How Religion Shapes Society

Name: How Religion Shapes Society
Start: 2026-07-09
End: 2026-07-09
Location: Thomas Mann House

Do. 09.07.2026

Ort: Thomas Mann House (1550 N San Remo Drive, CA 90272)

Ein Gespräch zwischen der Soziologin Sanyu A. Mojola & dem Theologen Michael Seewald

Sprache: Englisch ・ Auf Einladung

Info

Join us in the living room of the Thomas Mann House for a conversation between 2026 Thomas Mann Fellow Michael Seewald, Professor of Dogmatics and History of Dogma, and renowned sociologist Sanyu A. Mojola, Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs at Princeton University. During his Fellowship at the Thomas Mann House, Seewald examines the changing attitude of U.S. Catholicism towards a liberal social order and whether theology has the power to shape church and society, or whether it is merely a variable that depends on political convictions and adapts to changing ideological forms.

Religion finds itself in a paradoxical situation. On the one hand, there is a quantitative decline in religiosity in most Western countries, including the United States. On the other hand, religion is politically more powerful today than it has been for decades. How can this disparity be explained? What does it mean for the way in which contemporary society is shaped by religious ideas, for better or worse? And what role can religion play in the processes of social change we are facing? Michael Seewald, Thomas Mann Fellow 2026 and a Catholic theologian from the University of Munich, discusses these issues with Sanyu A. Mojola, a sociologist from Princeton University.

Teilnehmer:innen

Sanyu A. Mojola

Sanyu A. Mojola is Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs and the Maurice P. During Professor of Demographic Studies at Princeton University. She has held numerous fellowships, including at Harvard University’s Hutchins Center for African and African American Research. In 2016, she received the Distinguished Scholarly Book Award (Best Book of the Year) of the American Sociological Association. Her most recent book is entitled “Death by Design: Producing Racial Health Inequality in the Shadow of the Capitol” (University of California Press, 2025).

Michael Seewald

Photo Credit: Uni Münster Richard Sliwka

Michael Seewald holds the Chair of Dogmatics and the History of Dogma at the University of Munich, and is a Permanent Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study (Wissenschaftskolleg) in Berlin. His books have been translated into 11 languages. He has received numerous awards for his work, including the Gottfried Leibniz Prize, one of the most prestigious and highest-endowed research awards worldwide. His most recent book is entitled “Theories of Doctrinal Development in the Catholic Church” (Cambridge University Press, 2023). Seewald is a 2026 Fellow at the Thomas Mann House Los Angeles.