- Associated Scholar
- Lunkwitz, Diana
- Dr. (Ph.D. in in Theology with a Focus on the Study of Religions, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg)
- n. a.
- diana.lunkwitz@fau.de
- Video Statement
ACADEMIC POSITIONS
EDUCATION and HONORS
Diana Lunkwitz is a postdoctoral researcher in Religious Studies and Intercultural Theology at FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg. She completed her degree in theology with a specialization in the study of religions at MLU Halle-Wittenberg. In her diploma thesis, she dealt with questions of mission and marginalization in the process of shaping the unity of Christian denominations. Since 2017, she has been leading seminars on topics in the fields of ecotheology and religion and ecology, first in Halle, then as a research associate at the University of Hamburg.
The focus of her doctoral thesis is on the history of omparative religion and the concept of unity with regard to the Theosophical Society at the World’s Parliament of Religions in Chicago 1893, including important subsequent interreligious congresses. Conceptualizing Islam in relation to Theosophy, India and US imperialism was a major interest in these contexts.
Since 2025, Diana Lunkwitz heads the DFG-funded project “Religion – Nature – Imperialism”, which investigates the study of religion and spirituality with an interest in global connectivities and worldmaking in ecosystemic contact zones of Cameroon. She is editor of the book series Studies in Religion and Intercultural Theology and managing editor of Utambuzi: Journal for the Study of the Religions of Africa and its Diaspora. She is also a member and co-coordinator of the Research on Anthroposophy Network (RAN).
BOOKS
2024. Unity, Theosophy and Interreligiosity: From Chicago 1893 to Chicago 1933. Edited by Diana Lunkwitz and Jayabalan Murthy. Vol. 1. Studien in Religionswissenschaft und Interkultureller Theologie / Studies in Religion and Intercultural Theology. Doctoral thesis. Göttingen: Cuvillier Verlag. https://cuvillier.de/en/shop/publications/9032-unity-theosophy-and-interreligiosity
SELECTED ARTICLES
2024. ‘Hunting, Planting and Malaria: How Cameroonian Ecosystems Changed the Basel Missionary’s Worldviews’. Studies in World Christianity 30 (1): 4–23. https://www.euppublishing.com/ doi/full/10.3366/swc.2024.0455
2023. ‘On the Colonial History of the Ideas of God(s) in Africa: A Case of the Contradictions between Missionaries and an Explorer on the Cameroonian Coastline’. Journal of Religion in Africa 53: 78–104. https://doi.org/10.1163/15700666-12340245
2022. ‘German Orientalism(s): A Postcolonial and Intersectional Re-Reading of the Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft and the Mitteilungen der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft’. Journal of Oriental and African Studies 31: 181–97.
ACADEMIC POSITIONS
EDUCATION and HONORS
Diana Lunkwitz is a postdoctoral researcher in Religious Studies and Intercultural Theology at FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg. She completed her degree in theology with a specialization in the study of religions at MLU Halle-Wittenberg. In her diploma thesis, she dealt with questions of mission and marginalization in the process of shaping the unity of Christian denominations. Since 2017, she has been leading seminars on topics in the fields of ecotheology and religion and ecology, first in Halle, then as a research associate at the University of Hamburg.
The focus of her doctoral thesis is on the history of omparative religion and the concept of unity with regard to the Theosophical Society at the World’s Parliament of Religions in Chicago 1893, including important subsequent interreligious congresses. Conceptualizing Islam in relation to Theosophy, India and US imperialism was a major interest in these contexts.
Since 2025, Diana Lunkwitz heads the DFG-funded project “Religion – Nature – Imperialism”, which investigates the study of religion and spirituality with an interest in global connectivities and worldmaking in ecosystemic contact zones of Cameroon. She is editor of the book series Studies in Religion and Intercultural Theology and managing editor of Utambuzi: Journal for the Study of the Religions of Africa and its Diaspora. She is also a member and co-coordinator of the Research on Anthroposophy Network (RAN).
BOOKS
2024. Unity, Theosophy and Interreligiosity: From Chicago 1893 to Chicago 1933. Edited by Diana Lunkwitz and Jayabalan Murthy. Vol. 1. Studien in Religionswissenschaft und Interkultureller Theologie / Studies in Religion and Intercultural Theology. Doctoral thesis. Göttingen: Cuvillier Verlag. https://cuvillier.de/en/shop/publications/9032-unity-theosophy-and-interreligiosity
SELECTED ARTICLES
2024. ‘Hunting, Planting and Malaria: How Cameroonian Ecosystems Changed the Basel Missionary’s Worldviews’. Studies in World Christianity 30 (1): 4–23. https://www.euppublishing.com/ doi/full/10.3366/swc.2024.0455
2023. ‘On the Colonial History of the Ideas of God(s) in Africa: A Case of the Contradictions between Missionaries and an Explorer on the Cameroonian Coastline’. Journal of Religion in Africa 53: 78–104. https://doi.org/10.1163/15700666-12340245
2022. ‘German Orientalism(s): A Postcolonial and Intersectional Re-Reading of the Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft and the Mitteilungen der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft’. Journal of Oriental and African Studies 31: 181–97.
