The challenges of the secular constitutional state
Legal scholar Horst Dreier will be “Hans Blumenberg Visiting Professor”
The internationally renowned legal scholar and legal philosopher Prof. Dr. Horst Dreier assumes the “Hans Blumenberg Visiting Professorship” of the Cluster of Excellence “Religion and Politics” in the winter semester 2016/17. In public lectures and in his research in Münster, the Würzburg researcher will focus on the “challenges of the secular constitutional state”. The first lecture of the series is entitled “Secularisation – a ‘category of historic illegitimacy’? Facets of a hotly contested term”. Three more lectures are to follow: on the constitutional history of religious freedom in Germany, on the religious-ideological neutrality of the state, and on the question of sacral elements in the secular state. The lectures will be held on Mondays from 6.15 to 7.45 pm in lecture theatre JUR 3 of the Juridicum at Universitätsstr. 14-16 in Münster.
“Horst Dreier is not only an excellent legal scholar, but owing to his research interests also uniquely compatible with practically all subjects represented in the Cluster of Excellence”, says legal scholar Prof. Dr. Fabian Wittreck, Principal Investigator of the research association. The research focuses of the new Hans Blumenberg Visting Professor cover constitutional and intellectual history as well as the relationship of law and religion. “These cross-cutting issues offer many points of contact with the research at the Cluster of Excellence”, explains Prof. Wittreck.
“Exciting synergy effects to be expected”
Horst Dreier, born in Hanover in 1954, is Professor for Legal Philosophy, Constitutional and Administrative Law at Würzburg University. From 2001 until 2007, he was a member of the National Ethics Council. The researcher received multiple awards and published numerous works in his research areas, such as “Secularisation and sacrality” (Säkularisierung und Sakralität; 2013), “Bioethics” (Bioethik; 2013) and “Constitutional law in democracy and dictatorship” (Staatsrecht in Demokratie und Diktatur; 2016), as well as a newly conceived three-volume commentary on the German Basic Law (Grundgesetz-Kommentar). The visiting professorship, named after the influential philosopher Hans Blumenberg (1920-1996), has been founded to bringing innovative impulses from international research to Münster and consolidating the interdisciplinary compatibility at the Cluster of Excellence. Some 200 academics from more than 20 disciplines of the humanities and social sciences conduct research in the Cluster.
Horst Dreier’s research is of great interest for many subjects represented in the Cluster of Excellence, Fabian Wittreck emphasises. “His legal-philosophical work makes him a contact for philosophers, his publications on legal and constitutional history for historians. Focussing on law and constitutional sociology opens up the dialogue with the socio-scientific subjects. His practical approach to constitutional law is profoundly influenced by political science so that exciting synergy effects are to be expected in this respect as well.”
Other renowned researchers in the semesters to come
According to Fabian Wittreck, the time Horst Dreier spent at the Institute for Advanced Study in Berlin (Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin) and at the Max Weber Centre for Advanced Cultural and Social Studies in Erfurt (Max-Weber-Kolleg) is proof “not only of the appreciation that researchers show for him, but also of his marked ability to promote valuable interdisciplinary exchange as well as of the high esteem he has for this form of science.”
In the semesters to come, other renowned researchers from varying disciplines will be appointed to the Hans Blumenberg Visiting Professorship, e.g. from sociology and ethnology. The first visiting professor was the Bochum historian Prof. Dr. Lucian Hölscher in the summer semester of 2016 who addressed the 2017 anniversary of the Protestant Reformation and the culture of Protestant piety in Germany. (ska/vvm)