The summer semester 2010 lecture series of the cluster of excellence “Religion and Politics” focuses on the formation of norms in the past and in the present. The lectures draw a chronological line from the Ten Commandments to modern constitutional law.
In its effort to define its own final legitimisations, politics is to a large extent bound to use religiously prefigured political languages. This is the line of argument furthered by the historians who convene a workshop within the Cluster of Excellence “Religion and Politics” in mid-February 2010.
While the humanities and social sciences view the ‘return of the Gods’ as recent social phenomenon in western societies, the recognition of an enduring prevalence of religion in the public sphere has been central in the anthropological discipline.
