Calendar

Lecture Series: Bonum iter! – Interconfessionality and Travel

2 SWS

When and Where: Wednesdays 6–8 pm, per Zoom

Dates: Lectures commence 19.10.2022. Further dates: 26.10.2022, 2.11.2022, 9.11.2022, 16.11.2022, 23.11.2022, 30.11.2022, 7.12.2022, 14.12.2022, 21.12.2022, 11.1.2023, 18.1.2023, 25.1.2023, 1.2.2023

In the long history of travel, religion has always played a major role, for example, in connection with pilgrimages. During the early modern period, however, these two areas increasingly influenced each other both qualitatively and quantitatively: on the one hand, the emergence of various Christian denominations in the wake of the Reformation led to the creation of increasingly heterogeneous spaces. Particularly in the Catholic, Lutheran, and Reformed states of Northern and Central Europe, merchants, envoys, and people traveling for educational purposes had to or chose to visit territories, towns, and courts that did not belong to their denomination. On the other hand, the success of commercial voyages, and voyages of discovery and expeditions, led to European expansion in both America and Asia. On missionary journeys, the various Christian denominations also found their way to previously unknown countries and regions, and were subsequently influenced by new believers and converts. This lecture series will present the pre-, trans-, and interconfessional phenomena that resulted from these developments by looking at selected sources and constellations, and analyzing them from an interdisciplinary perspective. Imagined journeys, the metaphorical interpretation of life paths as journeys, and the non-journeys of “armchair experts” will also be discussed.

Coordination: Daniel Haas, Amalie Hänsch, Avi Liberman, Oliver Plate, doctoral researchers of the Research Training Group 2008 “Interconfessionality in the Early Modern Period”, Hamburg

Supervising Professor: Univ.-Prof. Dr.  Johann Anselm Steiger, spokesman of the Research Training Group 2008 “Interconfessionality in the Early Modern Period”, Hamburg

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Seminar "Trusting in God and in his earthly masks. The interplay between theology and societal development in the Early Modern Period"

Lecturer: Dr. Sasja Stopa (Aarhus, Aarhus University, Dänemark), Visiting Professor

When and Where:  April, 11-12 and May, 16-17 and June, 20-21, 10.15-11.45 am and 2.15-3.45 pm, Allendeplatz 1

This seminar examines the interplay between protestant theology and societal development in early modern Northern Europe, focusing on confessional differences with regard to the understanding and role of trust. We will analyse and compare Martin Luther and Jean Calvin’s theological anthropologies and their understanding of the ideal Christian society. Based on this analysis of theological differences, we will explore their impact on early modern societal development in Northern Europe and study theological ideas as co-determining factors in the development of cultures of trust or mistrust in areas defined by Lutheran and Calvinist confessions. These are, most importantly, the Lutheran Kingdom of Denmark-Norway, which developed into an absolutist kingdom from 1660 onwards, and the Calvinist Dutch Republic.

Martin Luther’s theology pivots around a redefinition of the human relationship to God as one of absolute trust rather than a distrustful quid pro quo-agreement. Hence, in Der große Katechismus from 1529, Luther famously states: “Ein Gott heisset das, dazu man sich versehen sol alles guten und zuflucht haben ynn allen noeten. Also das ein Gott haben nichts anders ist denn yhm von hertzen trawen und gleuben.” According to Luther, the relationship to God is a precondition for fruitful and trusting social relations in a world inhabited by sinners. This relationship patterns Luther's understanding of hierarchical social relations in the divinely ordered estates of church, household, and state, which are headed by authorities serving as God’s earthly representatives and wearing his masks, larvae Dei. Although punishment and reward are necessary instruments for sustaining order and repressing sin, Luther argues that societal thrift and welfare depend on stable social relations between subjects and superiors characterized by mutual trust and obligation. Whereas Lutheran trust in the state seemed dependent on the permeating idea of a transferal of God’s sovereignty onto state authorities, Calvinist protestants emphasised the sovereignty of God over against earthly sovereigns and were, therefore, perhaps more sceptical towards the state, emphasising instead the role of local congregations.

Finally, the seminar addresses the overall methodological challenge of studying the influence of theological ideas or ‘social imaginaries’ (Charles Taylor) on how societies develop. Max Weber famously pioneered this research interest in the social implications of religion arguing for an intrinsic connection between protestant - or rather Calvinist - work ethics and the rise of capitalism in Der Protestantische Ethik und der Geist des Kapitalismus (1906). Is it somehow possible to bridge the distance from learned theology to actual societal development, thus, elevating the research gaze beyond material or institutional changes in order to gain a more comprehensive view on societal development, which includes how people imagined their social reality?

In an article on the notion of God, Christof Schwöbel turns the famous Feuerbachian claim that theology is no more than anthropology – and God a mere human projection – upside down: “Könnte es sein, dass man Feuerbachs Satz, dass das Geheimnis der Theologie die Anthropologie sei, vom Kopf auf die Füße stellen muss und so den Menschen von daher zu verstehen versucht, wer oder was sein Gott ist?ˮ In this seminar, we will follow Schwöbel’s lead and investigate early modern human beings and the societies, they built, by inquiring into how they were taught to imagine their relationship with God and fellow human beings.

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Seminar: “Jansenism, Polemics, Irenics, and Dogma: The Problems of Catholic Theology in the Early Modern Period”

Lecturer: Prof. Ulrich Lehner (Notre Dame, IN, USA), Visiting Professor

When and Where: July, 11-13 9-12 am, 2-5 pm, Allendeplatz 1

This seminar will introduce topics from the early modern Catholic theology and piety of the seventeenth to the late eighteenth centuries within the context of cultural history. It will focus on the topic of Catholic reform. We will also discuss more recent research perspectives such as purity (P. Burschel), ambiguity (H. v. Thiessen), and metaphors like militant Catholicism and interconfessional osmosis in terms of their hermeneutic consistency and significance for the history of Catholicism.

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Symposium "Moving Objects. Inter- and Transconfessional Perspectives on Early Modern Material Culture"

Where and When:  July, 1-3, Warburghaus, Heilwegstr. 116, 20249 Hamburg

Objects move through space and time and cross thresholds and borders, including the dividing lines between the gradually forming confessions from the sixteenth century onward. Thus, they were able to transport the knowledge of religious norms and practices from the past and over spatial distances and influenced imaginations of the other and constructions of the self. They were subject to human agency, but their potency also enabled them to interact with human actors, prompting reactions that ranged from disapproval to appreciation.
As a result, objects were in part desired and in part resistant border-crossers ('Grenzgänger'). As historical sources they tell complex histories of inter- and transconfessional relations and entanglements during the early modern period. In recent years, they have therefore become a focal point for researchers trying to overcome generalized narratives about confessionalization involving supposedly homogenous confessional groups and spaces. This conference aims to build on these recent developments by proposing the hypothesis that interand transconfessional negotiations almost always took place with and through objects, were in part formed by them, and can now only be described and analyzed in their entirety by taking material culture into consideration. To put it in a nutshell: without objects, there is no research on interconfessionality.

This conference will focus on three major topics: 1) The reformation and its aftereffects created the need to reevaluate pre-reformational material culture in nearly every town and city. Some objects (e.g., images, books, and inscriptions) did not seem problematic or even experienced new, increased levels of appreciation. Other objects were seen to be so resistant that they had to be either removed and destroyed or re-contextualized, transformed, and reinterpreted. One of the objectives of the conference is to clarify which forms of engagement were chosen in which context and whether certain patterns can be identified. 2) Another emphasis will be on the constant intensification of trade, which was one of the major early modern catalysts for the movement of objects: commodities did not flow within confessional boundaries but were driven by factors like utility and prestige. Some objects were even produced in consideration of their potential use by members of different confessions. Trade and the subsequent transfer of objects thus contributed significantly to the establishment of interconfessional relations and the creation of a transconfessional commonality. 3) Finally, the conference intends to look at different forms of the global transfer of objects. Missions, diplomacy, and military conflicts usually went hand in hand with the multidirectional movement of objects, e.g., theft, intercontinental trade, and the exchange of gifts, as well as the journeys taken by devotional objects and souvenirs. These practices shaped global processes of negotiation between members of different religions and confessions and transformed objects into sources of information and imagination that played a considerable role in constructions of the self and imaginations of the other. The conference aims not only to map out the role that material culture played in these interactions but also to examine the material and semantic transformations of border-crossing objects.

Coordination: Leonid Malec, Martin Kindermann, Daniel Haas, Gabriele Bellinzona, Kollegiaten des Graduiertenkollegs

Further information (PDF): Conference flyer

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Lecture Series: Dread and Terror. Experiencing and Overcoming Fear in the Confessions of the Early Modern Period

2 SWS

When and Where: Wednesdays 6–8 pm, per Zoom

Dates: Lectures commence 20.10.2021. Further dates: 3.11.2021, 10.11.2021, 17.11.2021, 24.11.2021, 1.12.2021, 8.12.2021, 15.12.2021, 5.01.2022, 12.01.2022, 19.01.2022, 26.01.2022

Experiencing dread, fear and terror and deliberately evoking and overcoming them were central factors in both the consolidation and negotiation of interconfessional differences in the early modern period. The development of different expectations of salvation in the emerging confessions was decisively shaped by fear for one’s own salvation as well as the fear of God that went directly hand in hand with it. The striking pluralization of forms of religious fear was accompanied by a variety of denominational strategies for overcoming fear through certainty, consolation, and/or hope. The confessional clash between competing theological convictions and doctrines in this area closely related to eschatology often resulted in members of the various confessions reciprocally stylizing each other as heretics and their leaders even as antichrists. At the same time, however, from the sixteenth century onward, transconfessional perspectives and the concretization in media of universal threats can be observed – threats not only to personal well-being but to the entire social order, stemming above all from war, poverty, and calamitous death. Certain historical events, specific social contexts, and temporary manifestations of anthropological constants fueled collectively held fears and terrors in and between denominations, whose community-building qualities could in turn be used specifically to bring about or settle inter- and intraconfessional disputes.

The interdisciplinary lecture series of Hamburg Research Training Group 2008, “Interconfessionality in the Early Modern Period,” planned for the winter semester of 2021/22, will use case studies to examine this broad spectrum of experiences and concretizations of dread, terror and fear in the various confessions as well as the strategies that were utilized to overcome them. In doing so, the specific dynamics of affect-triggering phenomena will be of interest, as will their programmatic reversal, for example, into certainty, comfort, and hope. Thus, much in line with the overarching questions of the research training group, the lecture series will examine the historical, theological, and aesthetic traditions, interpretations, and actions associated with this thematic complex not in isolation within the various denominations on the basis of selected texts, objects, or acts, but rather within the scope of their inter-, trans-, and intra-denominational impact.

Questions that may be addressed within this framework include:

– What was the significance of (overcoming) dread, terror and fear for emerging denominations and their identities? What role did particular threats play in the emergence and management of inter- and intraconfessional conflicts? What common points of reference for the experience of comfort and certainty might have been generated here? How was the tension between fear and hope perceived, evaluated, and utilized in different historical constellations, especially in interconfessional contexts?

– Which concrete religious fears and opposing notions of optimism and hope were significant for the further development of the theological, political, and social standpoints of selected actors even outside of genuinely confessional contexts (e.g., with regard to the consolidation of rites and hierarchies)?

Which media were used preferably in the emerging denominations to produce, experience, and overcome terror, dread, and fear? What theological, political, social, and aesthetic considerations helped to develop and establish certain iconographic traditions and strategies of aesthetic reception in this context? How can we examine the relevance of these media in cultural history against the background of current humanities research approaches in areas such as intermediality, hybridity, and cultural transfer?

Coordination: Marie Cezanne, Anna-Aline Murawska, Sophie Rüth, doctoral researchers of the Research Training Group 2008 “Interconfessionality in the Early Modern Period”, Hamburg

Supervising Professor: Univ.-Prof. Dr.  Johann Anselm Steiger, spokesman of the Research Training Group 2008 “Interconfessionality in the Early Modern Period”, Hamburg

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Seminar "Making Christians in the Early Modern World"

2 SWS

Lecturer: Prof. Dr. Will Sweetman (Dunedin/Otago University, New Zealand), Visiting Professor

When and Where: Tuesdays 9-11 am, commencing 13 April 2021, Videoconference

The era of reform was also the era of European expansion. As Christians sought to enforce their visions of orthodoxy in Europe, they were also wrestling with difficult questions of how to make Christians beyond Europe—in the Americas, Africa and Asia. This was not only a matter of engaging with other religions, but also with other Christians, the members of ancient churches in Africa and Asia. Catholics were the first in the field, but they were soon followed by Protestants, and information from the wider world was quickly brought to bear on confessional debates in Europe.

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International Conference "The Last Judgment in the Confessions and Media of the Early Modern Period"

When and Where: September 22–24, 2021 (online)

 Aside from some exceptions, the Last Judgment (iudicium extremum) is a subject that has been pushed to the peripheries of, and even avoided in, the theological debates of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. By contrast, in all of the early modern confessions, the Last Judgment and “imminent expectation” were paid the utmost attention throughout the media on offer, more precisely:

– in academic theological scholarship, above all in its dogmatic and exegetic fields
– in the production of meditative and lyrical literature
– in the fine arts
– in ecclesiastical music
– on the stage.

This conference seeks to analyze the extremely multifaceted confessional and media articulations of the subject of the Last Judgment in the early modern period, as well their differences and similarities, by taking a broad, cross-disciplinary approach that looks at the interplay between literary studies, art and music history, historical theology, and history. Indispensable in this regard will be both case studies that utilize primary sources and papers that address overarching aspects such as the relevance of New Testament apocalyptics (in particular the Book of Revelation) in pertinent media representations of the Last Judgment, or the reception of ancient Christian and medieval texts and iconographies.

The conference will pay particular attention to the interplay between and the reciprocal intermedial ampflicatio of heterogeneous forms of expression as well as the impact of expectations of judgment on the culture of piety and the material culture that shaped everyday life. Of prime interest will be the issue of how to objectively interpret the facticity of Last Judgment expectations in the Protestant confessions and works of reformers in the early modern period (which are often controversial despite clear source findings) and which perspectives can be taken to describe inter- and transconfessional processes in the early modern period as a result. In this regard, the conference will specifically address and acknowledge phenomena of interconfessional plurality.

Coordination: Sabine Ledosquet, Research Training Group 2008, Interconfessionality in the Early Modern Period

Conceptualization: Prof. Dr. Johann Anselm Steiger, Research Training Group 2008, Interconfessionality in the Early Modern Period 

Collaborators:

Dr. Matthias Meinhardt, Reformation History Research Library in Wittenberg

Dr. Stefan Rhein, Luther Memorials Foundation in Saxony-Anhalt

Lecture Series:  Aus alt mach’ neu – aus neu mach’ alt: Early Modern Interconfessionality Between the Poles of Tradition and Re-creation

2 SWS

When and Where: Wednesdays 6–8 pm, per Zoom

Dates: Lectures commence 4.11.2020. Further dates:11.11.2020, 18.11.2020, 25.11.2020, 2.12.2020, 9.12.2020, 16.12.2020, 6.01.2021, 13.01.2021, 20.01.2021, 27.01.2021, 10.02.2021, 17.02.201

Early modern scholars long have observed the importance of discussions on the interaction and interrelationship between old and new, tradition and innovations, ancient and modern in humanism or the Querelle des anciens et des modernes. Similar concerns also emerge in understanding confessional formation during the 16th and 17th centuries when diverse parties and actors claimed to continue or restore the true, pure church tradition as an important way to show the validity of their actions over those of non-coreligious groups.

This lecture series examines how individuals and groups applied the use, reception, production, and demarcation of tradition(s) and its relationship to what they considered novelties in early modern discourses. Conflicts about monasticism or the veneration of saints, for instance suggest a differentiated rather than homogeneous approach even within confessional groups that varied by time, place, or actor. At the same time, tradition served as a way not only to demarcate, but also to (consciously) emphasize commonalities.

This series considers the following questions among others: What methods did individuals and groups use to discuss pre-confessional traditions and/or innovations of Christianity (polemical, pragmatic, adaptive etc.)? What do individual cases show about the effect of these methods on contacts with other confessions? How did groups justify traditions or their (re)introduction and how did they implement them in practice? How were the tensions resulting from the coexistence of old and new tradition absorbed and, if necessary, resolved at the (religious) political and/or individual level?

Using the interdisciplinary and methodological approaches of the research training group, the lecture series gives special attention to discussions at the micro and actor level as it explores these questions about spiritual, political, and cultural life. Our overall aim is to shift the focus on how and when interconfessional exchanges with pre-confessional ideas and practices occurred and to understand their impact on confessional discourse.

Coordination: Marlon Bäumer, Constantin Cremer, Andrea Herold-Sievert, doctoral researchers of the Research Training Group 2008 “Interconfessionality in the Early Modern Period”, Hamburg

Supervising Professor: Univ.-Prof. Dr.  Johann Anselm Steiger, spokesman of the Research Training Group 2008 “Interconfessionality in the Early Modern Period”, Hamburg

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Interdisciplinary Symposium of the Research Training Group "The Churches of Western Confessions and Orthodox Christianity. A Topic of Interconfessional Research?"

1 SWS

When and Where: 5.-7.2.2021 per Zoom

Down to the present day, research on interconfessionality has focused on exchange processes and permeabilities among the churches of Western confessions, which have formed since the middle of the 16th century (Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Reformed). One aim of the symposium is to investigate processes that formed the confessional identity of Christian confessions in non-Western European contexts. Within the scope of this geographical extension of the traditional research area, the research training group aims to re-examine the theoretical and practical relationship between the Western Christian confessions and the early modern Orthodox churches. In order to limit the abundance of religious cultures understood as Orthodox churches, the focus shall primarily be on contacts with the Greek, Russian and Armenian churches.
The closer examination of these relations should contribute to complete the picture of the manifold phenomena of confessional exchange processes in the countries of Central Europe, as well as to differentiate already developed patterns of efforts to confessional identity. In particular, we welcome contributions that begin with their analysis at the meso- and micro-levels, with the subject matter of each study coming from different genres. For example, questions could be raised as to what extent the mutual exchange between western actors and Orthodox churches contributed to the respective confessional differentiation, or which motives instigated these communicational processes. How did the contact between missionaries and local church communities develop? How were pre-confessional topoi in different forms received or transformed? What role did interconfessional relationships play in scholarly tradition? Is there a canon of narratives within religious plurality? How were normative council decisions implemented and adapted in daily practice? To what extent did economic relations and political interests influence coexistence and cooperation? How decidedly can the terms inter- and intra-confessionality be applied in the entire Christian world between the late 15th and 18th centuries? Finally, these key questions lead to the fundamental issue of whether the above-outlined encounters between the Western Christian confessions and Orthodox Christianity reveal structural analogies to the negotiations in Western Europe and thus, if the relationship between the churches of Western confessions and Orthodox Christianity should increasingly be considered as a topic of interconfessional research.

Further information (PDF): Conference flyer

Coordination: Anna Sebastian, doctoral researcher of the Research Training Group 2008 “Interconfessionality in the Early Modern Period”, Hamburg

Seminar "Contested and shared sacred spaces in Early Modern Europe and World"

2 SWS

Lecturer: Dr. Beth Plummer (Tuscon/Arizona, USA), Visiting Professor

When and Where: Wedenesdays 12-2 pm, commencing 22 April 2020, Videoconference

When diverse faith groups occupy the same geographic and ecclesial space, devotional differences often generate extreme reactions in local communities. Conflicts, violence, and intolerances surrounding shared sacred space in the Holy Roman Empire, the Mediterranean, the Balkans, and in areas where trade, war, and exploration and conquest brought Europeans in contact with non-European groups have engaged broad scholarly interest over the last decade. However, just as often, diverse religious groups interact, coexist, and practice tolerance while sharing holy sites, and churches through households, schools, economic ties, political communities, and even graveyards. Such interactions are less studied but no less significant as recent scholars have found. In most mixed religious communities both extremes exist in precarious balance. This course investigates how such diverse religious groups shared sacred spaces in between 1500 and 1800 and how this influenced the development of interconfessionality in early modern Europe and beyond. Using recent case studies, we will examine the dynamics of devotional space and rituals in the development of communal relations at the local communal level. We will explore the questions: How and why do diverse religious groups share devotional spaces? How do these interactions shape their political, social, and personal lives? Do these shared churches influence the development of tolerance and intolerance?

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Lecture "The Life and Death of Abbess Margarethe von Watzdorf: What a Convent Inventory Reveals About Convent Reform and Devotional Life During the Sixteenth-Century German Reformation"

Lecturer: Dr. Beth Plummer (Tuscon/Arizona, USA), Visiting Professor

When and Where: 24 June 2020 18.15 Uhr

Lecture Series: "Dimensionen von Freiheit in der Frühen Neuzeit. Interkonfessionelle Interpretationen" (Dimensions of Freedom in the Early Modern Period. Interconfessional Interpretations)

2 SWS

When and Where: Wednesdays 6–8 pm, Universität Hamburg, Main Building, Lecture Hall J, Edmund-Siemers-Allee 1

Dates: Lectures commence 16.10.2019. Further dates: 23.10.2019, 30.10.2019, 13.11.2019, 27.11.2019, 4.12.2019, 18.12.2019, 8.1.2020, 15.01.2020, 22.01.2020, 29.01.2020

On the occasion of the 500th anniversary of Luther’s programmatic essay De libertate christiana (1520), we would like to shed light on the dimensions of freedom during the early modern period relevant to confessional developments. Luther’s concern was to define the freedom of a Christian: that freedom does not manifest itself in human aspiration to autonomy but in serving one’s neighbor. But precisely what this abstract term actually means is rarely clear. For each individual, different dimensions of freedom are relevant, depending on their biography and the socio-cultural and political context in which they are placed. In this lecture, we discuss the diversity of expressive possibilities of inner and outer freedom in the emerging confessions of the early modern period. From the perspective of interconfessionality, such a discussion is not restricted to relationships between opposing doctrines; it also aims to render visible transconfessional aspects connecting the confessions.

The various lectures in this series pursue the following, as well as other questions: How is the freedom of a Christian related to the glory of God? What understanding of the freedom of God do we observe in the confessions? To what extent was it possible for missionaries, despite institutionally regulated provisions, to freely determine their concrete actions on the ground? How did interactions develop between religious “free spirits” and representatives of the three major confessions? What function(s) does the concept of freedom fulfill in poetry penned by religious refugees? From a philosophical perspective, how did religious refugees behave with respect to free will and its ethical implications? What options for the expression of intellectual freedom emerged in the various (socio-)political structures? In what way did Jews connect the opposing poles of freedom and law, and to what extent is it possible to demonstrate similarities to or differences from the Christian confessions? And finally, how are different interpretations of the concept of freedom expressed in different media, and in turn, what do these media contribute to the differentiation of this term?

This interdisciplinary lecture series will, on the one hand, enable us to view the dimensions of the concept of freedom in the early modern period in a more discriminating way, and on the other, offer a further approach to inter- and transconfessional phenomena.

Coordination: Mareike Angres, Mareike Holst, Dimitris Paradoulakis, Jonathan Rehr, doctoral researchers of the Research Training Group 2008 “Interconfessionality in the Early Modern Period”, Hamburg

Supervising Professor: Univ.-Prof. Dr.  Johann Anselm Steiger, spokesman of the Research Training Group 2008 “Interconfessionality in the Early Modern Period”, Hamburg

International Conference "Christus als Held und seine heroische Nachfolge. Zur imitatio Christi" (Christ as Hero and His Heroic Following. Imitatio Christi in the Early Modern Period)

When and Where: 30 May - 1 June 2019 in Freiburg, Caritas Conference Center

Early Christianity and Christian antiquity already were characterized by a particular interest not only in the soteriologically motivated interpretation of the life, death and resurrection of the messiah and hero (Isa 9,5) Jesus Christ, but also in heroic discipleship. The emphasis here rests on ethical aspects and a theology of piety as well as on questions regarding the experience of faith. Through all eras of Christianity, this tension-filled dialectics has evoked highly intense readings of the heroism of Christ and inspired the development of conceptions for a heroic imitatio Christi (which by no means limit themselves to a “mysticism of suffering”).

The interdisciplinary conference explores the heroic dimensions of the imitatio Christi and exemplarily analyzes different forms of representing Christian discipleship in heterogenous media as well as intermedial constellations. The primary focus here lies on sources from the early modern period (c. 1450-1750).

The inclusion of the late antique and medieval tradition ensures a tradition-historical perspective on the respective confessionally distinct interpretations of the imitatio Christi in the early modern period as well on transconfessional phenomena of consensus and interconfessional permeabilities, which in this field are particularly numerous.

The conference is jointly organized by the GRK 2008 “Interkonfessionalität in der Frühen Neuzeit” (Hamburg) and the SFB 948 “Heroes – Heroizations – Heroisms” (Freiburg).

Conception: Prof. Dr. Achim Aurnhammer (Freiburg) and Prof. Dr. Johann Anselm Steiger (Hamburg)

Coordination: Sabine Ledosquet Graduiertenkolleg Interkonfessionalität in der Frühen Neuzeit 2008, Sebastian Meurer SFB 948 Helden - Heroisierungen - Heroismen

 Further information (PDF): Conference Flyer

Lecture Series: "Heiligengedenken in der Frühen Neuzeit. Interkonfessionalität und Intermedialität" (Commemorating the Saints in the Early Modern Period. Interconfessionality and Intermediality)

2 SWS

When and Where: Wednesdays 6–8 pm, Universität Hamburg, Main Building, Lecture Hall J, Edmund-Siemers-Allee 1

Dates: Lectures commence 24.10.2018. Further dates: 07.11.2018, 14.11.2018, 21.11.2018, 28.11.2018, 05.12.2018, 12.12.2018, 19.12.2018, 9.01.2019, 16.01.2098, 23.01.2019

If we had to name the major distinctions between the Christian confessions today, our instincts would surely lead us to identify the treatment of saints as one such fundamental difference. Unlike Catholicism and the Orthodox churches, Protestantism—so the narrative goes—not only abolished the veneration of saints, but expunged the saints themselves from both faith and practices of piety.

A closer look at the significance of the saints for both Church teachings and Christian daily life in the 16th and 17th centuries, however, shows that the saints continued to play a role over and above the emerging confessional delineations: they remained an important aspect of Christian life as God’s advocates or paragons of faith. The value accorded to the saints was captured in theological writings, as well as in media reflections in music, art, and literature of the early modern period. This encounter with the “holy figures” in Catholicism, Protestantism, and Greek Orthodoxy is the focus of the Research Training Group Interconfessionality, funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG).

The lectures pursue the following questions: What doctrines relating to saints did the various confessions follow? Which saints received particular attention and why? How did the hagiographical canon change over the course of the Reformation? Were saints instrumentalized in confessional debates and encounters and, if yes, in what way? Is it possible to detect transconfessional connecting elements in the way the confessions dealt with the saints? What regionally specific features emerge, for example, those relating to practices of piety?

The interdisciplinary approach of this lecture series aims, on the one hand, to provide a differentiated perspective on the commemoration and veneration of the saints in the early modern period and, on the other, to attend more closely to inter- and transconfessional phenomena.

Coordination: Ricarda Höffler, Friederike Dahms and Maryam Haiawi, doctoral researchers of the Research Training Group “Interconfessionality in the Early Modern Period”, Hamburg

Supervising Professor: Univ.-Prof. Dr.  Johann Anselm Steiger, spokesman of the Research Training Group “Interconfessionality in the Early Modern Period”, Hamburg

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Lecture " 'Bestseller' der frühen Druckgeschichte (15./16. Jahrhundert) und Austauschprozesse der Konfessionen" (Early Print "Bestsellers" of the 15th and 16th Centuries and Processes of Exchange between the Confessions)

Lecturer: PD Dr. Seraina Plotke (Basel, Switzerland), Visiting Professor

3 SWS

When and where: Wednesdays 2–5 pm, Universität Hamburg, Schlüterstr. 51, Fifth Floor, Room 5045, commencing 4 April 2018

The medial transformation from manuscript to print was due not least to the fact that during the late Middle Ages, the book emerged as a product subject to market forces. Devotional and edificational books of all types turned into “blockbusters,” a phenomenon that can be traced back to early incunabula, for example, in the case of the incredibly successful Aesop’s fables or the facetiae (or jocose tales) of Poggio. The first printed bestseller conceived especially for the printing press was Sebastian Brant’s Narrenschiff, published in 1494 as an editio princeps in Basel. Thanks to the Latin translation by Jakob Locher, it soon found its way all across Europe. The cultural influence of early 15th-century works such as Thomas More’s Utopia or the first printed Greek edition of the New Testament published by Erasmus of Rotterdam in the printing house of Johann Froben, Novum Instrumentum omne, is not to be underestimated. Luther’s so-called Septembertestament and Andrea Alciatos’ Liber emblematum are further, very different types of printed books to exert profound cultural and historical influence. The two-hour lectures look at these and further examples of early printed books. Following the lectures, there will be a one-hour reading session in which we will discuss text excerpts in greater detail. The lectures focus in particular on processes of exchange between the confessions also visible in 16th-century textual reception of works printed before the Reformation.

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Seminar "Emblematik in der Frühen Neuzeit unter besonderer Berücksichtigung interkonfessioneller Aspekte" (Early Modern Emblems and Interconfessionality)

Lecturer: PD Dr. Seraina Plotke (Basel, Switzerland), Visiting Professor

2 SWS

When and where: Thursdays 10 am–12 pm, Universität Hamburg, Schlüterstr. 51, Fifth Floor, Room 5045, commencing 5 April 2018

Hardly any other genre shaped early modern life and thought as much as emblems. Countless emblem books published between 1531, the year the emblem was born as a genre, and the early 18th century underwent repeated editions, revisions, and translations, and in so doing influenced not only fine arts and prose but also the world beyond. Emblems served as entries in family trees, decorated death registers, conveyed marriage and birthday congratulations on broadsheets, and provided solace at funerals. In churches, cloisters, and libraries in monasteries and abbeys, emblems decoratively graced the walls and ceilings and served as a means of religious instruction. In palaces, town halls, or other secular buildings, aristocratic dynasties used the emblem to cultivate their images to the outside world; town governments deployed it to demonstrate the particular status of the towns and cities within the society of estates. Many factors influenced the development of this genre in the early 16th century. Renaissance hieroglyphics, medieval allegorical exegesis, the Ars memorativa, and even certain works such as the Physiologus, and in particular early printed texts played an important role. Due to the emblem’s enormous popularity and its broad, transconfessional use in the 16th and 17th centuries, this genre provides us with a bountiful set of sources for all manner of research questions in the area of cultural history. Diverse deployment across a variety of discourses means that the emblem was a true storage device for attitudes, sentiments, thoughts, and socio-cultural paradigms. For questions relating to transconfessional permeability, emblems offer us a multilateral historical source. This seminar illuminates the rich and diverse aspects of the emblem as a medial genre.

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Boys' Day

Confessional Culture at Your Fingertips: Feel Your Way through Early Modern Religious Worlds

When and where: 26 April 2018, 10 am – 1 pm, Universität Hamburg, Schlüterstr. 51, Fifth Floor, Room 5045

The Interconfessionality Research Training Group invites school students to join it on Boys’ Day to find out all about doing a doctorate.

We have many exciting, hands-on activities planned to help you feel your way through the early modern world: make your own woodcut à la Cranach, play confessional tin-can toss, label book-cover images, learn to read early modern writing, practice your calligraphy, test your confession, get a henna pilgrim’s tattoo, make Cranach selfies, and join us in early modern song.

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Symposium der Kollegiaten "Gender interkonfessionell gedacht - Konzeptionen von Geschlechtlichkeit in der Frühen Neuzeit" (Thinking About Gender from the Perspective of Interconfessionality: Concepts of Sexuality in the Early Modern Period)

1 SWS

When and where: 1–2 June 2018, Universität Hamburg, Schlüterstr. 51, Fifth Floor, Room 5045

How did gender and confession relate in the early modern period? Whereas research to date highlights the differences in the treatment of the sexes, this symposium will focus on transconfessional constructs of man and woman. We not only take into account concepts of masculinity, marriage, and family already well-established in women’s studies; we also investigate how the Christian confessions devised diverging concepts of sexuality, assumed such concepts from other confessions, or set themselves apart from the other confessions on this basis. Potential lines of inquiry are: What gender-specific devotional practices changed during the Reformation or were subject to transconfessional adaptation (for example, convents, the priesthood of all believers)? What concepts of gender and sexuality developed (family, marriage, celibacy, homosexuality)? How did sacred images develop ideas of physicality in the period following the Reformation? We will also focus on the differentiation between masculine and feminine style in the rhetoric of the period and its influence on theological and spiritual literature.

The Research Training Group “Interconfessionality in the Early Modern Period” explores phenomena rendering interconfessional and transconfessional practices visible. Twelve doctoral candidates from art history, philology, history, theology, and musicology pursue projects investigating how confessionality is negotiated in individual texts, works of art, and music from the 16th to the 18th century.

Further information (PDF): Conference flyer

Coordination: Daniel Fliege M.A., Janne Lenhart M.A., doctoral candidates of the research training group "Interkonfessionality in the early modern period"

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Lecture series: "Interkonfessionelle Ästhetiken"  (Interconfessional Aesthetics)

2 SWS

When and Where: Wednesdays 6–8 pm, Universität Hamburg, Main Building, Lecture Hall J, Edmund-Siemers-Allee 1

Dates: Lectures commence 01.11.2017. Further dates: 08.11.2017, 15.11.2017, 22.11.2017, 29.11.2017, 06.12.2017, 13.12.2017, 20.12.2017, 10.01.2018, 17.01.2018, 24.01.2018, 31.01.2018

Early modern interconfessional negotiations and debates on aesthetics—generally understood as the principle of the sensuous perception of beauty and art—are the focus of this lecture series. The series explores concepts of beauty and, by necessity, of ugliness from the perspective of confessional boundary-marking the negotiation of theological positions. This permits us to consider phenomena of the sublime, the relationship to aístheta (that which is perceivable through the senses) and to nóeta (that which may be reasoned), and the question of how norms and regulatory structures: What was deemed “beautiful” in the respective confessions, and was “beauty” a permissible vehicle for theological content? Was it even possible—in a Neoplatonic fashion—to find traces of God in beauty or the sublime? The lectures explore what aesthetic procedures and modes of expression were rejected by the confessions, deployed transconfessionally, or subject to interconfessional negotiation. This enables us to consider various medial forms of representation and discuss how the relationship between adoption and rejection of artistic and literary forms, techniques, and trends with respect to their aesthetics was depicted and represented.

Coordination:  Daniel Fliege, MA, and Janne Lenhart, MA, Research Training Group “Interconfessionality in the Early Modern Period”

Supervising Professor: Univ.-Prof. Dr. Johann Anselm Steiger, Research Training Group “Interconfessionality in the Early Modern Period”, Hamburg

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Confessional Cultures at Your Fingertips

Feel your way through early modern religious worlds.

Join members of the Interconfessionality Research Training Group in exciting, hands-on activities during the Long Night of Knowledge:

Make your own woodcut à la Cranach, play confessional tin-can toss, label book cover images, learn to read early modern writing, practice your calligraphy, test your confession, get a henna pilgrim’s tattoo, make Cranach selfies, and join us in early modern song.

When and where: 4 November 2017, in the tents in front of the Audimax at Universität Hamburg

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Lecture "Das Alte Reich und die Griechen im Osmanischen Reich: Eine vergessene Beziehungsgeschichte" (The Holy Roman Empire and the Greeks in the Ottoman Empire: The History of a Forgotten Relationship)

Lecturer: Dr. Stefano Saracino (Vienna, Austria), visiting professor

3 SWS

When and where: Wednesdays, 2–4 pm and Thursdays, 4–5 pm, Universität Hamburg, Schlüterstr. 51, Fifth Floor, Room 5045

In this lecture, we analyze selected sources to reconstruct the conditions under which the relationships between the confessions in the Holy Roman Empire and members of the Greek-Orthodox confession in the Ottoman Empire developed and formed in the early modern period. Time and time again, theologians and clergy in the Holy Roman Empire—above all Protestants—sought contact with representatives of the Greek-Orthodox Church and occasionally even pursued concrete political unions. There were a few pivotal points in this relationship: the correspondence between Tübingen theologians and the patriarch Jeremias II (1536–95), the “Calvinist” patriarch Cyril Loucaris’ (c. 1570/72–1638) adoption of the doctrine of the Reformed Church (which ended with his deposition and murder), and the journey of Loucaris’ close associate Metrophanes Kritopoulos (1589–1639) through the Holy Roman Empire.

Comparatively little research has dealt with the migration of members of the Greek-Orthodox confession from the Ottoman Empire to the Holy Roman Empire. Traveling alms seekers present a well-documented group of migrants, for example, those sent from ecclesiastical institutions, such as the monasteries on Mount Athos or the Congregation of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, to carry out collections. These wandering Greeks encountered ambivalent reactions ranging from fascination (in the main from scholars) and suspicion of fraud. In certain cases, these alms seekers ended up before the law: Athanasios Paulus, whose sometime companion and interpreter was the young Jean-Jacques Rousseau, was hanged in the Netherlands in 1736. In the 18th century, continental trade with the Ottoman Empire came increasingly under the control of Greek merchants, who built up a strong presence in Vienna and Leipzig in particular. The capital accumulated through these businesses was often deployed within the Holy Roman Empire for charitable purposes (for example, for charitable foundations) or cultural purposes (for example, printing Greek books), and this led to social integration as well as the preservation of cultural and confessional identity.

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Seminar "Am Beginn moderner Toleranz? Das Zusammenleben der Konfessionen in der Vormoderne" (The Beginnings of Modern Religious Tolerance? Confessional Coexistence in the Early Modern Period)

Lecturer: Dr. Stefano Saracino (Vienna, Austria), visiting professor

2 SWS

When and where: Thursdays, 10 am–12 pm, Universität Hamburg, Schlüterstr. 51, Fifth Floor, Room 5045

Looking back at the Holy Roman Empire, Heinz Dieter Kittsteiner described the period from 1648 to 1789 as the “stabilizing modernity” because it was during this epoch that the knowledge produced by scholars as well as political, confessional, and artistic activities pursued a process of overall stabilization and equalization in confessional matters. Taking Kittsteiner’s approach as its starting point, this seminar investigates interconfessionality and its medial forms of representation using selected primary source materials. In so doing, the seminar attends to concrete reality (and realities) as well as imagined projects (potential but not realized conditions). Confessional coexistence will be dealt with through the following topics:

1.     Utopian educational projects and utopian literary fictions created by scholars.

2.     Efforts to bring about union between the Lutheran and the Reformed confessions, as well as between Protestantism and Eastern Orthodox Christianity.

3.     Transgression of confessional divides in the Republic of Letters.

4.     Interconfessionality at princely courts (princely mixed-confessional marriages, ambassadorial chapels).

Migration of Greek-Orthodox merchants and clerics from the Ottoman Empire and their confessional practices in the Holy Roman Empire.

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International Conference "Maria in den Konfessionen und Medien der Frühen Neuzeit" (The Virgin Mary in the Confessions and Media of the Early Modern Period)

When and Where: 26-28 May 2017 in Gotha, Orangerie

Adoration of the Virgin Mary is widely believed specific to Roman Catholicism. However, one fact has frequently been overlooked: despite the criticism of certain late medieval abuses exercised by the reformers themselves and the early modern Protestant tradition in their wake, Protestants continued to venerate the Virgin Mary, as reflected in many diverse literary, devotional, and iconographical works. Martin Luther famously rejected the veneration of Mary as the “queen of the heavens” together with her status as sinful humankind’s intercessor by God. Nevertheless, the Wittenberg reformer revered the Mother of God as the “highest woman and the noblest gem in Christianity after Christ.” This reverence was also apparent in the large number of feasts of the Virgin Mary that persisted in Lutheran cultural circles.

This conference explores the medial breadth of early modern treatment of the Mother of God. It draws upon sermons, meditative and prayer literature, sacred music and poetry, and visual imagery relating to the Virgin Mary in religious art both within and outside of ecclesiastical spaces. The conference asks questions about confessional difference and interconfessional commonalities in relation to the most important forms of political representation and devotional practices. It focuses in particular on less well-known Protestant forms of Marian spirituality.

 Coordination: Sabine Ledosquet, Research Training Group "Interconfessionality in the Early Modern Period", Dr. Sascha Salatowsky, Gotha Research Library

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Symposium of the GRK Doctoral Candidates "Kontexte und Konkretionen" (Contexts and Concretions)

1 SWS

When and where: 30 June–1 July 2017, Universität Hamburg, Schlüterstr. 51, Fifth Floor, Room 5045

The Reformation and the period of confessionalization led not only to the separation of church and state, the confessional schism, and the ensuing Wars of Religion. It also launched a mutual and eye-to-eye dialog between the confessions. Rather than focusing on conflict as much research to date has done, this symposium looks at constellations and phenomena that document the dynamics of interaction between the early modern confessions. Some sources indicate that in biconfessional cities and at biconfessional universities, there was lively exchange between the confessions. Travel narratives, for example, document interconfessional encounters and give us an idea of how contemporaries negotiated confessional differences and commonalities.

The Research Training Group “Interconfessionality in the Early Modern Period” explores inter- and transconfessional dialogs of both implicit and explicit nature from the 16th to the 18th century. We place particular emphasis on the theological, literary, political, and artistic phenomena that defined and overcame the divisions between the emerging confessions (interconfessionality) or those phenomena they held in common (transconfessionality). Scholars from German and Romance studies, history, art history, Protestant and Catholic theology pursue new approaches in the study of interconfessionality in their doctoral projects and contribute thus to our understanding of the cultural, religious and political, and cultural-anthropological profile of historical societies in Europe and beyond from the 16th to the 18th century.

Coordination: Luisa Coscarelli M.A., Maximiliane Gürth M.A., doctoral candidates of the research training group "Interkonfessionality in the early modern period"

Further information (PDF): Conference flyer

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Lecture Series: "Räume der Interkonfessionalität in der Frühen Neuzeit"  (Spaces of Interconfessionality in the Early Modern Period)

2 SWS

When and where: Wednesdays 6–8 pm, 26 October 2016–25 January 2017 (not 21 December 2016), Lecture Hall J, Main Building, Edmund-Siemers-Allee 1

The process of confessionalization in the early modern period meant that spaces had to be reconceptualized, re-used, and reorganized. This took place, on the one hand, in everyday practices. From the church to the marital bed, members of the different confessions were forced to share public and private spaces or even find new ones. Encounters and coexistence harbored potential for conflict, and confessional division led to real topographical borders.

On the other hand, these spaces were not just topographic ones. Media such as printed graphics, theater, literature, or works of art also produced spaces in which inter- and transconfessionality was negotiated. In the same vein, the human body also provided a visible platform for interconfessional spatial arrangements.

These spatial phenomena are the topic of the lecture series organized by the German Research Foundation-funded Research Training Group “Interconfessionality in the Early Modern Period.” The series allows the Group’s doctoral candidates to present their research publically for the first time while attending to the concept of spaces of interconfessionality from both a practical and theoretical perspective.

Coordination: Luisa Coscarelli M.A. und Thomas Throckmorton M.A., Research Training Group "Interconfessionality in the Early Modern Period"

Supervising professors: Univ.-Prof. Dr. Bernhard Jahn, Univ.-Prof. Dr. Johann Anselm Steiger, Research Training Group "Interconfessionality in the Early Modern Period"

Lecture "Europäische Begegnungen mit nicht-christlichen Religionen in der Frühen Neuzeit" (European Encounters with Non-Christian Religions in the Early Modern Period)

3 SWS

Lecturer: Dr. Asaph Ben-Tov (Gotha, Erfurt), visiting professor

When and where: Wednesdays 9:30–11:45 am, Universität Hamburg, Schlüterstr. 51, Fifth Floor, Room 5045

The early modern period saw an increasing number of European Christians show interest in other religions. Encounters with religious phenomena from America, South-East Asia, the Muslim Ottoman and Safavid Empires, together with encounters with Jews in Europe and the religious practices of classical Greece and ancient Rome took place in a Europe shaped and divided by the confessions. This lecture concentrates on encounters between early modern Christians and Judaism, Christians and Islam, as well as Christians and heathen cultures from Antiquity.

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Seminar "Die Gelehrtenrepublik im konfessionellen Zeitalter" (the Republic of Letters in the Confessional Age)

2 SWS

Lecturer: Dr. Asaph Ben-Tov (Gotha, Erfurt), visiting professor

When and where: Thursdays 12:15–13:45 pm, Universität Hamburg, Schlüterstr. 51, Fifth Floor, Room 5045, commencing 7 April 2016

Alongside the confessional divisions in early modern Central and Western Europe, there flourished a non-territorial, at least in theory transterritorial and transconfessional republic—the Republic of Letters. In this seminar, we investigate the question of the complex relationship between the respublica literaria and confessional identity from the Reformation to the early Enlightenment, with extensive recourse to primary sources.

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International Conference "Reformation und Medien. Zu den intermedialen Wirkungen der Reformation" (Reformation and Media. On the Intermedial Effects of the Reformation )

When and where: 7–9 September 2016, Universität Hamburg, ESA 0, Lecture Hall 221, Edmund-Siemers-Allee 1

This international conference is part of a series of events subsumed under the title “Reformation heute” that take place or have already taken place at significant memorial sites of the Reformation: Wartburg (2013), Worms (2014), Wittenberg (2015), Hamburg (2016) und Augsburg (2017).

The aim of the conference in Hamburg is to draw attention to the reform movements of the 16th century as medial events and to explore the medial impact of the Reformation from the end of the 16th into the 18th century. To this end, philological, theological, art and music historians work together to, among other things, consider the characteristics, structures, and regularities of modern media society as well as the continuing impact and secular transformation of this society’s specifically Protestant mentalités.

The opening paper on religious painting in the mixed-confessional Netherlands of the early 17th century will be held by Prof. Dr. Valeska von Rosen (Bochum).

The conference is open to the University public and take place from 8 to 9 September 2016 (9:30 am–6 pm) in Lecture Hall 221 of the Main Building, East Wing, Universität Hamburg, Edmund-Siemers-Allee 1, 20146.

Conception: Univ.-Prof. Dr. Johann Anselm Steiger

Coordination: Sabine Ledosquet, Research Training Group "Interconfessionality in the Early Modern Period"

Lecture Series: "Interkonfessionalität und ihre Medien" (Interconfessionality and its Media)

2 SWS

When and where: 21 October 2015–20 January 2016, Wednesdays 6–8 pm, Lecture Hall J, Main Building, Edmund-Siemers-Allee 1

The early modern period is rightly considered an era of confessionalization characterized by severe and sometimes violent encounters between the Christian confessions in Europe. At the same time, contemporaries made numerous efforts to come into contact with one another and to speak about what the confessions had in common. This principally took place within everyday life practices, but it was also amplified through attempts at communication in the media. This lecture series turns our attentions to such medial communication strategies and asks what role early modern media played in the dialog between the confessions. Of particular interest is the theater as a space of interconfessional exchange. A further emphasis is the emblem, which provided common image-and-text models serving as argumentative paradigms for all confessions.

Coordination: Univ.-Prof. Dr. Bernhard Jahn, Univ.-Prof. Dr. Johann Anselm Steiger, Graduiertenkolleg Interkonfessionalität in der Frühen Neuzeit, Hamburg

Dienstantritt

der 1. KollegiatInnen-Kohorte

Zeit und Ort: 01.04.2015 um 10.00 Uhr, Sedanstr. 19,  Raum 224

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Begrüßung

der KollegiatInnen durch das Betreuerteam und die Koordinatorin

Zeit und Ort: 10.04.2017 um 14.00 Uhr Sedanstr. 19, Raum 210

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Kolloquium

als Block-Kolloquium

1 SWS

Zeit und Ort: 27.-28.06.2015, Sedanstr. 19, Raum 005

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Einführungsworkshop

1 SWS

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Dienstantritt

der 2. KollegiatInnen-Kohorte

Begrüßung der KollegiatInnen durch das Betreuerteam und die Koordinatorin

Zeit und Ort: 01.09./ 01.10.2015 um 10.00 Uhr, Sedanstr. 19,  Raum 224

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