Marquette University

Faculty Member, Theology

About

Ulrich L. Lehner (Dr. theol., University of Regensburg 2005), specializes in the study of Religious History and Historical Theology from the 16th to the early 19th century, especially the history of scriptural interpretation, the history of monasticism and mysticism/spirituality. He is also an expert on intellectual and cultural history of Early Modernity, in particular of Central Europe, and has also written about the modern history of Germany.
Dr. Lehner was Member and Herodotus Fellow of the Princeton Institute of Advanced Studies, School of Historical Studies (2009), inaugural fellow of the Notre Dame Institute of Advanced Study/University of Notre Dame (2010), and fellow of the International Research Center for Comparative History of Religious Orders/Catholic University of Eichstätt, Germany (2008). He is also a member of the Andrew Mellon Research Group (History) “Religion Across the Disciplines” of the University of Notre Dame.

Lehner has written three books, Historia Magistra. Beiträge zur Archivgeschichte des Kollegiatstifts Straubing (Nordhausen: Bautz, 2003), Kant’s Concept of Providence (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2007), and most recently Enlightened Monks. The German Benedictines, 1740-1803 (Oxford University Press: 2011). The latter was awarded the 2012 Gilmary Shea Award of the American Catholic Historical Association for the "most distinguished and original" book on the history of the Catholic Church published in 2010/11. Lehner's current book project is a history of the theological discourses of the Catholic Enlightenment in Central Europe, 1750-1820, e.g. the rise of historical-critical exegesis, ecumenism etc. Together with Jeffrey Burson he is coediting a collection of 25 essays on the diverse intellectual landscape of Catholic Enlightenment, Transnational Trajectories of Light. Catholic Enlightenment Lives (University of Notre Dame Press: 2013). Together with Richard Muller and A.G. Roeber he is also co-editing the Oxford Handbook of Early Modern Theology, 1600-1800, the first trans-confessional handbook of this crucial phase of Christian theology.

He co-edited three books, with Ronald K. Tacelli, Kant, Lonergan und der christliche Glaube (Nordhausen: Bautz, 2005; second edition in preparation), Kontroverse Theologie (Bonn: Nova et Vetera, 2005), and with Michael Printy Brill's Companion to the Catholic Enlightenment in Europe (Leiden: Brill, 2010).
He is the sole editor of seven other books, one on the controversies on grace (Die scholastische Theologie im Zeitalter der Gnadenstreitigkeiten vol. 1 (Nordhausen: Bautz, 2007)), on 18th century pietism (Martin Knutzen – Beweis von der Wahrheit der christlichen Religion (Nordhausen: Bautz, 2006)), on late 18th and early 19th century liberal Protestant theology (Religion nach Kant – Texte aus dem Werk des Kantianers Johann Heinrich Tieftrunk (1759-1834) (Nordhausen: Bautz, 2007), on witchcraft and magic (Benedikt Poiger – Theologia Ex-Magica oder: Theologie ohne Hexen und Zauberer (Nordhausen: Bautz, 2007), on Enlightenment ecclesiology and Conciliarism (Johann Nikolaus von Hontheim – Febronius abbreviatus et emendatus (Nordhausen: Bautz, 2008) and Johann Nikolaus von Hontheim – Commentarius in suam retractationem (Nordhausen: Bautz, 2008), and on 18th century conceptions of ecumenism (Beda Mayr - Vertheidigung der katholischen Religion (1789) (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2009). Over 50 reviews of these books were published in English, American, Italian, French, Spanish and German academic journals and newspapers.



Many of his over 20 articles and 70 book reviews have appeared in leading journals (e.g., Archivum Historicum Societatis Jesu, Theological Studies, Pro Ecclesia, Theologie und Philosophie, Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte, History Compass) as well as popular magazines and newspapers (Commonweal, National Catholic Reporter). Furthermore Lehner has published a number of articles in authoritative reference works (e.g., Dictionary of Eighteenth-Century German Philosophers, Oxford Handbook on the Trinity, Lewis Ayres' Oxford Handbook of Catholic Theology).


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