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PD Dr. Thomas Weller

Member of the academic staff, Department of History
Room: 01 216
Phone: +49 6131 39 30310
Fax: +49 6131 39 30154

E-Mail


Personal Details:

Born in 1969 in Leverkusen, Thomas Weller studied History, German and Spanish Language and Literature, and Educational Science at the universities of Cologne and Seville. He qualified as a secondary school teacher in 1999 and received a doctoral degree in History from the University of Münster in 2004.
From 2000 to 2008, he was a researcher at the Collaborative Research Centre 496 (SFB 496) "Symbolic Communication and Social Value Systems" at the University of Münster. Since June 2008, he has been a member of the academic staff at the Leibniz Institute of European History, Mainz. 2022 Habilitation and award of the venia legendi for the subject of Modern History by the Department 07 History and Cultural Studies of the JGU Mainz.

Since 1 April 2021, Thomas Weller has held the Chair of Early Modern History at the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg.

Research Interests:

Social and cultural history of the early modern town
Symbolic communication in the early modern period
Cultural difference and early modern foreign relations
Spanish history

Selected Publications:

Theatrum Praecedentiae. Zeremonieller Rang und gesellschaftliche Ordnung in der frühneuzeitlichen Stadt: Leipzig 1500-1800 (Symbolische Kommunikation in der Vormoderne), Darmstadt 2006.
Merchants and Courtiers. Hanseatic Representatives at the Spanish Court in the Seventeenth Century, in: Paola Volpini (Hg.), Ambasciatori »minori« nella Spagna di età moderna. Uno sguardo europeo (Dimensioni e problemi della ricerca storica 1/2014), Rom 2015, S. 73-98.
Eine schwarze Legende? Zum Umgang mit religiöser Differenz im frühneuzeitlichen Spanien, in: Johannes Paulmann / Matthias Schnettger / Thomas Weller (Hg.), Unversöhnte Verschiedenheit. Verfahren zur Bewältigung religiös-konfessioneller Differenz in der europäischen Neuzeit (VIEG, Beiheft 108), Göttingen 2016, S. 41-63.
Humanitarianism Before Humanitarianism? Spanish Discourses on Slavery From the Sixteenth to the Nineteenth Century, in: Fabian Klose / Mirjam Thulin (Hg.), Humanity. A History of European Concepts in Practice From the Sixteenth Century to the Present, Göttingen 2016 (VIEG, Beiheft 110), S. 151-168.
›He knows them by their dress‹. Dress and Otherness in Early Modern Spain, in: European History Yearbook 20 (2019), S. 52–72.

Research projects:

Cultural Difference and Early Modern Foreign Relations. The Spanish Monarchy and the Hanseatic Cities, approx. 1570–1700

By focussing on two actors who can be considered as unequal in various regards this project examines the contemporary ways of coping with cultural difference in the field of sixteenth and seventeenth-century foreign relations.

Leibniz research association "The Value of the Past"

The Leibniz research association "The Value of the Past" started its work on September 1, 2021 and over the next four years will investigate the significance of the past for societies in the past and present.

Lives on the move. Mobile identities and belonging in the Iberian Atlantic, 1570–1700

The project explores the connection between mobility and border demarcations from an actor-centred perspective. The focus is on merchants of different "nations" who participated in the Atlantic trade from Seville. In doing so, they crossed the spatial and political-legal borders drawn by the Spanish authorities. How did these practices of crossing borders affect the construction of identities and affiliations?