Portraitfoto Eva Arnaszus

Eva Arnaszus

Legitimizing Religion: Romuva’s Struggle for Legal Recognition as a Religion in Post-Independence Lithuania

2020 marked a decisive moment for religious minorities when the pagan community Romuva went before the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) to overturn Lithuania’s parliamentary decision to deny them state-recognized status. A country-wide discussion on religion, legitimacy and law surrounds the issue with contradictory historic narratives while Romuva’s status isn’t yet confirmed. My research seeks to investigate how the negotiation of the concept of religion is reflected in law and in the practices of Romuva.

Contact
Research Interests
  • Transcultural Studies
  • Minority Studies
  • Nation Building
  • Philosophy of Language
  • Transhumanism
Vita
  • 2017 – 2022
    Technical writer at SAP
  • 2013 – 2016
    M.A. Transcultural Studies at Heidelberg University
  • 2011 – 2012
    volunteer at Women Empowerment Through Self-Help Groups in Ahmedabad India
  • 2008 – 2011
    B.A. Philosophy at Bonn University
Talks, Workshops and Events
  • 12.10.2023
    Talk Romuvas Kampf um die rechtliche Anerkennung als Religion im unabhängigen Litauen im Rahmen des Kickoff-Workshop des WoC-Labs Religion glokal, University of Bremen
  • 05.09.2023
    Talk Romuva’s State Recognition: Discursive Identity Building Through Contradiction at the 20th Annual Conference of the European Association for the Study of Religions, Vilnius Lithuania
  • 22. – 24.10.2015
    Symposium Histories of Japanese Art and their Global Contexts: New Directions, University of Heidelberg
  • 31. – 02.11.2014
    Conference Transcultural Framing(s): Materials and Metaphors, University of Heidelberg
Back to overview
driver

“Contradictions are an important driver of scientific practice and knowledge.”

Norman Sieroka
sustained engagement

“The history of Western philosophy can be understood as a sustained engagement with contradiction.”

Norman Sieroka
hierarchy of norms

“If social contradictions are reflected in law, law cannot form a hierarchy of norms free of contradictions.”

Andreas Fischer-Lescano
articulate

“Contradictions need to be articulated in order to exist.”

Martin Nonhoff
Afterlife of colonialism

“Contradiction comes in many different forms. None is so debilitating than when the coloniser transitions, textually not politically, to decoloniality without taking the responsibility for the afterlife of colonialism, which they continue to benefit from. Self-examination and self-interrogation of the relations of coloniality, a necessity, seem nearly impossible for the coloniser who continues to act as beneficiary, masked in the new-found language of White fragility, devoid of an ethical responsibility of the very system of White domination they claim to be against.” (Black Consciousness and the Politics of the Flesh)

Rozena Maart