Kolleg-Nachrichten
Till van Rahden is appointed Senior Fellow at the Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften
The historian has been working with the new research group »Democratic Vistas. Reflections on the Atlantic World« since the beginning of the year

In January 2021, the board of directors of the Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften made the historian and democracy researcher Till van Rahden a non-resident senior fellow at the Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften. As a member of the Bad Homburg research community, his responsibilities include shaping the new research group »Democratic Vistas. Reflections on the Atlantic World« and he will work closely with Johannes Völz, American studies scholar and member of the board of directors.

Professor Till van Rahden teaches German and European Studies at the Université de Montréal. He is interested in the tension between the elusive promise of equality and the ubiquity of cultural diversity and moral conflict. For many years he has worked on »democracy as a way of life«. Paying particular attention to German history, he examines how and why democracies come into being and what keeps them alive. In doing so, he focuses not only on constitutions, forms of government and structures, but above all on people's everyday lives, such as families, kindergartens and schools, the design of public spaces and the locations and media of political debate. He presents an example of this perspective in his widely acclaimed book, Demokratie. Eine gefährdete Lebensform, published in 2019.

Till van Rahden’s research activities include fellowships at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna, at the Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies and at the Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften. He is therefore very familiar with the Forschungskolleg and its working methods, embedded in a community of international visiting scholars and members of research institutions in Hessen. Dialogue with society is also important to him. Thus, Till van Rahden has repeatedly presented aspects of his research on »democracy as a way of life« in public lectures at the Kolleg: »Das Lächeln der Verfassungsrichterin. Das Ende des Patriarchats und die Suche nach Demokratie in der frühen Bundesrepublik« (July 2010); »Eine Welt ohne Familie. Der Kinderladen als ein demokratisches Heilsversprechen« (July 2014); »Wie Vati die Demokratie lernte: Zur Frage der Autorität in der frühen Bundesrepublik« (March 2017).