Get to Know NOSTER’s New Director
Todd Weir is a Professor History of Christianity and Modern Culture at Groningen. He will succeed Matthijs den Dulk as Academic Director of NOSTER, starting on January 1st, 2027. We sat down with Todd to get to know him a bit better.
Hi, Todd –let’s start with an easy question: if you could sit down with any figure from Dutch religious history for coffee, who would it be? What’s the first question you’d ask?
It’s a bit of toss-up between Abraham Kuyper and Baruch Spinoza. I’d ask Kuyper which German books he read that inspired him to pioneer the notion of “Christian worldview”. This is really just getting ahead of research I plan on this subject. By contrast, I’m inspired by the way in which Spinoza, as a solitary figure, played such a key role as an underground influence on German Idealism and Romanticism. I would ask him what he thought of these latter day monists, and did they get him right?
How did you get interested in this field in the first place?
I came to the study of religion in a rather circuitous fashion. I had trained as a cultural and intellectual historian of Europe, with a focus on modern Germany. In the course of my dissertation research into conflicts between secularists and Christians in nineteenth century Germany, I approached religion from the perspective of the reconfessionalization of European society, or as it is often called pillarization.
Do you consider yourself more of a theologian or a scholar of religion or something else entirely?
I wouldn’t pretend to be a theologian, but as an intellectual historian I enjoy teaching theology. I’m also not a religious studies scholar, but derive great theoretical benefit from discussion in this field. I’m a historian of modern religion and the secular and fascinated by all dimensions of their interaction.
What’s something about you that would surprise the NOSTER community? A hobby, a conviction, a quirk?
I grew up in Seattle, Washington, a city that has little history prior to the twentieth century. The American settlement in this region felt to me like a recent veneer on top of a quickly disappearing wild landscape. Perhaps this experience led me to an interest in foreign cultures, particularly those in which history feels deeper and more significant. I lived in Belfast, Northern Ireland and several places in Germany. I supposed the thing that would surprise NOSTER members the most is that I lived for nearly a year in East Germany prior to the fall of the Wall. While studying as an exchange student in Rostock, I took part in the alternative and oppositional culture of that waning communist system. The dissolution of that regime less than a year later, in fact led me to want to study Germany history, which I started in Berlin in 1994.
You’ve been appointed as NOSTER’s new director. What appealed to you about this role?
Several things. First, I really enjoy working with ReMa and PhD scholars. As a PhD supervisor and as past interim director of the Graduate School of my faculty, I have learned a great deal about the challenges that face these students. To thrive in a tough environment, researchers need the sort of external networking and teaching institutions such as provided by NOSTER, as a supplement to one-on-one supervision.
Second, I see an opportunity to play a strategic role in advancing the interests of the junior and senior scholars of NOSTER at the national level. Third, I enjoy organizing events and working collaboratively. For this reason, I look forward to taking a leading role in organizing the annual meetings and workshops.
What’s your impression of NOSTER at present?
I see a thriving organization with clear tasks and good leadership. I have enjoyed the opportunity to twice teach courses for NOSTER which enabled me to work with colleagues and research students at other universities around the Netherlands. This helps sustain us as a scholarly community.
What’ll change for NOSTER you think with the move from Nijmegen to Groningen?
I would support the suggestion made in the 2025 evaluation report of NOSTER to strengthen cooperation with Dutch research institutions. In addition, I would also reach out to important cultural institutions, such as museums, as well as government agencies and religious organization for collaborations. I would also continue the push of the current leadership of NOSTER to cooperate on an international level with advanced teaching networks in neighboring countries.
Imagine someone asks you at a conference five years from now “So how’s the whole NOSTER directorship going?” What would you hope to say that would make you genuinely proud?
I see many structural challenges ahead for our field. On top of budgetary insecurity for the European universities, we are facing demographic challenges to enrollment as well as a crisis in the humanities. Against this backdrop, I would be proud if we can increase our collaboration and develop new ways to use NOSTER to make the study of religion in the Netherlands attractive. I would hope to be able to look back on five years of wonderful conferences and workshops, in which junior and senior research felt they experienced meaningful learning.
Thanks, Todd! Great to get to know you a bit better and best of luck in your new role!