The three general topics "Enlightenment – Religion – Knowledge" signal three relevant problem areas, each of which marks a focal point in the public discourse of the modern period. The long-term structural focus of the Center of Excellence is cyclical in nature. This cycle is opened by the project field on the power of judgment, which leads from a critical discussion on prominent contemporary conceptions of Enlightenment to an attempt to reconstruct a central concept of Enlightenment developed in the second half of the eighteenth century: the Enlightenment's conception of the power of judgment. The eighteenth century, examined in its historical depth through the six project areas, forms the common point of departure for our work. The project on esotericism begins the center's work, the Pietism project leads it to the mid-eighteenth century, and the project on hermeneutics takes it to the borders of the 19th century. The project on behavioural discourses pushes the horizons of enquiry into the 19th century, and the center's work returns to the present with its project on enlightened knowledge, thus completing the cycle from the eighteenth century to today. The research projects at the Center of Excellence seek to analyze the discourses throughout this period, particularly those of the eighteenth century on enlightenment, religion and knowledge, which provoke and refract each other to an extent that remains unprecedented today.