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This paper asks the question, 'What does Islamic education mean for the 21st century university?' To begin with, the paper addresses the modern university as an institution facing numerous challenges, which can be conceived of by understanding the nature of the 'academic imagination'. In so doing, this argument draws on the fundamental elements of thought itself by foregrounding imagination as a primary route by which knowledge is conceived, created and disseminated. At root, it is an argument that suggests that to understand the university is to apprehend its imaginative functions. 'Problems of the imagination' are thereafter defined as 'depth perception', 'vertigo' and 'paralysis', respectively. In light of these challenges, the rise of Centers of Islamic Theology in Germany, and Islamic education as a discipline in particular, are considered as uncharted paths towards a discussion of the dilemmas of contemporary academia. Methodologically, the paper is a philosophical reflection on the role of the future of the university and the place of Islamic Theology and Islamic education therein. As such, use of the contemporary literature on higher education, as well as classical works on Islamic education, shall be employed for the purposes of the argument. In so doing, this paper turns the normative discussion of contemporary Islamic education on its head: from how we may make room for such education in the modern university, to consider how its presence may help the institution and its imaginative conundrums. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Migration to Germany has been a fact of life for the average German since the 1960s. Immigrants started arriving from countries like Turkey, Spain, Greece, or Italy as a post-war labor force was invited to Germany to address workforce shortages. Many of these immigrants ultimately brought their families to live in Germany. One group of these newcomers was Aramean families of Syriac Orthodox faith, forced to flee the Tur Abdin region in southeast Turkey via Syria, Lebanon, and Northern Iraq. This paper will discuss the background and impetus for moving to the West for this immigrant group in detail. It will review the impacts on the life of devout Syriac Orthodox families while living in Germany, a secular country. It will also take an initial look at whether evangelical communities in Germany can come alongside this group, still suffering from a different kind of persecution: the "otherness" of living in Germany. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a conversation is initiated about the relationship between religious education (RE) and comparative theology (CT). It is the first time that these are both addressed explicitly in an international academic discourse. The authors are colleagues in a university setting of RE teacher education and are both involved in local RE research programs. Our approach is theological, and our shared interest is the existential lifeworld of children and young people. Firstly, we wish to bring RE and CT into conversation with each other, based on five common characteristics. Secondly, we describe how this conversation can possibly stimulate discussion on new pathways of intercultural encounters in the RE classroom, and this not only from a German (mainly confessional) perspective but also in light of other forms of non-confessional RE. After a (1) contextualization of RE in Germany, the authors describe (2) five central features of contemporary RE, followed by (3) five CT observations, connecting to these features. In (4), the relationship between the two is discussed as common ground for intercultural encounters and as a promising praxis and research field awaiting further development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses the life and thought of two important figures in the history of Austrian socialism-Victor Adler and Otto Bauer-as a prism through which to examine the complex relationship between German nationalism, the Jewish Question and pro-Habsburgism among the early leadership of the Austrian Social Democratic Party. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper pursues the question of the relationship between secularization, religious denominations, and regional characteristics. A literature review leads to the formation of six hypotheses. The analysis of regional statistics for Germany shows clear regional differences in the distribution of the denominational affiliation as well as the secularization of the population. Traditional differences between the federal states and their sub-regions are still recognizable. In particular, there is an obvious difference in secularization between the East German and West German states in relation to the significance of the two large Christian denominations. These differences between the paths of regional development and degree of secularization are so large that most of the hypothesis testing on the association between religious affiliation and demographic and socio-economic variables resulted in different findings for the two areas. Further research is required to pursue more regional differentiation and to include non-Christian faiths in the investigations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]