Managing Melancholy

Tine Reeh, from 2017 Associate Professor at University of Copenhagen, is a church historian with a strong focus on archival sources and interest in the cultural significance of Christianity. Her doctoral work on secularization (20th century), led her to pursue work on individualisation in Christianity (18th century). Her field is Danish church history, and 2 years in the US (Princeton, UC Berkeley) plus at Forschungszentrum Gotha, Germany, helped set it within an international horizon. She held a three year collective grant on religion and UNESCO World Heritage from Independent Research Fund Denmark (2017–2020) and is currently leader of the interdisciplinary, collective research project, Managing Melancholy: Dynamics of Theology and Medicine in 18th Century Denmark-Norway (VELUX Foundations). Elected member of Selskabet for Danmarks Kirkehistorie (Danish Society of Church History) in 2014, from 2025 chair. From 2023 member of the scientific board of Interdisziplinäres Zentrum für Pietismusforschung, Martin Luther Universität Halle-Wittenberg. Catherine Beck is a social historian of medicine and the maritime world, specializing in the history of madness and disability at sea in the long eighteenth century. In 2022, she moved from the UK to Denmark to undertake an EU H2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Copenhagen working on her project MADSEA, Madness, Religiosity and Environment: belief and materiality in community responses to mental difference and distress among early modern Seafarers. Beck is currently a Guest Researcher at the University of Copenhagen and will begin a new postdoctoral fellowship at Lund University in September 2025. Her publications include her monograph Patronage and the British Royal Navy 1775–1815. Herman J. Selderhuis ist Professor für Kirchengeschichte an der Theologischen Universität Apeldoorn, Direktor von Refo500, Wissenschaftlicher Kurator der Johannes a Lasco Bibliothek sowie Präsident des Internationalen Calvinkongresses.Dr. Christopher B. Brown is Associate Professor of Church History at Boston University. Dr. Günter Frank ist Direktor der Europäischen Melanchthon-Akademie Bretten und außerplanmäßiger Professor am Karlsruher Institut für Technologie. Barbara Mahlmann-Bauer ist Professorin em. für „Neuere deutsche Literatur“ an der Universität Bern. Tarald Rasmussen ist Professor für Kirchengeschichte an der Universität Oslo. Dr. Violet Soen is Associate Professor for Early Modern History at the Faculty of Arts at the University of Leuven. Dr. Zsombor Tóth is Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Literary Studies at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Dr. Günther Wassilowsky ist Professor für Kirchengeschichte an der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. Prof. Dr. Siegrid Westphal ist Inhaberin des Lehrstuhls für Geschichte der Frühen Neuzeit an der Universität Osnabrück sowie Direktorin des Forschungszentrums Institut für Kulturgeschichte der Frühen Neuzeit.