Horace Tracy Pitkin Professor of Historical Theology, Yale Divinity School
Educated at the University of Marburg Heidelberg University, and the Theological Academic Year in Jerusalem program, Volker Leppin received a chair in Church History at the University of Jena (Thuringia, Germany) in 2000. Ten years later, he moved to the University of Tübingen in Southern Germany, where he held the chair in Church History and directed the Institute for Late Middle Ages and Reformation from 2010 to 2021. He is a member of the Academies of Sciences at Heidelberg, the Saxonian Academy of Sciences, and as well the European Academy of Arts and Sciences, Salzburg, Austria, three distinguished scholarly societies in Europe.
Professor Leppin is the author of 20 monographs, most of them in German. His biography of Martin Luther, Martin Luther. A Late Medieval Life, (Baker Academic, 2017) is also available in English. He has provided several critical text editions, e.g. William of Ockham, Dialogus. Part 2. Part 3, Tract 1, ed. with John Kilcullen, John Scott and Jan Ballweg (Oxford, 2011). In addition, he is the editor or co-editor of 67 books, and the author of more than 400 scholarly articles and chapters, altogether covering a broad range of interests from antiquity to the modern area.
Professor Leppin’s scholarship is particularly interested in medieval and Reformation studies. He argues that the Reformation should be understood as a transformation of the medieval world rather than a stark rupture, as can be seen in his recent volume Sola. His work also focuses on the history of spirituality, mainly in mysticism. Accordingly, among his recent books is a history of Christian mysticism from the Bible to the 20th century: Ruhen in Gott (Rest in God). His most recent book is a biography of Francis of Assisi, published by Yale University Press.
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