Organised by Christian Meyer, project The Invention of the Modern Religious Bookshelf: Canons, Concepts and Communities, Research Area 3: "Future Perfect". This event is part of the lecture series The Invention of the Modern Religious Bookshelf.

Over the course of 2023 the EXC 2020 project "The Making of the Modern Religious Bookshelf: Canons, Concepts and Communities" will host a nine-part lecture series. Summarized best by the alternative title of "on the way towards a theory of the modern religious bookshelf" each of the nine lectures in the series will explore the space in between a single volume and the organizations that house them. Starting with the observation that religious literature often occupies a peculiar place in modern libraries and bookshops sitting under headers like Eastern Wisdom, Esoteric, or World Religion, the lecture series pursues the questions how those bookshelves developed, who were local communities or global networks behind the new canon and who were (or are) the relevant institutions or agents. Especially, how to interpret the role local practices played in displaying, shelving, or sorting books and what this means for the development of the modern religious bookshelf as a sort of agent in forming a new global religious canon.