PD Dr. Lorenz Trein

About

In his research and teaching, Lorenz Trein combines discourse analysis and historical semantics with the theory and history of religion. His current projects include a study of religious debates surrounding the “Anthropocene,” an examination of the history of the concept of secularization, and a handbook on the history of religions in Europe. In his habilitation thesis, he established a dialogue between postcolonial debates on secularism and systems-theoretical perspectives on secularization, eschatology, and conceptions of time and history in the 20th century. In his dissertation, he examined the intertwining of the concepts of Islam and religion in German-speaking regions around 1900. He was a visiting scholar at both the University of California at Berkeley, and the Center for Advanced Studies at LMU Munich. He was also a lecturer at the University of Basel, where he earned his doctorate. The Research Fund of the University of Basel, the Postdoc Support Fund of the Faculty of Philosophy at LMU Munich, and the Fritz Thyssen Foundation have also supported his work. The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation recently nominated him to serve on the organizing committee for the 17th German-Israeli Frontiers of Humanities Symposium, which is titled “The Sacred and the Secular through the Generations.”

Research Interests

• Theory and methodology of the study of religion
• Cultures of conversions
• European history of religion, with a focus on secularization, the scientification of religion, and interpretations of Islam
• Perceptions of time and history
• The discourse on the Anthropocene
• History of concepts and sociology of knowledge
  

Current Projects

• Contemporary Cultures of Conversion
• Unavailability and Transcendence: Religious Responses to the “Anthropocene”
• Religion and Secularization (monograph under contract with Nomos), with Christoph Auffarth
  
  

Selected Publications

1. History and the Secular, edited volume with Jonathan Sheehan und Robert Yelle, De Gruyter, under review.
2. “Über die Unverfügbarkeit der Geschichte: Transzendenzbezüge historischer und sozialer Zeit in Diskursen über das Anthropozän,” in: Barbara Picht, Henning Trüper (eds.): Epochenwenden. Zur Aktualität historischer Periodisierung, Wallstein 2025, pp. 279-298.
3. Säkulare Religion. Ein Beitrag zur Säkularisierungsdebatte, edited volume with Christoph Auffarth, Mohr Siebeck 2024.
4. Beobachtungen der Säkularisierung und die Grenzen der Religion, Mohr Siebeck 2023.
5. „On Genealogy Critique of Secularized Christianity”, in: Political Theology 22/6 (2021), pp. 457-474.
6. Narratives of Disenchantment and Secularization: Critiquing Max Weber’s Idea of Modernity, edited volume with Robert Yelle, Bloomsbury Academic 2021.
7. “Feeling Religion (As a Matter of Method): Historical Meaning and Affective Engagement in the Study of Religion,” in: Religion Compass 13/8 (2019), pp. 1-11.
8. “Governing the Fear of Islam: Thinking Islamophobia through the Politics of Secular Affect in Historical Debate,” in: ReOrient: The Journal of Critical Muslim Studies 4/1 (2018), pp. 44-58.
9. “Islamophobia reconsidered: Approaching Emotions, Affects, and Historical Layers of Orientalism in the Study of Religion,” in: Method & Theory in the Study of Religion 29/3 (2017), pp. 205-220.
10. Begriffener Islam: Zur diskursiven Formation eines Kollektivsingulars und zum Islamdiskurs einer europäischen Wissenschafts- und Religionsgeschichte, Ergon 2015.