About the Journal
About the ZjR: The ZjR is an international double-blind peer reviewed online-journal in the field of the academic Study of Religions. The main aim of the journal is to provide a platform for today's and tomorrow's scholars of the discipline of the study of religion as well as challenging, maybe unorthodox, and thought-provoking, new (and therefore: young) theories, methods, perspectives or ideas on a well established area of research, namely religion(s). Since 2006, thereby, the ZjR can be considered as network and platform for the very future of the discipline, as it is its young researchers, ideas, theories and methods.
IAHR principles: With regard to what constitutes the academic study of religion(s), ZjR observes the principles as recognised by the International Association for the History of Religions. For that reason, all articles dealing with past or present religious phenomena must be critical, analytical, cross-cultural, non-confessional and non-apologetic in their character.
Reflexivity: All contributors to ZjR are obliged to reflect a familiarity with basic topics and problems common in the study of religion(s), such as religious plurality, structures of power, representation as well as ethno- and gender-centrisms. Moreover, authors are expected to be able to intelligibly present their approaches and to indicate that they have consciously selected the theories and methods used.
The Zeitschrift für junge Religionswissenschaft understands religion(s) and so-called religious data as products of social construction, by which human beings qua social beings attribute particular patterns of interpretation to their environment and, thus, produce meaning. As a result, articles must abstain from describing religion(s) and religious data as sui-generis phenomena or monolithic blocks. Rather, ZjR encourages approaches which investigate religion(s) in their social, historical and cultural context and, hence, apply perspectives such as philological, historical, cultural cognitivistic or social scientific.
»Junge« Religionswissenschaft: The Zeitschrift für junge Religionswissenschaft is intended to be a journal primarily, but not exclusively, by students for students. Conscious of its roots in the annual symposia of German-speaking students in Religionswissenschaft, ZjR provides a secure space for experiential approaches, where students in the study of religion(s) can meet and exercise their scholarly exchange of thoughts.
