Methoden für die Religionswissenschaft

This article is inspired by two recent publications focused on the notion of methods in the (scientific) study of religion (Kurth and Lehmann 2011, Stausberg and Engler 2011). Introducing their central topics, we discuss the question of the institutional location of those methods and the role of instructing them. In order to be able to compete with other scientific disciplines, we issue the demand for a professionalization of instruction. Also, we warn not to succumb to a »structural sui generis problem«, i.e., although claiming to have overcome the phenomenology of religion, to conceptualize religion as a unique phenomenon