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Practical matters How to find us T.H. (Todd) Weir, Prof Dr

Research interests

My research has illuminated different dimensions of the encounter between secularism and religion in modern Europe. My monograph Secularism and Religion in Nineteenth-Century Germany: The Rise of the Fourth Confession, Cambridge UP, 2014 (winner of the Jacques Barzun Prize for Cultural History) argued for the insertion of secularism into German religious history, not just as a force acting against the existing Christian confessions, but as a confessional force in its own right.

Recently, I have been pushing this work into the twentieth century, demonstrating that the interwar period marked a second “culture war” in German history. My second monograph investigates secularism and socialism of Germany between 1890 and 1933. As as examing the role of secularism in sociailst culture, it shows that antisecularism was a key element in the organization and radicalization of the political right in the late Weimar Republic.

A second direction of recent work is the transnational history of religion and politics in the interwar period. I initiated and now convene an international research network of ca. 30 scholars on the “Socialism and Religion in the Twentieth Century”, which held its first conference in June 2015 on interwar religious politics. A follow-up conference on religion and socialism in the long 1960s was held in Groningen in June 2017, and a conference on apologetics and politics was convened wtih the support of the British Academy in September 2017.

A third area of research interest is the history of Weltanschauung/worldview in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In spring 2017, I gave a Tedx Talk on the subject.

Since coming to Groningen, I have begun to develop a series of collaborations with NGOs and university partners on the relationship of heritage and interreligious dialogue.

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Publications

Säkularismus (Freireligiöse, Freidenker, Monisten, Humanisten)

The Christian Front Against Godlessness: Anti-Secularism and the Demise of the Weimar Republic, 1928–1933

A European Culture War in the Twentieth Century? Antic-Catholicism and Anti-Bolshevism between Moscow, Berlin, and the Vatican 1922 to 1933

Germany and the new global history of secularism: Questioning the postcolonial genealogy

Secularism and Religion in Nineteenth-Century Germany: The Rise of the Fourth Confession

The Specter of “Godless Jewry”: Secularism and the “Jewish Question” in Late 19th-Century Germany

Bloomsbury Handbook on Religion and Heritage in Contemporary Europe

Heritage and the Transformation of Religion in Recent European History

Politics, Science and Dissent in the Vormaerz

Fostering Inclusive Learning Environments Through Cultural Heritage

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Press/media

Der Fall Otto Dibelius

Interview with Todd Weir, Director of the Centre for Religion and Heritage on the REBELAH project

Is Trump een fascist?

History Now: Todd H. Weir

Il Patrimonio Religioso in un'Europa Multireligiosa

Zonder dialoog geen toekomst voor religieus erfgoed

Nederlands Dagblad, "Een kerkgebouw betekent niet alleen iets voor kerkgangers."

NieuwWij, "Religieus erfgoed wordt multicultureel – maar hoe?"

Dagblad van het Noorden, "Grote conferentie over erfgoed in Stad."

Ongeloof evengoed een confessie

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