About the Working Paper Series

Metaphor Papers is a Working Paper Series by the Collaborative Research Center 1475 “Metaphors of Religion”. In the Metaphor Papers, the CRC documents preliminary findings, work-in-progress and ongoing debates and makes them available for discussion.

Religious meaning-making occurs in and through metaphors. In metaphors, meaning is transferred from one semantic domain to another. Religion, which cannot directly address its ultimate subject (the transcendent), is dependent on this procedure. The CRC seeks to more thoroughly understand this process theoretically and grasp it methodologically to research its semantic forms empirically and comparatively. The shapes religion takes as a socio-cultural phenomenon are thus better understood and central developments within specific religious traditions become more tangible. The CRC contributes to the historiography of religions, on the one hand, and to answering systematic questions in the comparative study of religions, on the other.