Team

Karsten Lehmann is a sociologist as well as a scholar of Religious Studies. He holds degrees from Lancaster University (Master in Religious Studies), the University of Tübingen (Doctorate in Sociology), and Bayreuth University (Post-Doctoral in Religious Studies).
Curriculum vitae

As far as his own research is concerned, Karsten Lehmann is primarily interested in religious plurality on the borders between the religious and other social fields – such as education, politics, or arts. So far, his publications have inter alia been dealing with new religious movements, the religious associations of immigrants, as well as the role of religiously affiliated actors in international politics.
Bibliography (February / 2024)

Further areas of major research:

• Local religious networks and networks of civil society
• Interreligious relationships / interreligious dialogue
• Religiously legitimated violence
• Religions and (international) politics
• Methods in the empirical study of religions

Prior to his professorship at the KPH Vienna/Krems, Karsten Lehmann worked as Visiting Fellow at the 'Observatoire des Religions en Suisse’ of the Université de Lausanne / Switzerland as well as at the ‚Berkley Center for Religion Peace and World Affairs’ of Georgetown University / USA. During the academic year 2012/13 he worked as Visiting Professor at the Religious Studies Chair of Prof. Dr. Oliver Krüger at the Université de Fribourg / Switzerland. After this second extensive stay in Switzerland, Karsten Lehmann became the ‘Head of Social Sciences and Statistics (3S)’ at the Research Department of the KAICIID – International Center for Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue (which was closed in February 2016). Besides his position with the KPH, Prof. Dr. Karsten Lehmann is also working as a Visiting Professor for the empirical Study of Religions at the University of Greifswald, a Senior Research Fellow at one of the Chairs for Religious Studies at Vienna University as well as a member of the Research Center ‘Religion and Transformation in Contemporary Society’.

Researchpartners:

HS Prof. Dr Bettina Brandstetter

Bettina Brandstetter is a theologian, religious educator and elementary teacher. She researches practices of differentiation in the education system and questions these practices with regards to the representation of social power and inequality relations. In doing so, Brandstetter focuses on interreligious references as well as questions of inclusion, migration and gender justice.

Bettina Brandstetter's research focuses on the following areas:

Interreligiousness
Discourse sensitivity
Religious education and didactics
Elementary education
Prejudice-conscious and racism-critical education
Migration education

In recent years, Bettina Brandstetter has worked at the Universities of Vienna and Salzburg. She currently holds the research professorship ‘Interreligiosity’ at the Private University College of Education of the Diocese of Linz (PHDL), which cooperates with the KPH Vienna/Krems within the framework of the research cooperation 'Religion_Plurality'.

Prof. Dr. Anne Koch

Anne Koch is a Scholar of Religion, a Theologist as well as as Philosopher. In her research she combines models from Cognitive Sciences and neo-institutional economy to better understand present-day religion and spirituality.

In her research Koch focuses on :

Religion-Competence
Religious Plurality
Religions in Europe
Method and Theory of the Study of Religion
Economy of Religion as well as
Esthetics of Religion

For the last years, Anne has been working at the Pädagogischen Hochschule der Diözese Linz (PHDL) and closely coopperating with the SIR-research focus within the context of ‚Religion_Pluralität. She moved to the University of Freiburg.

Further information

Former colleagues:

Alexandra Katzian, B.A. M.A.
Dr. Adem Aygün
Dr'in Edda Strutzenberger-Reiter
Dr'in Edith Petschnigg