What else can you do under the conditions of the hard lockdown? A new book provides an answer to this: look at Erfurt! Erfurt, the blue city, invites you to go on excursions, on foot or – thanks to the many pictures – in your head. The authors at the Max-Weber-Kolleg of the University of Erfurt have not presented another tourist or historical guide here in German and English. Rather, an attempt to understand the city and this city. What has created urban atmosphere for more than a thousand years, what holds it together despite all the challenges, despite all the differences? And: how do you see this in today’s cityscape?
The starting point is still today’s „many-towered Erfurt“, as it was called in the Middle Ages. In seven short chapters, it becomes clear how much fun it is to dive into the city’s history as a story of religious and urbanistic change. To put oneself in the living worlds of past epochs on the basis of what one sees today. The common thread for the selection is the colour blue, which stands for the water of the Gera, Mary’s cloak, woad and more: The book also wants to surprise with unusual perspectives.
„Die blaue Stad“t (The Blue City) was created in the research group „Religion and Urbanity: Mutual Formations“, which is based at the Max-Weber-Kolleg of the University of Erfurt and has been funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) since 2018. How urbanity and religion influence each other is being investigated here comparatively, especially for Europe and South Asia. The question is also discussed in the context of regular „City Walks“ in Erfurt, in which sociologists, historians, archaeologists, urban researchers and religious scholars participate. Professor Susanne Rau, spokesperson of the collegial research group: „I am pleased that we can now reach a broad public through the book.“
More information here.