T.H. (Todd) Weir, Prof

NWO Open Competition project: Granted in May 2023.

Culture Wars and Modern Worldviews: A Transnational Conceptual History
Prof. dr. T.H. Weir (RUG),

How did “worldview” develop into a key concept in academia, policy, and public debate in twenty-first century US, UK, the Netherlands and Latin America? Situating the concept’s formation in modern culture wars, beginning in nineteenth-century Germany, the project investigates how worldview has entered into social movements, led to new theories in the sciences and is now shaping the reform of religious education. It will provide critical tools for a better understanding of the sometimes conflictual interactions of the religious and the secular in history and in the contemporary world.