Dynamics in the History of Religions between Asia and Europe
Workshop
Labeling Self and Others in Historical Contacts between Religious Groups
The basic idea behind this workshop is that the collective noun "religion" (or other words which permit speaking of religions abstractly and in the plural) came into existence first through the contact of religious groups and through mutual recognition by such religious groups of the respective other as belonging to the same class or category as they themselves did, namely that of "religion" (or some other abstract concept which might have given rise to speculating about the shared characteristics of the entities grouped together here lexically). In order to attain a broad comparative perspective based on a number of cases of mutual perception, we have included contributions from both Europe and East Asia and from a variety of religious traditions such as Judaism, Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, and Confucianism (for details, please see the program).
