Dunja Sharbat Dar is a Research Associate and PhD Student at the Center for Religious Studies (CERES) at Ruhr University Bochum, Germany, where she also serves as an Associate Lecturer. She is affiliated with multiple research initiatives including the Graduate School of Metaphor and Religion and the Collaborative Research Center 1475 "Metaphors of Religion." Her academic work bridges religious studies, spatial analysis, and cultural transformation, with particular expertise in Japanese religious contexts. Her educational background includes: PhD candidate since 2020 with the working title "Religious Space and the Invisible – understanding socio-spatial arrangements in Japanese churches" M.A. in Study of Religion from Ruhr University Bochum (2019) B.A. in Study of Religion & Japanese Studies from Ruhr University Bochum and Fukushima University, Japan (2017) Dar's research focuses on religion in Japan, particularly examining socio-religious transformational processes following catastrophes like the 2011 Fukushima disaster. Her work analyzes religious spaces and architectures in urban environments across multiple religious traditions, investigates religious discourses on sexuality through queer studies frameworks, and explores religion in popular culture including video games and anime. Her methodological approach combines spatial analysis with ethnographic fieldwork, creating innovative frameworks for understanding how physical spaces shape religious practices and identities. She has conducted extensive fieldwork in Fukushima, documenting how religious communities have adapted and transformed following the 3.11 disaster. Her scholarly output reveals a consistent trajectory examining religious spaces in transformation across diverse contexts. Recent work analyzes religious representations in digital media and video games, while maintaining a strong focus on Japanese religious contexts, particularly post-disaster religious communities in Fukushima. She has developed comparative approaches to studying religious atmospheres in different cultural contexts, such as her comparative work on Japanese and German church spaces. Her research demonstrates interdisciplinary engagement with anthropology, urban studies, disaster studies, and digital humanities, creating bridges between traditional religious studies and contemporary cultural analysis. Dar actively contributes to academic community building through co-organizing the academic blog "Marginalien: Religionswissenschaftliche Randnotizen" (Marginalia: Side Notes from the Study of Religions) since 2021 and co-managing the "Mapping Religionswissenschaft" project funded by the German Association for the Study of Religion. She has presented her research at numerous international conferences, including presentations on Japanese religious spaces at Waseda University in Tokyo and the German Institute for Japanese Studies. Her work demonstrates strong engagement with both theoretical frameworks and practical fieldwork, particularly her ongoing research in Fukushima where she has documented religious community recovery after the 2011 disaster.
