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Dear friends and colleagues,

We are very pleased to welcome new Fellows and a new Associate Member, Lori Beaman, to the KFG this month. Lori will hold the Leibniz Professorship at Leipzig University for the winter semester 2022/2023 and her inaugural lecture will take place next week on 14 October. We would also like to draw your attention to a lecture series, two calls for applications, and an event taking place this week in Leipzig. Please note that there is no colloquium next week.

Enjoy and have a good week!

Anja & Lucy

Welcome to new Fellows and Associate Member

We warmly welcome new Fellows as well as an Associate Member to our KFG in October:

Klaus Buchenau, Professor of Southeast and East European History at Universität Regensburg, will be with us from October to March working on his research project “Russian secularities through the lense of Christian-Muslim relations in the Volga region, 16th to 21st centuries”.

Marian Burchardt, Professor of Sociology at the Leipzig Research Centre Global Dynamics (ReCentGlobe) and Institute of Sociology at Leipzig University, has been an essential associate member of our research group since its beginning and has already contributed to our research with his work. Now we are pleased to have him with us for 12 months as a Senior Research Fellow. He will be researching for his project “Regulating Difference. Religious Diversity and Nationhood in the Secular West”.

Uta Karstein, Research Fellow in Cultural Management and Sociology of the Cultural Field at the Institute for Cultural Studies at Leipzig University, will work with us for 6 months starting in October. She will enrich our project with her work on “Coping with Autonomy: How Religion Dealt With the Emergence of an Autonomous Art Field in 19th Century Germany”.

Lori G. Beaman, Professor of Classics and Religious Studies at the University of Ottawa, will be holding the prestigious Leibniz Professorship at Leipzig University for the winter semester 2022/2023. The Leibniz Professorship is awarded each semester to renowned international researchers and is one of the highest honours our university bestows. We are delighted to have Lori join our KFG as an Associate Member during her stay in Leipzig and are looking forward to this great opportunity for collaboration.

We are very happy to have you all with us and warmly welcome you to our team!

Inaugural lecture by Lori Beamen, Leibniz Professorship at Leipzig University: “The Transformational Possibilities of Immanence: The Rise of Nonreligion and its Implications for the Climate Crisis”, 14 October

Next week Friday, our new Associate Member Lori Beaman will give her inaugural lecture for her Leibniz Professorship, entitled "The Transformational Possibilities of Immanence: The Rise of Nonreligion and its Implications for the Climate Crisis":

The number of people who affiliate and identify with institutional religion in traditionally Christian countries is declining. This discussion explores the implications of that decline vis à vis human relationships with the planet. In particular, Lori argues that an ethos of equality may be replacing an ethos of stewardship and that that shift is vital for sustaining life on earth. The imbrication of hierarchical understandings of terrestrial life with planetary destruction (ie climate change) is undeniable and is supported by some versions of the transcendence narrative. This argument is not new: Lynn White identified this relationship in 1967 in his provocative article in Science. What is new is the significant shift in the religious landscape.

Drawing from research being conducted under the Nonreligion in a Complex Future Project, Lori will discuss an emerging discourse of equality in survey data and interviews with hikers and community gardeners. Ultimately, the increase in nonreligion may create the necessary conditions for non-hierarchical and immanent forms of living well together in a more-than-human world.

The lecture will be held in English with simultaneous German translation.

Our director Christoph Kleine will open the event. Sebastian Rödl, Professor of Philosophy with a focus on Practical Philosophy, Leipzig University, will then give a laudation. After Lori's lecture there will be a discussion together with our directors Christoph Kleine and Monika Wohlrab-Sahr.

Date: Friday, 14 October | 6.30–8.30 pm
Venue: Paulinum

Lecture Series on Belletristic Criticism of Religion

Our Associates member Horst Jungiger has organized a ring lecture this semester on "Belletristic Criticism of Religion". The lecture series deals with the critical examination of religious topics from the field of literature and fiction using the example of relevant well-known texts.

The lecture series kicks off next week Monday with Richard Faber on "Aristocracy, Enthusiasm, Catholicism, and Neopaganism in the philanthropic pagan Tania Blixen."

The lectures are held in German.

Date: Mondays | 3.15–5.15 p.m.
Venue: Lecture Hall 12, Universitätsstraße 3

Job Opportunities: 2 Postdoc Research Fellowships in Chinese Studies, German Studies and European Studies at Shanghai International Studies University

Our Senior Research Fellow Philip Clart points to a job advertisement that we would like to share with you: At the Shanghai Academy for Global Governance and Area Studies (SAGGAS) at the Shanghai International Studies University, two Postdoctoral Research Fellow positions in Chinese Studies, German Studies and European Studies are available from 1 January 2023 for a period of two to three years. Tasks and perspectives include collaboration on joint research projects and independent research work in Chinese Studies, German Studies and European Studies, participation in scientific events of the SAGGAS and supervision of Master students.

For further information, please contact the Office of International Cooperation and Exchange via e-mail. 

Event: Leipzig denkt. Das Festival: Alarm und Utopie, 5–8 October

“Leipzig denkt: Alarm und Utopie” (“Leipzig thinks/reflects: Alert and Utopia”) is a cross-disciplinary think-talk-art festival, that will take place from 5–8 October. In a time of increasing social fragmentation, speechlessness and bubble-isation, it creates and tests spaces in different choreographic settings for thinking and speaking together in public – about central social questions: about our ego, our we and our world relations. The festival combines and mixes elements, impulses and conversation choreographies from theatre and the arts with those from philosophy and the humanities and social sciences. Moreover, it also links the most diverse places of thought in the city of Leipzig – from cultural centres and theatres to public spaces and the university.

Participants include Hartmut Rosa, Wilhelm Schmid, Rahel Jaeggi and Ute Gahlings. 

Panel „Lebensformen - an was orientieren wir uns?“ (“Ways of Life – What do we orientate ourselves to?”) with Hartmut Rosa, Wilhelm Schmid, Rahel Jaeggi, Ute Gahlings and Dominik Erhard. 
6 October | 7–10 p.m. (CET)
LOFFT - Theater, Spinnereistraße 7/Halle 7, 04179 Leipzig AND Online via Livestream

Entrance Fee: 15 Euro (reduced price 10 Euro)

Festival Dates: 5–8 October | Various venues in Leipzig (partly also as Livestream)

If you have any content that you think suits the purpose of the weekly, please feel free to send it to us at multiple-secularities@uni-leipzig.de.