The First Culture War?: The Formation of Religion in 18th Century Prussia and the Political Theology of the Enlightenment, with Prof. Daniel Weidner

Abstract: Today, facing the increasing polarization of public debates and varied threats to democratic debate, it is necessary to rethink the nature of the “public sphere” that was for so long taken for granted as a basis for a progressive political culture. Such a reconsideration inevitably leads back to enlightenment ideas and debates, whose critical genealogy calls for renewed attention today. Focusing on the relation between enlightenment and religion, my lecture will discuss the “Woellner-Edict,” a Prussian regulation from 1788 which established religious tolerance for different groups, including Catholics and Jews, and at the same time enforced religious conformity within these groups. Explicitly criticizing the “so-called enlightenment,” the Woellner-Edict produced a widespread debate, which included more than 200 essays and pamphlets pro and contra. Numerous contributions sought to distinguish “true” Enlightenment from its “abuse”; to discuss the necessary “limits” of enlightenment and of religion; and to reconfigure political sovereignty, religious authority, and public debate in new ways. Read together, they reveal the ambivalent relation of the enlightenment towards religion and the paradoxes of a modern secular public sphere, which may still contribute to its current crises.

Prof. Dr. Daniel Weidner is a Germanist and Comparatist serving as Professor for Comparative Literature at the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg since 2020, with a focus on literary theory, German-Jewish literature, and the history of philology. He was previously an Associate Director at the Leibniz-Zentrum für Literatur- und Kulturforschung (ZfL) Berlin.