The Max-Weber-Kolleg warmly welcomes the new (junior) fellows for the 2025/26 winter semester

The research group “Religion and Urbanity” led by Susanne Rau and Jörg Rüpke welcomes fellows Meriam Belli with the project “The Space and Place of Death in the Postcolonial City” and Thomas Blanton with the project “Paul of Tarsus: Labour Markets, Itinerancy, and Religious Entrepreneurship”, Duane Corpis, who is working on “The Expansion of Protestant Charity Networks from the German Reformation to the Age of International Protestantism, 1500–1800", Julia Hillner, who is analysing ”The Empress Factor: Imperial Women's Religious Patronage and the Urban Evolution of Rome from Late Antiquity to the Middle Ages", Prem Poddar with the project “Border Cosmopolises: Himalayan Missions and Buddhism”, Benjamin Schliesser with the project “Urban Christ Groups in the First Century: The City as a Catalyst for Innovation and Distinction”, Noam Shoked, who is investigating "Haredi Landscapes: How Ultra-Orthodox Jews Transformed the Israeli Built Environment”, and Fathima Thesni Pokattungal, who is working as a doctoral researcher in a cotutelle with the University of Calicut on “Towns and Trade Networks along the Malabar Coast: A Comparative Study of Calicut and Kannur (15th to 18th Centuries)”. 

Raminda Kaur ("Ruminations: Religions, Cities and Worlds") and Emil Sobottka ("Religiously motivated political participation in radical movements. On the involvement of conservative Christians in extreme right-wing politics in Brazil") are joining the Social Philosophy and Social Theory research group as Distinguished Fellows at the Max-Weber-Kolleg. Younes Nourbakhsh is an associate fellow researching “Religion, resonance and sustainable development: a reconstruction of religious experience in the modern world based on Hartmut Rosa's theory of resonance”. Jeremy Richard is working on the project “Evil geniuses: legitimisation and reception of Wagner and West” as a doctoral researcher, and Deborah Rinaldi is joining as a postdoc to research “From social bonds to resonance theory: an analysis of the reciprocal meeting of needs and the development of resonant relationships”.

As part of the Merian Centre ICAS:MP (Metamorphoses of the Political), Yasmeen Arif is working on the project “Life, per se: A Critique of the Government of Identity” and Anshu Malhotra on “Delhi's Punjabis: Spatiality, Identity and Belonging – 1947 to Present”. Both are coming to the Max-Weber-Kolleg as Distinguished Fellows.

The International Graduate School “Resonant Self-World Relations” welcomes Lara Bortolusci Leporati as a guest, who is working on “Dimensions of the critique of alienation: normative appropriations of the aesthetic”.

The Collaborative Research Centre “Structural Change of Property” will be reinforced in the new semester by Jaivir Singh, who is working on “Bilateral Investment Treaties: The Indian Experience; Law, Property and the Economy (and the digital world)”, and Solomon Benjamin, who is researching “Property in territory and artefacts”. Mengyu Zhang is a new doctoral researcher working on “Participatory Consumption in China's Sharing Economy: Exploring Participatory Communities in Beijing's Creative Industry”. 

The ERC Advanced Grant “(De)Colonising Sharia? Tracing Transformation, Change and Continuity in Islamic Law in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) in the 19th and 20th Centuries”, led by Irene Schneider, welcomes as new (partly associated) members Dilyara Agisheva with the project "Property and Proof – Islamic Law and Colonial Rule in Russian Crimea, 1783–1850", Viktor Forian-Szabo with the project “Institutional Crossroads: Economic Law and Fiqh in Pahlavi Iran. Agency, Path Dependence, and the Making of a Legal Order”, Daniel Kolland with the project “Between Remaking and Unmaking: The Religio-Secularisation of Late Ottoman Islam” and Ari Schriber, who is working on “Shariʿa of the Colony: Judgeship, Proof, and Legal Modernity in Morocco, 1912–1965”. Rukiyye Hacifettahoğlu Güleçyüz, a doctoral researcher, will work on the project “Evaporation of Sharia under Colonial Modern Movements: Transformation of the Ottoman Legal System during the 19th and 20th Centuries”.

“We warmly welcome the many interesting scholars from Germany and abroad to Erfurt and look forward to an exciting exchange with them”, say Hartmut Rosa and Jörg Rüpke, directors of the Max-Weber-Kolleg.