Professorship "History of Western Europe in Early Modernity":
Prof. Dr. Mark Hengerer

The Professorship “History of Western Europe in Early Modernity” (Prof. Dr. Mark Hengerer) represents the field of early modern history in research and teaching in its entirety. Taking the  connection of the two focus areas “Western Europe” and “Holy Roman Empire” as its starting point, it aims at developing new perspectives on the history of Europe by taking into account the eminently important role of Western Europe in global history.
The early modern age was a time of epochal transformation: the appropriation of the non-European world, the spread of print, the confessional divisions of Latin Christendom, the intensity of technical innovation and the autonomization of states, politics, and science changed the face of Europe and the world dramatically. The differences in the development of these processes of fundamental change contributed to a dynamization of European history. The path toward the global society of modernity was a change through competition.
The teaching agenda relies on the ideal of “teaching from research”. While choosing interesting topics as examples, it links interdisciplinarity, classical as well as innovative theories and methods such as digital humanities and the explanation of central elements of scientific pragmatism. The lectures focus on important topics in the history of Western Europe and the Holy Roman Empire including the Habsburg territories as well as on theories and methods.