This paper seeks to discuss the influence of South Asian decolonisation movements on European pacifism in the interwar period through the work and ideas of Pierre Ceresole (17/08/1879 – 23/10/1945), a Swiss internationalist and pacifist. In exploring how his ideas about pacifism evolved in relation to World War I and its aftermath, this paper argues that anti-colonial nationalism and decolonisation movements played a crucial role in shaping his pacifist methods and networks. The paper seeks to link two strands of historical research: first, the role of religion and spirituality in humanitarianism, and second, how activities that went against dominant discourses of nationalism, colonialism and ideologies of violence were shaped by interaction between civil society groups in transnational thought zones throughout the first half of the twentieth century.
Autor: al-tahers
Reshma Radhakrishnan gives a working paper on ‚‘Strategic Accommodation’ of Diversities: gender norms and identities beyond the binaries‘
Gender diversity is an area that has come to be more and more complex over the years with the troubling of the binary understanding of gender. Queer studies/movements effectively question and complicate the concept, challenging the idea of heteronormativity. This project is concerned with the processes of ‘accommodation’ of gender diversities and heterogeneity. Engaging with the queer movement and queer politics of Kerala, a south-Indian state often praised as one of the most developed among the Indian states in many respects, I look at the case of trans-women of Kerala vis-à-vis the rest of the country, and extend the analysis in the context of the European/transnational experiences. This paper is a small step in this direction. In this paper, I primarily try to introduce the project, contextualise the study and engage with the question of visibility. I engage with the complexity of ‘visibility‘ and critiques to the fights for visibility, and suggest that it has more to do with achieving ‘normalcy‘ than an imposed visibility or hypervisibility.
João Tziminadis presents a working paper on ‚The Unleashed Life and the Fading Body‘
This text is my first attempt to frame theoretically the relation between modern Biotechnology and the historical, epistemological, and normative constitution of Biogerontology, the science responsible for the study of biological ageing. The first part is an attempt to under-stand the cultural placement of modern Biotechnology, for which I resort to Hartmut Rosa’s concept of Verfügbarmachung as a useful tool. The second one departs from the suspect that the possibilities opened by modern Biotechnology might have impacted the main-stream scientific understanding of human ageing, so that I present central biogerontological concepts that might reflect that impact. The relation between Biotechnology’s promise of unleashing life from its biological limitations and Biogerontology’s new understanding of ageing as life-encompassing process of loss of function weaves the text.
Kristine Iara presents a working paper on ‚Late antique Rome: space, people and gods‘
Based on the analysis of the archaeological, epigraphic and textual evidence and its critical assessment, my research explores topographic-urbanistic, social, and religious dimensions of the transformation of Rome’s sacral topography in Late Antiquity, a topic that still lacks a monographic study. My methodology can be subsumed under the term synopsis and includes: (1) studying the late antique period as intrinsic to Rome’s millennial history, without being biased by a teleological view on the outcome, that is, Rome as the capital of a Christian empire; (2) analyzing all cult places and all areas of the city, including the suburbium; (3) the combined consideration of the dimensions of space and time; and (4) examining connections and connectors between places (material, permanent ones, e.g. streets; ephemeral ones, e.g. processions; immaterial ones, e.g. visual axes). This synoptic analysis of the cityscape constitutes the essential step that leads not only to a quantitative increase of data, but will induce a qualitative shift in the research. Moreover, it will re-embed Rome’s sacral topography within its urban (‘general’) topography without the two being separated from one another. Rome’s sacral topography has not yet been analyzed with a similar approach, neither for Late Antiquity nor for earlier times.
Konrad Pfeffel gives a working paper on ‚Fear of the North? – Studies on the instrumentalization of the North in Roman society‘
In the present paper I am discussing aspects of the ancient view of the north with focus on the sources from the centuries around the turn of the eras. To showcase the lines of literary tradition I will of course also cite older sources when needed. My focuses in this paper are the topical aspects of the northlands themselves, which is why I am putting less emphasis on the inhabitants of the described regions. I do this to make clear that the ancient views on the north could “work” even without connections to the peoples living there – and to show that regions like this almost inevitably had to breed savages. The last point I want to examplify even further in future papeer.
Martin Christ is going to present a working paper on ‚Moving Religion out of the City? Extra-urban Cemeteries in Germany, 1490 – 1880‘
Understood as a space for religious rituals, saturated with religious iconography and meaning and full of biblical symbolism, burial spaces formed a ‘hot spot’ of religion. After focusing on the cemetery as a religious space, this paper will turn to the movement of cemeteries form inside the city to its outside and indicate some of the reasons people living in the early modern period gave for the movement of cemeteries. The next part sketches some European comparisons, focusing, in particular, on the British Isles, which show a different kind of reasoning behind the movement of cemeteries and indicate that religion was only a key factor for the movement of cemeteries, if combined with other causes. Finally, the paper considers one of the key questions regarding the movement of cemeteries, that is, if the move of the burial spaces outside of the city walls led to a more secular city, a view that is still highly influential in the historiography on this topic. By way of conclusion, I offer some questions for further directions of this research.
Chad Alan Goldberg is going to present a working paper on ‚Cultural Pluralism and Democracy‘
The paper sketches the agenda for a new research project on cultural pluralism and democracy. Cultural pluralism emerged in opposition to nativism, assimilationism (Americanization), and the melting-pot ideal in the United States during the historical period known as the Progressive Era (c. 1890–1920). For its proponents, cultural pluralism was not merely compatible with democracy; they claimed that it was in some sense a defining feature of democracy. The doctrine had roots in American pragmatism, from which it derived political and intellectual commitments that were potentially in tension. This tension remains underexplored. Although some historians have suggested that its Jewish origins
limited its scope to European immigrant groups, a broader perspective that looks beyond its chief architect, Horace Kallen, reveals that other intellectuals developed his ideas in relation to nonwhite and non-European
groups. These efforts merit closer scrutiny. Finally, there has been little effort to relate cultural pluralism to the wider global context in which it emerged. By pursuing these three lines of inquiry, the research project outlined here seeks to deepen our historical understanding of
cultural pluralism. At the same time, it seeks to clarify the relevance of cultural pluralism for renewed controversies over immigration and cultural diversity today.
Blaž Ploj presents a working paper on ‚Implicit Ritual in the Mostellaria‘
In the first part of this paper, a model audience is constructed on the basis of the approaches of the so-called Konstanz School of aesthetics of reception, with the aim of bridging the methodological difficulties arising from the lack of evidence of reception. The second part focuses on the object of my investigation, which I critically revise. My aim is to make it easier to grasp some phenomena which I incorporate into my analysis with the concept of implicit ritual. The third part is a case study in which I try to define by means of an example from the Mostellaria (The Haunted House) what the concept of implicit ritual encompasses.
Bennet Bergmann gives a working paper on ‚Meditation as a practice to develop a mediopassive attitude towards self and world‘
This paper examines the aspect of medio-passivity (both active and passive) in the field of meditation practices. First, the mediopassive attitude is described and contextualized in relation to resonance theory. The illustration in the empirical material is divided into two topics: the practitioners attitude towards their own practice, and the description of their practice (the instruction how to meditate). Finally the underlying principle of medio-passivity is generalized and related to other oppositions (such as interior-exterior). This leads to the assumption that mediation practices could be described as an exercise in taking a medio-attitude.
Cécile Stephanie Stehrenberger is going to present a working paper on ‚Annobón 1988. Slow disaster, colonialism, and the Franco dictatorship ‚
In 1988, plans to dump “toxic waste from Europe” on the island of Annobón were uncovered. This article analyzes the “slow disaster” these plans set into motion, revealing the ways in which it was made possible by the ongoing legacies of Francoist and other colonialisms. It explains how the scheme converted the Annobonese population into “riskable life” and connects it to the 1966 nuclear incident of Palomares. Moreover, it demonstrates how the racist othering of Africa(ns), that had been an important condition of possibility for the disaster, was reproduced in some accounts of it published in Spanish and German print media.