Next to its research activities, CERES has established a comprehensive program for the promotion of young researchers as well as a dedicated center for knowledge transfer. It also houses a BA as well as an international MA program in Religious Studies. 

At CERES, multiple projects concerning religion and digital media have been conducted throughout the years, especially (but not limited to) religious communication in online forums. However, a distinguishing element of CERES’ approach to the field is that in addition to contemporary media, historical media are also taken into consideration – books, statues, buildings, scrolls, even oracle bones. Based on the concept of “mediation” (B. Meyer), researchers at CERES presume that all material objects which believers understand to bridge the distance between the immanent and transcendent spheres by enhancing sensual, bodily, and spatial experiences of the sacred, should be considered religious media. This allows studying processes of mediation in the pre-modern era alongside the most recent technological innovations. In turn, the scholarly conversation is enhanced through the inclusion of historians, art historians, philologist, archaeologists, etc.

About Ruhr University Bochum:

CERES is part of Ruhr University Bochum (RUB), one of the leading research universities in Germany. As a reform-oriented campus university, it uniquely combines the entire range of major scientific fields as well as the so-called small subjects in one place and offers researchers and students alike special opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration.