, 2016.
  13. ↑ http://www.dvrw.uni-hannover.de/akar.html , accessed February 26, 2016.
  14. ↑ Schalk, Peter, Max Deeg, Oliver Freiberger, and Christoph Kleine, eds. Between secularism and hierarchy: Studies on the relationship between religion and state in South and East Asia. Uppsala, 2001; ; Schalk, Peter, Max Deeg, Oliver Freiberger, Christoph Kleine, and Astrid van Nahl, eds. Religion in the Spiegelkabinett: Asian religious history in the field of tension between Orientalism and Occidentalism. Uppsala: Uppsala University, 2003; the same, ed. In the Thicket of Commandments: Studies on the Dialectic of Norm and Practice in the History of Buddhism in Asia. Uppsala, 2005; the same, ed. Stories and History: Historiography and Hagiography in the Asian Religious History. Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis, 2010; same, ed. Religion in Asia? Studies on the applicability of the concept of religion. Uppsala: Uppsala Universitet, 2013; freely available online at http://uu.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?searchId=1&pid=diva2%3A306505&dswid=9166 .
  15. ↑ Kleine, Christoph. "Religion as a Conceptual Concept and Social System in Premodern Japan: Polythetic Classes, Semantic and Functional Equivalents, and Structural Analogies." In Religion in Asia? Studies on the applicability of the concept of religion, ed. v. Peter Schalk, Max Deeg, Oliver Freiberger, Christoph Kleine and Astrid van Nahl, 225–292. Uppsala: Uppsala Universitet, 2013.
personal data
SURNAME Little one, Christoph
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German religious scholar
DATE OF BIRTH 1962
PLACE OF BIRTH Wilhelmshaven