The Enlightenment Conference

Religion and Enlightenment [First International Conference about Research of the Enlightenment theory; 30th March – 2nd April 2014; university of Münster]

During the time of the Enlightenment there has been an overall humanistic focus on modernization. Church and theological history also come into consideration in the 18th century by distinctive new transformation processes, in which old protestant thoughts and life worlds are transformed into modern, pluralistic, subjective theoretical reasoned models and scales.  

While the Enlightenment is already cultivated as a research field by cultural studies, the church and theological historical perspective just discovered the importance of this epoch. By now, there are several editions, monographies, studies and first compendiums and it is to be expected that this development is about to continue.

This makes interdisciplinary and international forums for the current theological Enlightenment research useful to discuss results of their work as well as to collect important aspects. It also provides a new orientational frame for future research. This goal was realized with the “first conference about research of the Enlightenment” which took place from 30th March till the 2nd April 2014 with the title “Religion and Enlightenment” at the university of Münster.

This event was officially begun with an evening lecture by Prof. Dr. Hans Joas (Freiburg). There were main lectures of internationally popular researches about central aspects of the theological, philosophical, historical and literature scientific research of the Enlightenment. The afternoons offered possibilities to present and discuss own, current research work and to discuss them with each other. Following sections provided necessary discussion spaces:

  • Politics and society
  • Literature and art
  • Philosophy and scientific theory
  • Theology and science
  • Church and devoutness

Program and posters

The poster is available for download here. It can also be requested in DIN A2 or DIN A3 via the seminar in the desired number.