Dr. Elif Emirahmetoğlu
As part of the Wolfhart Pannenberg Fellowship, I researched the project titled "An Investigation of the Qur’ānic Concept nafs in Intertextual Contexts." The project aims to analyze the Qur’ānic concept of nafs (person/self) and its multifaceted, ambivalent use in relation to the pre-Islamic understanding of nafs and to relevant biblical concepts (nefeš and psychē).
My stay at LMU Munich has enriched my research project and broadened my horizons in many ways. On the one hand, I deepened my knowledge through the religious studies colloquium and Old Testament seminars, and discussed aspects of the project. On the other hand, thanks to the generous support of the Faculty of Protestant Theology, I organized the interreligious workshop "nafs Dimensions of Human Being in the Qur’ān and nefesh Concepts of the Body in the Hebrew Bible." In addition, the Pannenberg Fellowship enabled me to participate in further exciting excursions, seminars, and lectures, especially at the Chair of Late Ancient and Arabic Philosophy, as well as in valuable exchanges with my colleagues.
Dr. Moritz Emmelmann
My postdoctoral project, ‘Theology in Everyday School Life’, focuses on a professional group that is often overlooked in research: subject leaders and seminar teachers for Protestant religion. Using narrative biographical interviews, my study examines the particular challenges, career paths, and resources of these important multipliers for the first time from the perspective of the subject leaders themselves. In addition, my goal is to clarify, with reference to lay theological concepts, what exactly is meant when ‘one's own theology’ is promoted as a training goal for religious education teachers.
The Pannenberg Fellowship enabled me to discuss the study design and initial findings with experts at LMU and to adapt the methodology during a crucial phase of the project. I benefited greatly from my involvement in the advanced seminars of the chairs of religious education, practical theology and ethics, as well as from the excellent research infrastructure of the Faculty of Protestant Theology.
Dr. Elizabeth Marteijn
After completing her PhD in World Christianity at the University of Edinburgh, Elizabeth Marteijn joined the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. In Munich, she worked on the research project “Rituals of Return: The Palestinian Christians from Iqrit and Kufr Bir’im, 1948-present,” examining how historical trajectories of forced displacement have shaped Palestinian Christian expression. Adopting a historical-ethnographic methodology, the project focused on two case studies: the internally displaced Palestinians from the destroyed Catholic villages of Iqrit and Kufr Bir’im in northern Israel. By integrating typically secular narratives of the 1948 Nakba (Arabic: ‘Catastrophe’) with church history, this study offers new insights into this pivotal moment in the formation of the Palestinian diaspora, particularly in relation to questions of religious mobilisation and ritual expression. Following the completion of this project, Dr. Marteijn was awarded a Veni Research Grant from the Talent Programme of the Dutch Research Council (NWO) to further expand her research on the Palestinian diaspora.