REMID’s claim

REMID — the Reli­gious Stud­ies Media and Infor­ma­tion Ser­vice — is the cen­tral point of con­tact in Ger­many for trans­par­ent and well-found­ed sci­en­tif­ic com­mu­ni­ca­tion on reli­gion-relat­ed top­ics from a val­ue-neu­tral per­spec­tive. As a net­work of researchers and inter­est­ed par­ties, we bring per­spec­tives of the study of reli­gions into soci­ety. We are com­mit­ted to pro­vid­ing reli­able infor­ma­tion about reli­gions and cre­at­ing well-found­ed access to pro­fes­sion­al­ly researched con­tent — both online and offline.

Who we are

REMID is divid­ed into a board of direc­tors con­sist­ing of three chair­women and up to four deputy chair­women. This board is sup­port­ed by an admin­is­tra­tive employ­ee, the sci­en­tif­ic advi­so­ry board, and active REMID mem­bers through­out Ger­many. The board is elect­ed by the REMID gen­er­al meet­ing for a term of two years. The board man­ages the activ­i­ties of the asso­ci­a­tion.

The REMID chair­per­sons since Octo­ber 10, 2024 are Anna Kira Hip­pert, Mona Stumpe and Mareike Rit­ter.

Nel­li Felk­er, Janette Kubitsch, Dun­ja Shar­bat Dar and Isis Mru­gal­la Kalm­bach­er were elect­ed as board mem­bers.

Anna Kira Hippert, M.A.

First Chair

Anna Kira Hip­pert is a research asso­ciate and doc­tor­al stu­dent at the Cen­ter for Reli­gious Stud­ies at the Ruhr Uni­ver­si­ty Bochum. She has an M.A. in Reli­gious Stud­ies and a B.A. in Reli­gious Stud­ies and Art His­to­ry and com­plet­ed an appren­tice­ship as an office clerk in 2011.

Her research focus­es on mate­r­i­al reli­gion, reli­gion and media, new reli­gious move­ments, and social change online and offline, with a par­tic­u­lar focus on the USA and moder­ni­ty. Dur­ing her master’s degree, she stud­ied at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Kansas and was a vis­it­ing schol­ar at Mis­souri State Uni­ver­si­ty from March 2023 to Feb­ru­ary 2024. In Ger­many, she is active­ly involved in sci­ence and knowl­edge trans­fer on new reli­gios­i­ty, work­ing with var­i­ous orga­ni­za­tions and social work­ers and con­duct­ing sci­ence com­mu­ni­ca­tion on Insta­gram (@Sugarkane2003) and YouTube (@Ceres_Rub).

Since 2021, Anna has been work­ing as an Affil­i­at­ed Researcher at INFORM at King’s Col­lege Lon­don, an NGO found­ed by Prof. em. Eileen Bark­er. INFORM has pio­neered sci­ence com­mu­ni­ca­tion and pro­vides pre­cise, evi­dence-based infor­ma­tion about new reli­gious move­ments. As the first chair of REMID e.V., Anna wants to con­tribute the knowl­edge and expe­ri­ence she has gained at INFORM and in her own research and sci­ence com­mu­ni­ca­tion. Her goal is to strength­en reli­gious stud­ies in Ger­many and pro­mote val­ue-free exchange about reli­gion.

Con­tact: hippert@remid.de

Mona Stumpe, M.A.

Sec­ond chair­woman

Mona Stumpe works in stu­dent mar­ket­ing at Leib­niz Uni­ver­si­ty Han­nover. She pre­vi­ous­ly stud­ied reli­gious stud­ies and Eng­lish and Amer­i­can lit­er­a­ture and cul­tur­al stud­ies at LUH, which she com­plet­ed with a master’s degree.

She wrote her master’s the­sis on the top­ic of “Tel­e­van­ge­lism & Reli­gious Broad­cast­ing in the USA”. Mona’s areas of inter­est with­in reli­gious stud­ies are reli­gion in the media, TV evan­ge­lists, the emer­gence of fun­da­men­tal­ism, evan­gel­i­cal­ism and reli­gion in US pop­u­lar cul­ture.

She has also been com­mit­ted to pro­mot­ing young sci­en­tists at REMID for years — be it through intern­ships, blog posts, sup­port offers or projects in sci­ence com­mu­ni­ca­tion or in the field of social media (@remid.verein).

REMID mem­ber since 2018, on the board since 2020.

Con­tact: stumpe@remid.de

Mareike Ritter, M.A.

Trea­sur­er

Mareike Rit­ter is a com­mit­ted reli­gious and polit­i­cal sci­en­tist. After com­plet­ing her bachelor’s degree in reli­gious stud­ies at the uni­ver­si­ties of Hei­del­berg and Leipzig, she com­plet­ed her master’s degree in “Reli­gion, Pol­i­tics and Soci­ety” at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Birm­ing­ham.

Since 2021, she has been doing her doc­tor­ate at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Mün­ster on the reli­gious and cul­tur­al-polit­i­cal sig­nif­i­cance of Jew­ish-Mus­lim alliances in Ger­many. She is pas­sion­ate about the sub­ject of reli­gion and pol­i­tics, espe­cial­ly minori­ties, activism and cul­tur­al pol­i­cy. In addi­tion to her research, she works inde­pen­dent­ly as an edu­ca­tion­al con­sul­tant and gives work­shops on right-wing extrem­ism, con­spir­a­cy beliefs and reli­gion, among oth­er things.

Togeth­er with Dun­ja, she coor­di­nat­ed the “Map­ping Reli­gious Stud­ies” project and is also one of the edi­tors of the reli­gious stud­ies blog “Mar­gin­alien — Reli­gious Stud­ies Mar­gin­al Remarks”.

She has been trea­sur­er at REMID e.V. since Octo­ber 2024 and would like to work to make the social sig­nif­i­cance of reli­gious stud­ies knowl­edge more vis­i­ble, among oth­er things by sup­port­ing and net­work­ing grad­u­ates and reli­gious schol­ars in the non-uni­ver­si­ty job mar­ket.

Con­tact: ritter@remid.de

Nelli Felker, M.A.

Nel­li Felk­er is a soci­ol­o­gist of reli­gion and is inter­est­ed in the top­ics of reli­gion, cul­ture, dis­crim­i­na­tion and minori­ties. She com­plet­ed her stud­ies at the Otto-Friedrich Uni­ver­si­ty of Bam­berg (B.A.) and the Georg-August Uni­ver­si­ty of Göt­tin­gen (M.A.).

In 2021 she began her doc­tor­ate at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Mün­ster. Her research focus is on the inves­ti­ga­tion of the reli­gios­i­ty of LGBTIQ* peo­ple and the effects of struc­tur­al inclu­sion on indi­vid­ual faith devel­op­ment. An impor­tant part of her work is also on sci­ence com­mu­ni­ca­tion with reli­gious com­mu­ni­ties and asso­ci­a­tions.

At REMID e.V. she has been tak­ing up a posi­tion on the REMID advi­so­ry board since Octo­ber 2024. Her main tasks include the prepa­ra­tion of sta­tis­tics as well as net­work­ing and sci­ence com­mu­ni­ca­tion.

Con­tact: felker@remid.de

Janette Kubitsch, M.A.

Janette Kubitsch is a reli­gious schol­ar and art his­to­ri­an. She com­plet­ed her bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the Ruhr Uni­ver­si­ty Bochum.

Her study focus­es in par­tic­u­lar on new reli­gious move­ments, evan­gel­i­cal­ism and the Lat­ter-Day Saints. She is also ded­i­cat­ed to inves­ti­gat­ing fusions between reli­gion, pol­i­tics and con­spir­a­cy beliefs, which form the core of her master’s the­sis “QAnon as a new reli­gious move­ment? Between Q as prophet, Trump as sav­ior and the impend­ing end of the world”.

In addi­tion to the fusion between faith and con­spir­a­cies, her areas of inter­est include top­ics on right-wing extrem­ism and faith and con­flict.

Since Octo­ber 2024 she has been an asses­sor on the board of REMID e.V., where she takes on tasks in the area of ​​social media and mem­ber admin­is­tra­tion.

Con­tact: kubitsch@remid.de

Dunja Sharbat Dar, M.A.

Dun­ja Shar­bat Dar is an enthu­si­as­tic reli­gious stud­ies and Japan­ese stud­ies schol­ar. After study­ing Japan­ese Stud­ies (B.A.) and Reli­gious Stud­ies with a focus on Japan­ese reli­gions (B.A./M.A.), she began an inter­dis­ci­pli­nary doc­tor­ate on the sub­ject of atmos­pheres in Japan­ese church­es at the Ruhr Uni­ver­si­ty Bochum, which she will com­plete in the near future.

In addi­tion to her research on con­tem­po­rary reli­gions in Japan, she is also work­ing on con­cepts of space, pop­u­lar cul­ture (man­ga, ani­me, comics, video games), reli­gious mate­ri­al­i­ty, the reli­gious pro­cess­ing of the Fukushi­ma dis­as­ter of 2011 and social sci­ence meth­ods and the­o­ries of reli­gious stud­ies.

For her, sci­ence and sci­ence com­mu­ni­ca­tion always belong togeth­er. On her social media chan­nels (@dunja.sharbatdar) she there­fore shares every­thing about sci­ence, her research, the research process, field research in Japan and sci­ence com­mu­ni­ca­tion in image and sound. She also works on the reli­gious stud­ies blog “RW Mar­gin­a­lia”, co-coor­di­nat­ed the “Map­ping Reli­gious Stud­ies” project with Mareike and is active­ly involved in Rel­Wis­sKomm.

At REMID e.V. she works on var­i­ous projects on the top­ic of online sci­ence com­mu­ni­ca­tion and is gen­er­al­ly inter­est­ed in mak­ing reli­gious stud­ies vis­i­ble in soci­ety as a valu­able resource for a bet­ter under­stand­ing of one anoth­er.

Con­tact: sharbatdar@remid.de

Isis Mrugalla Kalmbacher, M.A.

Descrip­tion fol­lows.

Con­tact: mrugalla@remid.de

What we do

Reli­gions in Ger­many
We have the num­bers! Reli­gion in Ger­many is diverse and vis­i­ble in many forms—from the Roman Catholic and Evan­gel­i­cal Church­es to Mus­lim, Jew­ish, Hin­du, and Bud­dhist com­mu­ni­ties, along­side numer­ous oth­er reli­gions, Chris­t­ian denom­i­na­tions, and New Reli­gious Move­ments. Addi­tion­al­ly, a sig­nif­i­cant por­tion of the pop­u­la­tion iden­ti­fies with no reli­gious affil­i­a­tion. Togeth­er, they shape Germany’s dynam­ic reli­gious land­scape. Nav­i­gat­ing this com­plex­i­ty requires orientation—and ori­en­ta­tion begins with reli­able infor­ma­tion.

Reli­gious Studies / the study of religion(s)
Reli­gious stud­ies is still a rel­a­tive­ly small and unknown sub­ject, which is often mis­un­der­stood and con­fused. In order to clar­i­fy what reli­gious stud­ies actu­al­ly are (and how they dif­fer from the­ol­o­gy, for exam­ple), we pro­vide an overview of the discipline’s self-image, his­to­ry and meth­ods.

Experts
Are you look­ing for well-found­ed experts for lec­tures, work­shops, sem­i­nars or do you have a jour­nal­is­tic inquiry on a reli­gious top­ic? REMID e.V. is your cen­tral con­tact for pro­vid­ing trained spe­cial­ists from a wide range of areas of reli­gious stud­ies.

Projects and con­fer­ences
REMID car­ries out its own projects, orga­nizes con­fer­ences and offers its mem­bers oppor­tu­ni­ties to get involved. REMID is hap­py to coop­er­ate with oth­er insti­tu­tions, orga­ni­za­tions and ini­tia­tives. Project assign­ments can be car­ried out with recourse to the net­work of experts.

Net­work­ing
Last but not least REMID pro­motes con­tacts among schol­ars and peo­ple inter­est­ed in reli­gions by way of newslet­ters and the mem­bers’ ben­e­fit­ing from the net­work of experts.
REMID coop­er­ates with insti­tu­tions with sim­i­lar objec­tives, as for exam­ple with INFOREL in Basel, Switzer­land; CESNUR in Tori­no, Italy and INFORM in Lon­don, Great Britain. The aca­d­e­m­ic advi­so­ry com­mit­tee aids REMID to keep in touch with the aca­d­e­m­ic study of reli­gions.

Mem­ber­ship
REMID is a non-prof­it orga­ni­za­tion. Any per­sons or insti­tu­tions who share the objec­tives of REMID can join. Mem­bers get a dis­count when ben­e­fit­ing from the ser­vices. A gen­er­al assem­bly is held every year. An exec­u­tive com­mit­tee is elect­ed by the gen­er­al assem­bly every two years.

Sup­port us
Would you like to sup­port REMID and our vol­un­tary work?
We are grate­ful for every dona­tion that helps us to con­tin­ue to offer our infor­ma­tion, offers and projects free of charge to every­one.

Active par­tic­i­pa­tion
Mem­bers are, of course, encour­aged to par­tic­i­pate active­ly.
The REMID office uses an exten­sive ques­tionary to cov­er the mem­bers’ expe­ri­ences, fields of study and com­pe­tences in order to pass on requests.

Please write to us, if you

… wish to become a mem­ber
… wish to receive fur­ther infor­ma­tion about REMID
… have any ques­tions or com­ments


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