Prof. Oliver Scheiding and Dr. Anja-Maria Bassimir together and separately work on topics within the fields of US-American religion and periodical studies. We approach periodicals not only as reservoirs of content or archives of knowledge but as dynamic complexes encompassing material, ideas, personnel, technologies, production processes, circulation, and economics.
We pursued our interest in religious periodicals as part of the research group “UnDoing Differences: Practices in Human Differentiation,” (2013-2019) funded by the German Research Foundation. During the first phase, 2013-2016, our focus was on religious magazines and pluralism, boundary-making, and community. Our focus gradually shifted from denominational boundary-making and Christian periodicals in early US-American history to processes of religious identity-making in contemporary evangelical magazines.
During the second phase, 2016-2019, the project focused on mechanisms of exclusion and inclusion in religious magazines in the United States. Widening our approach to include ethnographiy methods, we investigated magazines as a (multi-) media enterprises. Postulating that magazines played a role in perpetuating faith, we focused on how religious magazines work and how new technologies and new media change them.
Publications
Bassimir, Anja-Maria and Stefan Gelfgren, eds. Protestant Periodicals in Transition: From the Twentieth Century to the Digital Age. Leiden: Brill Studies in Periodical Culture. 2023.
Bassimir, Anja-Maria. “Religiöse Zeitschriften am Beispiel von Christianity Today.” Eds. Oliver Scheiding and Sabina Fazli. Handbuch Zeitschriftenforschung. Leiden/Boston: Brill. 2023, 531-537.
Scheiding, Oliver and Anja-Maria Bassimir. “Under the Cover of Religious Periodicals: Editorial Practice and Magazine Production.” Eds. Jutta Ernst, Dagmar von Hoff, and Björn von Rimscha. Periodicals in Focus: Methodological Approaches and Theoretical Frameworks. Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2022, 332-368.
Bassimir, Anja-Maria. Evangelical News: Politics, Gender, and Bioethics in Conservative Christian Magazines of the 1970s and 1980s. Tuscaloosa: Alabama University Press. 2022.
Sebastian Schüler: Rezension zu: Bassimir, Anja-Maria: Evangelical News. Politics, Gender, and Bioethics in Conservative Christian Magazines of the 1970s and 1980s.Tuscaloosa 2022. In: H-Soz-Kult, 02.02.2023, <www.hsozkult.de/publicationreview/id/reb-118281>.
Bassimir, Anja-Maria. “Combating Caustic Communication with Truth and Beauty: Christianity Today, Beautiful Orthodoxy, and US-Culture.” Eds. Stefan Gelfgren and Daniel Lindmark. Strong Religion and Mainstream Culture: Opposition, Negotiation, and Adaption. Basingstoke: Palgrave Studies in Lived Religion and Societal Challenges, 2021, 213-237.
Bassimir, Anja-Maria.“Definition – Macht – Evangelikal: Standortbestimmung zum gegenwärtigen US-amerikanischen Evangelikalismus.” Amerikastudien/ American Studies, Vol. 63 (2018), 389-422.
Bassimir, Anja-Maria and Kathrin Kohle. “Evangelikale und Massenmedien, Strukturen in den USA.” Eds. Frederik Elwert et al. Handbuch Evangelikalismus. Bielefeld: Transcript, 2017. 409-423.
Scheiding, Oliver. "Die Autopoiesis des Evangelikalismus: Das Glaubensgeschäft einer transkonfessionellen Missionsbewegung." Ed. Stefan Hirschauer, Un/doing Differences: Praktiken der Humandifferenzierung. Weilerswist: Velbrück. 2017, 144-170.
Scheiding, Oliver and Anja-Maria Bassimir, eds. The Press and the Pulpit: Religious Periodicals and Publishing in Transnational Contexts. Cambridge Scholars. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 2017.
Scheiding, Oliver. “Toward a Media History of Religious Periodicals.” Eds. Oliver Scheiding and Anja-Maria Bassimir. The Press and the Pulpit: Religious Periodicals and Publishing in Transnational Contexts. Cambridge Scholars. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 2017. 1-21.
Bassimir, Anja-Maria. “Evangelical Magazines in a Digital Age.” Eds. Oliver Scheiding and Anja-Maria Bassimir. The Press and the Pulpit: Religious Periodicals and Publishing in Transnational Contexts. Cambridge Scholars. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 2017. 145-167.
Scheiding, Oliver. “Die Autopoiesis des Evangelikalismus: Das Glaubensgeschäft einer transkonfessionellen Missionsbewegung.” Ed. Stefan Hirschauer. Un/doing Differences: Praktiken der Humandifferenzierung. Weilerswist: Velbrück. 2017, 144-170.
Scheiding, Oliver and Anja-Maria Bassimir. “Religion – Schrift – Differenz: Materialität und Presseforschung im Spiegel evangelikaler Zeitschriften der USA.” Eds. Herbert Kalthoff et al. Materialität: Herausforderung für die Sozial- und Kulturwissenschaften. München: Wilhelm Fink, 2016.
Team
Prof. Dr. Oliver Scheiding (director), Dr. Anja-Maria Bassimir