From 2002–2011 he studied Comparative Religion, Drama Studies, Sociology, and North American Literature in Munich, Bielefeld and Basel. He received a PhD from the University of Basel, Switzerland based on a dissertation entitled “Distinctions of Religion: Analyses of the modern discourse on ‘religion’ in world society and the problem of the differentiation of ‘religion’ in 19th and early 20th century Buddhist contexts”. In 2014/15 he was a Visiting Scholar at Utrecht University and Stanford University.