News 31 August 2020

Religion in Times of a Global Pandemic

With infection rates rising again, the impact of the ongoing pandemic on several areas of our personal life and society at large deserves further consideration. Listen to the podcast with Prof. Dr. Irene Dingel (Mainz).

Religion in Times of Crisis

A few months ago, Prof. Irene Dingel was invited to talk about religion in times of crisis in the podcast series “Tonspur Wissen”, which has regularly interviewed leading scholars within the Leibniz Association since the outbreak of Covid-19. All scholars were asked to describe the effects of the corona pandemic on their fields of research. Prof. Dingel is Director of the Leibniz Institute of European History in Mainz – a partner in the RESILIENCE consortium – and heads the Department for European Religious History.

How Faith Can Make Us More Resilient

In her interview, she explains how faith can make us more resilient in difficult times even though we rather turn to scientists than religion for explanations and solutions in this global pandemic.

“On a personal level, the many restrictions in corona-times may have reminded us how much human life depends on collective self-assurance and rituals that structure our daily routine; in academia, the restrictions certainly remind us of the importance of digital infrastructures and virtual collaboration for our research, also in religious studies” – Prof. Irene Dingel.

Podcast

You can listen to the podcast in German here:

 

A slightly shortened and edited version of the interview was published in the “leibniz magazin”.

Read the English translation of the podcast here. 

 

Visual: Leibniz Institute of European History, Foto: Angelika Stehle.