Max Weber Kolleg welcomes new fellows: Research for a better future!

Max Weber Kolleg welcomes new fellows: Research for a better future!

On April 7, 2025, the Max Weber Kolleg at the University of Erfurt welcomes its new fellows and colleagues for the 2025 summer semester. Under the leadership of Susanne Rau and Jörg Rüpke, the college research group “Religion and Urbanity” has launched a number of important projects. These aim to explore the complex relationships between religion and urban life.

Among the new fellows is Irene Becci, who is working on the topic "A quarry or a sacred mount? About the relationship to nature in the context of urbanization". Bärbel Beinhauer-Köhler, on the other hand, examines the role of walls and fortifications in the context of religious plurality and economic realities in the Middle Ages with her project “Walls and Fortifications in Medieval Cairo”. Other significant projects include Maria Ciesla's perspective on the “microhistory of coexistence” between Jews and Christians in the pre-industrial city of Slutsk and Francesco Ferrari's analysis of Martin Buber's concept of the kibbutz.

Scientific exchange and interdisciplinary approaches

Also active in the collegiate research group is Agnes Flora, who researches renowned overlaps of religious thought in the early modern period in Cluj. Espita Halder examines the Karbala complex and Shiite rights to urban spaces in Kolkata and Dhaka. Eduard Iricinschi deals with urban technologies and late antique Manichaean belief networks. Richard Lim examines the connection between religious dualism and urbanity in the Roman West. Silke Steets and Martin Wallraff deal with urban reconstruction and the transformations of Christianity as part of their projects.

Birgit Schäbler will work as an associated researcher in the Social Philosophy and Social Theory research group on Global South Studies. This is particularly relevant as the term “Global South” refers to countries with a colonial past, often associated with high levels of poverty and informality. Loud Oxford Research The “Global South” is the fastest urbanizing region in the world. It is predicted that by 2025, approximately 3.75 billion people will live in urban areas of the Global South.

Research in an international context

Peter Gottschalk is at the Merian Center ICAS:MP in Delhi and researches the “Emotional Dimensions of British and American Newspaper Reporting on Muslims and Hindus, 1798–1809”. His work relates to the cultural interactions shaped by colonial history and urbanization.

Furthermore, the International Graduate School “Resonant Self-World Relations” welcomes two new doctoral students, Steen Lybke and Nicole Navratil. In his dissertation, Lybke examines “Scandinavian ecotheology in an international perspective,” while Navratil deals with the self-presentation of female leaders of nationalist parties in Europe. In the special research area “Structural Change in Property” Cinnamon Ducasse deals with the topic “Ambiguous Property: From Late Antiquity to the Middle Ages”.

The research projects as part of the ERC Advanced Grant “(De)Colonizing Sharia?” led by Irene Schneider show how diverse the thematic spectrum is, which is inspired by current global challenges. Lena-Maria Möller is dedicated to the legal and judicial transition in Qatar both before and after colonization.

Hartmut Rosa and Jörg Rüpke, the directors of the Max Weber Kolleg, are pleased about the interdisciplinary exchange with scientists from home and abroad. These new approaches to research reflect not only the interfaces between religion and urbanity, but also the complex social, economic and environmental changes taking place in the urban contexts of the Global South.

The debate about the nature of cities and urban life in the global south is becoming increasingly relevant. These urbanization processes not only lead to an increase in megacities, but also to a growing complexity of the disease burden, living conditions and social structures. Climate change represents an additional challenge that is also taken into account in current research. The combination of social inequality with urban transformations is often seen as one of the greatest challenges of the future. Further information about these developments can be found at German Institute for Development Policy.