Alexander Maurits (born 1978) is a Senior Lecturer in Church History at Lund University. He is also Head of department of Lund University’s Centre for Theology and Religious Studies. In addition, Maurits teaches Church and Mission Studies (1st and 2nd cycle) at the Centre for Theology and Religious Studies.

Research

Research portal (Lund University)

Other tasks and qualifications

Alexander Maurits received his doctorate degree in 2011 and specializes in the European church history of the 19th and 20th Centuries. His PhD-thesis, Den vackra och erkända patriarchalismen (in English Splendid Establishment Patriarchalism. Lund High Church Ideals of Clerical Manliness) dissects the connection between secularization, defense of the established normative social and religious culture and Christian gender ideals during the second half of the 19th Century. For his thesis Maurits was awarded the Nils Karleby Prize (50 000 SEK) in 2012. The thesis has been mandatory reading for the continuation course in the History of Christianity at the University of Gothenburg.

Maurits has been part of different research projects, for example Christian Manliness. A Paradox of Modernity, financed by the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation. He is a member of the Swedish Ecclesiastical History Society, and has been editor of the review section of its yearbook Kyrkohistorisk årsskrift. Additionally, he has collaborated frequently with historians at the Katholieke Universitiet in Leuven.

Currently Maurits is working on a project on religion and sport, a theme that has been given more attention among Swedish historians and theologians. Maurits has initiated and arranged two international conferences on this theme (2013 and 2015). Maurits also contributes to anthologies on 1) anti-modernist rhetoric within different denominations in Sweden at the end of the 19th Century and 2) modernization and the changing roles of women married to priests within the Church of Sweden.

Maurits frequently reviews (academic) literature for the periodical Svensk teologisk kvartalskrift and for the yearbook of the Swedish Ecclesiastical History Society. He also appears as a reviewer in other academic periodicals, nationally and internationally.

As Head of Department, Maurits is responsible for the academic staff, the finances of the department and different aspects of quality assurance within education and research conducted at the department.

In 2013 Maurits was appointed by the vice-chancellor of Lund University to verbalize strategic issues regarding the organization of educational development. In 2008 he was enrolled as an evaluator in the national assessment of education in theology and religious studies arranged by the National Agency for Higher Education. In 2006-2007 Maurits was a member of the board for the Joint Faculties for Humanities and Theology at Lund University.