Contact
Office: GA 8/157
Email:
maximilian.schell@rub.de
Phone: +49 234 / 32 24799
Information
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Assistant
Research Assistant at the Chair of
Systematic Theology, Ethics and Fundamental Theology
- General information
Dr. Maximilian Schell studied Protestant theology and psychology in Bochum. His research expertise lies in the areas of international peace and reconciliation research, the interdisciplinary dialogue between psychology and theology, and the paradigm of academic freedom.
His dissertation "Preparing the Way for Reconciliation. Public Theology in the Context of Social Reconciliation Processes" (Orig.: "Wegbereitung der Versöhnung – Öffentliche Theologie im Kontext gesellschaftlicher Versöhnungsprozesse"), published in Germany in 2021, explores, against the backdrop of Rwanda, a country marked by genocide in 1994, the question of what impulses emanate from genuinely theological concepts of reconciliation in interdisciplinary discourse and what role church actors can play in reconciliation processes. His theological approach is not only carried out against the background of the theologies of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Karl Barth, but also in constant conversation with social philosophy (e.g. Hannah Arendt), (social) psychology, as well as affect theory and (spatial) sociology. For his thesis on the spatial dimension of reconciliation processes in church congregations, Schell received the Ernst Wolf Award of the Society for Protestant Theology Germany in 2019. He is currently researching questions of a theological anthropology in the face of psychological deviancies and disorders. In conversation with anthropological-phenomenological psychiatric research (e.g. Thomas Fuchs), Schell asks about the religious interpretive horizons and an appropriate theological understanding of mental disorders. If the systematic-theological research landscape has so far focused only on the question of theological-anthropological possibilities of interpretation of somatic illnesses, Schell thus expands the focus to include the phenomenon of mental disorders, which is not to be underestimated for theology, church and diaconia and is highly virulent for society as a whole. In recent semesters, he has expanded his expertise in the area of academic freedom through, among other things, his commitment to the "Scholars at Risk" seminar at the Ruhr University in Bochum.
- Vita
- Since 2021
- 2017-2021
- 2009-2017
Research Assistant at the Chair of Systematic Theology, Ethics and Fundamental Theology at the Faculty of Protestant Theology of the Ruhr University Bochum
PhD Scholar of the German National Academic Foundation. Dissertation project "Preparing the Way for Reconciliation. Public Theology in the Context of Social Reconciliation Processes" (Orig.: "Wegbereitung der Versöhnung – Öffentliche Theologie im Kontext gesellschaftlicher Versöhnungsprozesse"). Submitted in November 2019 (summa cum laude); research stays in Rwanda & Democratic Republic of Congo.
Research assistant at the Chair of Christian Social Doctrine at the Faculty of Protestant Theology, Ruhr University Bochum. Teaching courses in the field of systematic theology and ethics.Studied Protestant theology and psychology at the RUB
Scholarship holder of the German National Academic Foundation
Diploma in Protestant Theology (grade 1.1). Title of the diploma thesis: "Reconciliation processes using the example of Rwanda. On the Importance of the Spatial Dimension in Church Reconciliation Processes Using the Case of the Community of Remera in Post-Genocidal Rwanda" (Orig.: "Versöhnungsprozesse am Beispiel Ruandas. Zur Bedeutung der Raumdimension in kirchlichen Versöhnungsprozessen anhand des Fallbeispiels der Gemeinde Remera im post-genozidalen Ruanda"). (awarded with the Ernst-Wolf-Nachwuchsförderpreis of the Gesellschaft für Evangelische Theologie 2019).
- Habilitation project
Deviant TimeSpaces. Mental Illness in a Theological-Anthropological Perspective
Brief description of the project:
In view of the virulent phenomenon of mental illness, which is increasingly discussed in public, theology and the church are confronted with the question of whether they have anything substantial to contribute to the question of mental illness from the horizon of Christian faith. The phenomenon of mental illness poses particular challenges to theological reflection, since it presents itself as multifaceted in form, multifactorially conditioned, and at the same time dependent on the respective observer's perspective. Thinking about mental illness must take into account the multifactorial bio-psycho-social conditionality of psychopathogenesis, the diversity of experiencing and perceiving the illness through both mental and somatic processes, as well as the subjective and cultural openness to interpretation with regard to the determination of the illness itself. Against this background, the study asks for an appropriate theological understanding of mental illness and thus for an appropriate understanding of God and his agency within the horizon of Christian faith. The aim of the study is to unfold a Trinitarian anthropology that is able to grasp mental illness in its life-destroying dynamics in the space of an autonomous creation and at the same time as an expression of the longing for a good life.
- Research interests
- Theological Reconciliation Research
- Theology and Ethics of Dietrich Bonhoeffer
- Interdisciplinary Dialogue between Psychology, Theology and theological Ethics
- Theological Anthropology and (Mental) Illness
- Academic Freedom in a theological Perspective
- Classes
Classes Summer 2023
- International Seminar "The Challenge of Concrete Hope" (together with Prof. Dr. Dr. Günter Thomas and Dr. Claudia Rammelt) with students from Rwanda, South Africa, Germany and Lebanon
- Interdisciplinary Seminar "Conflict, Trauma and Reconciliation" (together with PD Dr. Kristin Platt from the Institute for Diaspora and Genocide Research)
Classes in previous semesters- Proseminar: Karl Barth's "Introduction to Protestant Theology"
- Advanced seminar: The ethics of F. D. E. Schleiermacher
- Proseminar: The Anthropology of Wolfhart Pannenberg
- Lectureship for the seminar "Professional Ethics and Professional Law. Ethics in Psychotherapy and Psychology" from the Faculty of Psychology at the Ruhr University Bochum
- Advanced seminar: "No Justice, no Peace! Contemporary Justice Discourses from a Theological-Ethical Perspective"
- Lectureship for the "Scholars at Risk Advocacy Seminar" from the International Office of the Ruhr-University Bochum
- Lectureship for the seminar "Professional Ethics and Professional Law. Ethics in Psychotherapy and Psychology" from the Faculty of Psychology at the Ruhr University Bochum
- Advanced seminar: "Repetitorium Ethics" (Winter 22/23, 21/22, 20/21, 18/19, 17/18)
- Interdisciplinary seminar: "Reconciliation in interdisciplinary dialogue"
- Interdisciplinary Seminar: "Luther's Doctrine of the Two Regiments
- Seminar: "Ethics in Psychotherapy" (joint block seminar with Prof. Dr. Traugott Jähnichen for prospective psychological psychotherapists, 2x per semester since Winter 16/17)
