Newsportal - Ruhr-Universität Bochum
Keep calm and drink tea
The Faculty of Catholic Theology has existed at RUB for 50 years, but a woman habilitated for the first time in 2016. Why do you think we had to wait so long?
The number of women studying Catholic Theology has always been very low, which is partly due to the fact that women weren’t admitted to this degree course until very recently. Some Professorships are still advertised for priests only. What I find alarming is that the percentage of women in the degree course amounts to approx. 50 per cent, but the balance shifts in the doctorate phase. 2014 was the first year in which almost as many women habilitated as men!
Have your bosses supported your academic career?
Yes. My doctorate supervisor from Münster was very adamant that I should complete my ThD. At that point, I had taken a break. He had called me and convinced me that I should persevere. While doing my post-doctorate degree in Bochum, my supervisor supported me as well. When we found out that I was the first woman who would habilitate in Catholic Theology at RUB, we were both decidedly of the opinion that it was about time.
Did you always intend to work in academia?
No. I had arrived at a point where I had to make the decision. I was 40 years old and had worked full time in non-university jobs – even during my ThD. In elderly care, in pastoral care and at the World Youth Day. Often, I was at my desk at 5 am for my ThD thesis and on duty at 8 am. Reconciling both parallel worlds wasn’t always easy.
When theoretical questions were being discussed in a seminar, my thoughts would often stray to real-life issues and I would, for example, wonder if I had correctly administered medication to patients. At some point, I realised that I could combine both spheres: the academic and the professional; that both ends could interlink and benefit from each other. That was a beautiful moment for me.
In your work, you interacted with other people a lot. Do you miss that in your current position, where you are mainly sitting at a desk?
Very much so. I definitely want to continue working as a volunteer for the Aids helpline, which I had to put on hold for the time being. Being tethered in everyday life is very important to me. I am also very glad that I had the opportunity to interact with so many people outside the university while conducting research for my habilitation thesis.
Your habilitation thesis is titled “Die Freiheit der Vergebung”, i.e. “Freedom of Forgiveness”. To this end, you travelled 16,000 kilometres by bike along the Silk Road through former war zones and centres of ethnic conflicts between August 2010 and October 2011. How did you come up with that idea?
I had started to work very early, and I always knew that I would want to take a one-year hiatus at some point. Plus, I’m a passionate cyclist and have often holidayed on two wheels. Once it became clear that the sabbatical would be doable, my then-husband and I decided to travel by bike as far towards the East as we could. Seeing as that route leads through many conflict-ridden regions, I tried to find answers to my research question, namely: how does forgiveness work? I set out with the question of dialogue; I learned that forgiveness is essential for it.
Did you succeed?
On my journey, I studied how people who are hostile towards each other treat each other. Is it possible to make, for example, a Serbian Orthodox sit down at a table with a Bosnian Muslim? Can one expect that they will engage in dialogue? Is forgiveness possible, and if so – under which circumstances?
Forgiveness requires that people don’t transfer their transgressions to others. Not to politics, not to history. Everyone is accountable for their own transgressions. This issue had been addressed by Kant; but until now, nobody had examined at which point it becomes relevant in theology. This is what I did in my habilitation thesis.
Was it easy for you to discuss these subject matters with the people you met?
I neither broached the subject offensively, nor conducted standardised interviews or judged people’s behaviour. What I learned from the Asian culture was: drink tea, listen, take things in and accept gifts. All these things ensure that people open up to you. That’s basically what I recommend in any situation: drink tea and wait and see.
Which route did you take, exactly?
First, we travelled through Austria, Slovenia, Croatia, Hungary, Serbia, Bosnia, Montenegro, Albania, Kosovo and Macedonia, then through Greece, Turkey to Iraq, then to Iran and from there into the former Soviet countries, namely Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kirgizstan. In those countries, many things were absolutely shocking. We came from modern Iran and ended up in countries where a large percentage of the population has no access to electricity and running water.
Finally, we travelled in China through Xinjiang. We intended to go all the way to Shanghai on the easternmost border, but we weren’t able to do so, because our visa applications were rejected. And so we went by train from Kashgar to Shanghai, and from there we got on a ferry to Japan; we spent three months there, immediately after the Fukushima disaster.
What was the most memorable experience that you made on your 14-months journey?
I will always cherish the memories of how welcoming and willing to help everyone was towards us, the travellers. Strangers frequently invited us to tea or offered us a bed for the night. People are particularly ready to help bike tourists wherever possible. In Turkey, a teacher who enjoys cycling tours himself came out of the class he was teaching the moment he spotted our fully-loaded bikes. He instantly organised accommodation for us in the next town.
A less pleasant memory is that of two sudden outbreaks of winter that surprised us and pushed us to the brink of physical collapse.
Were you fed up with cycling after your journey?
No, the bike is my constant companion. I did have aches and pains during the long tour, of course, but at some point you no longer notice them. I never stopped going on cycling tours. They are a great opportunity for getting to know people and landscapes.
9 March 2016
11.22 AM