Mette Birkedal Bruun

MA in theology, PhD, dr.theol.

  • Karen Blixens Plads 16

    2300 København S

1996 …2025

Research activity per year

Personal profile

Short presentation

I am a church historian with a keen interest in religiously motivated withdrawal from the world in the middle ages and the early modern period. I study the material and immaterial, lasting and ephemeral as well as robust and porous boundaries drawn in connection with this withdrawal. 

This research focus has led me into an extensive work with privacy in the past and in the present. 

I am interested in interdisciplinary collaboration between research fields and different sectors and in ways in which historical research can be of relevance for contemporary issues such as questions related to privacy. 

 

Born 1 November 1967

From 1 June 2020: PI, STAY HOME: The Home during the corona crisis - and after (the Carlsberg Foundation)

From 15 Sept. 2017: Leader of The Danish National Research Foundation Centre for Privacy Studies

From 1 July 2017: Professor of Church History

2017: dr.theol.: The Unfamiliar Familiar: Armand-Jean de Rancé (1626-1700) between Withdrawal and Engagement

2016-17: Chair of the Research Board and Faculty of Theology representative in University of Copenhagen Research and Innovation Board (KUFIR)

Feb. 2013-March 2017: Director of the research project: SOLITUDES: Withdrawal and Engagement in the long Seventeenth Century (ERC)

From 15 Dec. 2009: Professor at the Department of Church History

2003-9: Research fellow at The Danish Research Council's centre of excellence Centre for the Study of the Cultural Heritage of Medieval Rituals

2001-2: post-doc. grant from the Danish Research Council of the Humanities (SHF)

2000: PhD: Bernard of Clairvaux's Mapping of Spiritual Topography

1997-8: Visiting fellow, Clare Hall College, Cambridge University

1996-9: PhD student at the Department of Church History, University of Aarhus

1995: MA in theology from the University of Copenhagen

 

2022: Elected member of the praesidium of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters as representative of the humanities and social sciences class

2022: Member of the advisory board of Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies

2020: Editor-in-chief of Privacy Studies Journal

2020: Member of The Danish Council for Research and Innovation Policy  (vice chair from 2023)

2019: Member of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters

2019: Member of the council of the Renaissance Society of America

2018: Member of the Wissenschaftliche Beirat der Graduiertenschule für Geisteswissenschaften Göttingen

2012: Årets Harald: The University of Copenhagen teaching prize

Primary fields of research

Privacy 1500-1800

Early modern devotion in France, Germany and England

Monasticism

Current research

My primary research right now concerns notions of privacy in the period 1500-1800 seen from church historical and interdisciplinary perspectives.

Fields of interest

The role of church historical research in interdisciplinary constellations

Church historical research as a resource for contemporary issues 

External positions

Board member, Det Kongelige Danske Videnskabernes Selskab

1 Aug 2022 → …

Vice chair, Danmarks Forsknings og Innovationspolitiske Råd

1 May 2020 → …

Keywords

  • Faculty of Theology