PD Dr. habil. Marie-Therese Mäder

Personal information

Marie-Therese Mäder is a scholar of religion, media and philosophy with particular expertise in the field of media and religion. She teaches Religious Studies at the LMU as a private lecturer and Media Ethics at the Universities of Applied Sciences in Bern and the Grisons. Between March 2022 and February 2024, she was a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellow at the Università degli Studi di Macerata, Italy. Her research foci are media and religion, migration, funeral culture, the mediatization of weddings, the ethical dimensions of documentary media, religion in TV series, and audience research. For more information see Marie-Therese's personal website.

Research interests

Ethics, religion, global communication, cultural diversity and digital transformation are central themes in my interdisciplinary research, which is based in a wide landscape of media, culture, ethics, communication, and religion. Topics of interest include migration, rites of passage, digitalization, popular culture, and media ethics. Cultural studies, religious studies, gender studies, as well as theories of media and commuication color my theoretical horizon. Applied methods are just as diverse, chosen according to the question and the object of research. They encompass media analysis and hermeneutics, quantitative and qualitative methods, visual anthropology, and participant observation.

Selected publications

1. Mäder, Marie-Therese. Migration, in: Heller, Birgit / Franke, Edith (eds.), Religion und Geschlecht, Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter, 2024, 539-550.
2. Mäder, Marie-Therese / Glavac, Monika. Dokumentarfilme als Kommunikationsräume religiöser Identitäten, in: Anke Offerhaus, (ed.), Medienvielfalt - Religionsvielfalt. Springer VS, 2023., 241-262.
3. Mäder, Marie-Therese. An American Religion in Europe. How Latter-day Saints Temple Communicate a World View of Sublimity and Separation, in: Daria Pezzoli-Olgiati, Stefanie Knauss (eds.), Religion in Representations of Europe, Shared and Contested Practices, Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlag, 2023, 199-224.
4. Mäder, Marie-Therese. »Ich wollte Schwestern, nicht nur einen Mann«. Zum Verhältnis von Gender und Religion in Reality Shows. in: Isabella Schwaderer / Katharina Waldner (Hgg.), Religion und Gender: Erfahrungen - Konstruktionen - Medien, Bielefeld: transcript, 2023, 77-112.
5. Mäder, Marie-Therese / Knauss, Stefanie (eds.). Academic Teaching with Short Film in Religion and Ethics, Journal for Religion, Film, and Media, 8/2, 2022.
6. Mäder, Marie-Therese. Experiencing Responsibility. A Phenomenological Approach to the Teaching of Media Ethics, Journal for Religion, Film, and Media, 8/2, 2022, 83-98.
7. Mäder, Marie-Therese / Fritz, Natalie (eds.). Uncertain Destinies and Destinations. Audiovisual Perspectives on Migration and Religion, Marburg: Schüren Verlag, 2021.
8. Mäder, Marite-Therese / Saviello, Alberto / Scolari, Baldassare (eds.). Highgate Cemetery. Image Practices in Past and Present, Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlag, 2020.
9. Marie-Therese Mäder. Mormon Lifestyles. Communicating Religion and Ethics in Documentary Media, Nomos Verlag, Baden-Baden, 2020.
10. Mäder, Marie-Therese / Fritz, Natalie / Höpflinger, Anna-Katharina / Knauss, Stefanie / Pezzoli-Olgiati, Daria. Sichtbare Religion. Eine Einführung in die Religionswissenschaft, Berlin: DeGruyter Verlag, 2018.