Education

March 2016: Dr. phil., Sociology (summa cum laude), Graduate School of North American Studies, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany
Dissertation: Community and Individual in Late Modern Religion: Mainline Protestantism Between Tradition and Innovation. The Case of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America

February 2013 – May 2015: Empirical research in Minnesota and Wisconsin, USA

January 2008: M.A. (Magistra Artium), English Language and Literature, Political Science, Cultural Anthropology, University of Trier, Germany
M.A. Thesis: Images of the Self and Other in Chinese Canadian Literature

August – October 2007: Research stay at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada

October 2006: Ethnographic methods training with the department of Cultural Anthropology at the University of Trier, Germany, in Vietnam

• "Community and Individual in American Society“, M.A.-level theory course (Sociology, Cultural Studies, North American Studies)
• "Charismatic American Faith in Contemporary Germany”, M.A.-level applied methods course (qualitative empirical research methods)
• “Protestant Faith in America Yesterday and Today”, B.A.-level theory course (Sociology, Cultural Studies, North American Studies)
• "American Protestantism in the Twenty-first Century”, B.A.-level theory course (Sociology, Cultural Studies, North American Studies)

Research Interests

-       Late modern American culture, society, and religion

-       The tension between community and individualism in American history and contemporary society and culture

-       Individualization processes and religious subjectivism

-       Theories of social and cultural transformation

-       Theories of modernity

-       Qualitative empirical research methods

-       Research design

Selected Presentations

-       “Liturgical Traditionalism and Spiritual Vitality. Transforming Congregational Practices in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.” Fifth International Conference on Religion and Spirituality in Society: Social Movements and Faith, Berkeley. April 2015

-       “Structure, Agency, and Social Change: Margaret Archer’s Theory of Analytical Dualism and Morphogenesis.” Graduate Colloquium, Sociology, John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies, Freie Universität Berlin. January 2015

-       “The Emerging Church Movement in the USA as a Critical Response to the Neoliberalization of Religious Organizations.” XVIII ISA World Congress of Sociology: Facing an Unequal World. Challenges for Global Sociology, Yokohama. July 2014

-       “The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America in Times of Religions Change. Developing Strategies For Survival.” Interdisciplinary Colloquium, Graduate School of North American Studies, Freie Universität Berlin. February 2014

-       “The Emerging Church Movement in the USA as a Critique of 20th Century American Religion.” 4th Annual Graduate Conference of the Cluster of Excellence "The Formation of Normative Orders": Practices of Critique. Goethe-Universität, Frankfurt am Main. December 2013

-       “What's So ‘Evangelical’ About the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America? How Local Innovations and Emerging Church Currents are Transforming the ELCA as a Mainline Institution.” 75th Annual Meeting of the Association for the Sociology of Religion: Tributaries, Eddies, and Cross-Currents: Religion Outside the Mainstream, New York. August 2013

• “Liturgical Traditionalism and Spiritual Vitality. Transforming Congregational Practices in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.” Religion in Society Journal 6 (2016): 71-86.
• "Rezension: Rahel Gersch, Frommer Individualismus - Die Lakewood Church und die Phänomene Megachurch, prosperity gospel und charismatische Pastorenschaft. Berlin: Weißenseeverlag, 2013." Interdisziplinärer Arbeitskreis Pfingstbewegung April 2016.
  http://www.glopent.net/iak-pfingstbewegung/rezensionen.
• “The Emerging Church as a Critical Response to the Neoliberalization of the American Religious Landscape.” Politics and Religion Journal 9 (2015): 297-320. [Link]
• “Self and Other in Chinese Canadian Literature: Identity and Belonging in Larissa Lai’s When a Fox Is a Thousand.” In: A. Greiffenstern, J. Raabe (Hrsg.). Interculturalism in North America. Canada, the United States, Mexico, and Beyond. Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, 2013, 119-132.