Lucian Hölscher is a German historian whose specialties include social and cultural history, the history of religion, and the history of the future of the modern era. He completed his Ph.D. on Öffentlichkeit und Geheimnis under Reinhart Koselleck in 1979 and collaborated with him in the 1980s on the publication of the encyclopedia Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe at Bielefeld University. In 1991, he took the Chair of Modern History and Theory of History in Bochum. His publications include Die Entdeckung der Zukunft (1999; 2nd edition, 2020), Neue Annalistik (2003), Geschichte der protestantischen Frömmigkeit (2005), Semantik der Leere (2009), Zeitgärten. Zeitfiguren in der Geschichte der Neuzeit (2020) and Schattenwelten. Die dunkle Seite der Aufklärung (2023).