Michael Stausberg

Michael Stausberg (born April 28, 1966 in Cologne ) is a German religious scholar .

Life

From 1986 to 1991 Stausberg studied religious history , philosophy , educational science and Catholic theology at the universities of Bonn , Tübingen and Bergen as well as at the University of La Sapienza in Rome . From 1986 to 1991 he was a fellow of the Cusanuswerk . Stausberg completed his studies in 1991 with an MA

This was followed in 1992 by a doctoral scholarship at the interdisciplinary graduate school for intercultural religious studies in Bonn, where Michael Stausberg was awarded a Dr. phil. received his doctorate. From 1996 to 2000 he worked at Uppsala University on a Feodor Lynen Research Fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation . The Swedish Wenner Gren Foundation (1997) and the Anniversary Fund of the Swedish Reichsbank (1998–1999) contributed to the financial support . In 1996 Stausberg took on a teaching position at the Theological Faculty of Uppsala University and in 2000 he became a lecturer.

From 2000 to 2004 Stausberg headed a research group at Heidelberg University . Here he became a private lecturer in 2003. Stausberg took on substitute professorships in the summer semester 2001 at the University of Tübingen and in the winter semester 2002/2003 at the University of Bern . Michael Stausberg has been Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Bergen in Norway since 2004 .

Researches

Stausberg started his research on Zoroastrianism in 1989 with an article. This has resulted in an extensive catalog of publications over the years. In his two-volume work Fascination Zarathushtra (1998), Stausberg examines the reception that he starts with Georgios Gemistos Plethon and continues with the French orientalist Abraham Hyacinthe Anquetil-Duperron . The first translation of the Avesta into a European language was by Anquetil-Duperron. The recipients, who are also extensively cited, include the Platonists Marsilio Ficino and Francesco Patrizi, as well as the English orientalist Thomas Hyde . Stausberg also included the philosopher Voltaire in research on reception. He has already published the results of his continued research into the 21st century as essays .

The study of Zoroastrianism resulted in a fundamental analysis of the conditions that led to the academic study of religions as an independent discipline. In this context, Stausberg dealt in particular with the Swedish Nobel Peace Prize laureate Nathan Söderblom and with the religious phenomenologist Raffaele Pettazzoni.

From April 2000 to March 2004 Michael Stausberg headed the DFG project on ritualistics and the history of religion: Zoroastrian rituals in changing cultural contexts at the Institute for Religious Studies at Heidelberg University . This project also resulted in the publication of two volumes on the theory of rituals , in which Jens Kreinath and Jan Snoek contributed. In addition to ritual theory, Stausberg worked with Bernd-Christian Otto on the difficulties of defining magic ( Defining Magic , 2012). By 2009 Stausberg has a collection to contemporary theories of religion published ( Contemporary Theories of Religion , 2009).

In 2006 conducted research Stausberg in India over the parsing . His work was supported by three female Parsi from Mumbai (Tsarina Marfatia, Meher Patel, Benaifer Wykes) and by Ramiyar Karanjia.

From 2009 to 2015 Michael Stausberg and Yuhan Sohrab-Dinshaw Vevaina worked as editors on a handbook on Zoroastrianism. This handbook, the first of its kind on Zoroastrianism , involved 33 scholars from ten nations.

From Zoroastrianism, Stausberg extended his research to the connection between tourism and religion.

Together with the Canadian religious scholar Steven Engler, Stausberg has been publishing the international religious studies journal Religion since 2008 , which is published by Routledge. With Engler he also published a book on religious studies research methods and The Oxford Handbook for the Study of Religions (2016). The book Religionswissenschaft (2012) offers an introductory overview of German-speaking religious studies .

As a co-group leader at the Center for Advanced Study of the Norwegian Academy of Sciences , he investigated the decline of religions, transition phases and distortions in historiography caused by subsequent ones in the team in 2018 and 2019.

Publications (selection)

A list of publications can be found on Michael Stausberg's English website.

Monographs

• The fascination of Zarathushtra. Zoroaster and the European history of religion in the early modern period. At the same time dissertation University of Bonn 1995. 2 vols. With a preface by Carsten Colpe . De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1998, ISBN 3-11-101488-6 .
• The religion of Zarathushtra. Past - present - rituals. Volume 1. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2002, ISBN 3-17-017118-6 .
• The religion of Zarathushtra. Past - present - rituals. Volume 2. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2002, ISBN 3-17-017119-4 .
• The religion of Zarathushtra. Past - present - rituals. Volume 3. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 3-17-017120-8 .
• Zarathustra and his religion. Beck, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-406-50870-7 .
• Religion in Modern Tourism. World Religions Publishing House, Berlin 2010
• Religion and Tourism: crossroads, destinations, and encounters. Routledge, London / New York 2011

Editorships

• with Peter Schalk: Being religious and living through the eyes. Festschrift for Jan Bergman. Acta Universitatis Upsaliensisis, Uppsala 1998, ISBN 978-91-554-4199-9 .
• with Olof Sundqvist, Astrid van Nahl : Continuities and breaks in the history of religion - Festschrift for Anders Hultgård . De Gruyter, Berlin / Boston 2001, ISBN 3-11-017264-X .
• with Jens Kreinath and Jan Snoek: Theorizing Rituals. Issues, topics, approaches, concepts. Volume 1. Brill, Leiden 2006
• with Jens Kreinath and Jan Snoek: Theorizing Rituals. Annotated Bibliography of Ritual Theory, 1966-2005. Volume 2. Brill, Leiden 2007
• Contemporary Theories of Religion. A Critical Companion. Routledge, London / New York 2009, ISBN 978-0-415-46347-8 .
• with Steven Engler: The Routledge Handbook of Research Methods in the Study of Religion. Routledge, London / New York 2011
• Religious studies. De Gruyter, Berlin / Boston 2012, ISBN 978-3-11-025892-9 .
• with Yuhan Sohrab-Dinshaw Vevaina: The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Zoroastrianism. Chichester 2015, ISBN 978-1-4443-3135-6 .
• with Steven Engler: The Oxford Handbook of the Study of Religion. Oxford University Press, Oxford / New York 2016, ISBN 978-0-19-872957-0 .

Contributions

• Zoroastrian distinctions. In: Jan Assmann and Harald Strohm: Akhenaten and Zarathustra. On the genesis and dynamics of monotheism. Fink, Munich 2012, ISBN 978-3-7705-5349-5 , pp. 93-118
• Monotheism, Polytheism, and Dualism in Ancient Iran. In: Manfred Krebernik and Jürgen van Oorschot: Polytheism and monotheism in the religions of the Middle East. Ugarit, Münster 2002, pp. 91–111.
• Approaches to the Study of 'Time' in the History of Religions. In: Temenos 39-40 (2004), pp. 247-268.
• On the State and Prospects of the Study of Zoroastrianism. Numen 55 (2008), pp. 561-600 On the State and Prospects of the Study of Zoroastrianism.

Web links

• Homepage Michael Stausberg (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Research
2. ↑ Final report
3. ↑ Michael Stausberg: On the State and Prospects of the Study of Zoroastrianism. Numen 55 (2008), p. 582.
4. ↑ Sohrab-Dinshaw Vevaina  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
5. ^ CAS Projects. The Demise of Religions. Former 2018/2019. In: CAS Oslo. Center for Advanced Study at Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, accessed January 10, 2020 . 
6. ^ Christian Röther: History of Religion. How do religions go under? In: Deutschlandfunk. January 10, 2019, accessed January 10, 2020 . 
7. ↑ Homepage Michael Stausberg (English)
8. ^ Zoroastrian distinctions.
9. ↑ Approaches to the Study of 'Time' in the History of Religions.