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Dear friends and colleagues,

We are taking a short break with the colloquium next week, but will be back again on 30 June. In the meantime, we are very happy to offer a new reading group at KFG starting next Wednesday.

Besides that we have recommendations for an online lecture and a workshop for you, a note about construction works in our office building and – last but not least – the invitation to start for Leipzig University at the Leipzig Company Run 2021 in September.

Enjoy and have a great week!

Anja & Lucy

Maintenance work on windows and doors at Strohsack, 21–25 June

We would like to inform you that next week, between 21 and 25 June, maintenance works on windows and doors in our office building will be carried out. For this, the maintenance company will have access to our rooms. Please make sure that the windows are freely accessible and – without wanting to insinuate anything – that it might be better not to leave any valuables lying around in the open during this period. There is a lockable cabinet in each office that you can use. If you don't come to the office during this period and still have valuables lying around that you would like to put away, please let Pavel know; he would then put them away/lock them up.

New Reading Group: “Materiality of the Religious/Secular Divide”

Our Senior Researchers Magnus Echtler and Nur Yasemin Ural are pleased to announce the initiation of a new bi-weekly reading group entitled “Materiality of the Religious/Secular Divide”. In this reading group, they will focus especially on texts that take as their starting point the material, sensory, and affective components of the interweaving not only of the secular and the religious but also of different forms of the sacred and the profane from anthropological and sociological perspectives. They are going to start by discussing the text “The origin and mission of Material Religion” by Birgit Meyer et al.

As this is a public event, you are free to circulate the invitation. Please direct all your queries regarding participation in the reading group to Yasemin and Magnus. The reading group is offered as hybrid event. Please register via e-mail if you want to attend in person. The number of participants physically present is limited to 10 people.

23 June | 2.15–3.45 p.m. (CET)

Hybrid format | Strohsack, room 4.55 and via zoom

International Workshop “Materialities of Everyday Religiosity: Historical and Contemporary Dynamics in Turkey and Iran”

Our Associate Member Markus Dreßler draws our attention to this international workshop from 17 to 20 June, organised by the Orient-Institut Istanbul. Although there is a strong tradition both in Turkey as well as in Iran to research material culture in folklore and heritage studies, very few publications have emerged from the respective academic fields that frame their work specifically in the context of ‘new materiality studies’. This points precisely to the emergence of alternative inflections of a material turn in the study of religions in the wider scholarly community outside of Europe and North America. By bringing together scholars from Iran, Turkey, Germany and France, the workshop will highlight the current state of the empirical study of religions in the respective countries and research contexts.

To attend this workshop, prior registration is necessary. Please send an e-mail specifying your name and academic affiliation.

Date: 17–20 June 2021

Venue: Orient-Institut Istanbul, Turkey – online via zoom

Leipzig Company Run 2021

On 7, 8 and 9 September the Leipzig Company Run is supposed to take place – live and in person at the Racecourse Scheibenholz. If it is possible, Leipzig University will send its own team to the start. You can now sign up for a three-month training offer which is free for University employees. In addition, there will again be two yoga courses, which will take place outdoors this year. All courses are aimed at beginners as well as advanced runners and promote not only health but also team spirit among colleagues.

If you are interested and feel like running, you are welcome to take this opportunity and sign up. Maybe there are more running friends in the KFG and we can form our own small team? Talk to us if you are interested.

Feel free to register here for the running training. If you would like to take part in one of the yoga courses, please send an e-mail.

Live-Event: 7–9 September

If you have any content that you think suits the purpose of the weekly, please feel free to send it to us at multiple-secularities@uni-leipzig.de.