Autor: Jovanka Weiss

Antje Linkenbach presents a working paper on ‚Value Discourse, Normative Conflicts and the Politicization of Nature‘

Nature has become explicitly politicized since the second half of the 20th century: hegemonic forms of human-nature relationships started to be critically challenged, and alternatives emerged in public debates, civil society, as well as on the level of state policies. Environmental ethics as an academic field of reflection on values and norms emerged, and soon radiated into larger society and inspired environmental movements.

The paper explores conflicts as well as value- and normative transformations in the field of human-nature relationships. On a theoretical level it will discuss concept and phenomenon of politicization, and the relationship between values and norms. Empirically it will focus on different strands of environmental ethics, including environmental pragmatist ethics; on debate and practices of environmental and ecological justice, and on attempts to impinge on the legal order through juridification of nature (rights of nature-debate). Finally, the paper makes a plea for re-territorializing humans in nature. Starting from pointing out affinities between pragmatist environmental ethics and indigenous worldviews, it argues for situated, localized and contextualized ethics and praxis of care.

Hartmut Rosa presents a working paper on ‚Resonant Sovereignty? The Challenge of Social Acceleration – and the Prospect of an Alternative Conception‘

Traditionally, conceptions of sovereignty are based on, and dependent on, the capacity to synchronize political decision making with both the internal dynamics of social and economic life and the external speeds of global markets and technologies as well as environmental processes. Only as long as politics is capable of setting and/or following the pace of societal life, the idea of sovereignty appears to be plausible. Yet, modern societies continue to operate in a mode of dynamic stabilization, which means that they are persistently forced to grow, accelerate and innovate in order to reproduce their structure and to preserve their institutional status quo. This leads to a form of social acceleration which threatens or even destroys this very capacity for synchronization; it leads to serious forms of desynchronization on all levels of social and political life (i.e. between citizens, between markets and politics, between states as well as between social life and environmental temporalities). Hence, this contribution argues, what is needed is a different conception of ‘soft sovereignty’ which is not based on autonomy and instrumental control, but on responsivity on all those levels: This form of sovereignty, or of the common good, is realized when a body politic establishes ‘axes of resonance’ a) between citizens b) between citizens and the ‚body politic‘ as a whole, c) towards the (natural and institutional) environment d) towards history and e) towards other political bodies beyond its borders.

Vanina Kopp presents a working paper on ‚Lay confraternities and their artistic devotion between 1400 and 1750 in French urban centres‘

The aim of my talk is to discuss how elements of economic history and art history continue or change between 1400 until 1700. Confraternities of lay men and women, mostly dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, and featuring literary and various artistic activities, called puys, existed in various cities from 1400 to 1700 in several French urban centres (Amiens, Rouen, Abbeville, Paris…). Visual images such as huge paintings, material objects such as silver reliquaries, chapel dedications in cathedrals or a sculptural program in the sacred space were underlining as well as undermining the pious undertaking. The textual productions of the Paris confraternity, as well as those of several older communities in Rouen and Amiens, show the entanglements of literary culture, visual art, and social practices of pious association and economic distinction. I analyze the textual and visual sources produced by these confraternities to express their devotion.

Jörg Rüpke presents a working paper on ‚Grasping urbanity: Propertius’ Book 4 and urban religion of the Augustan period‘

Propertius’ last book of elegies (publ. c. 16 BCE) has been read as a staged conflict between antiquarianism and love elegy. This article argues that the book as a whole is above all a reflection on the spatial and temporal boundaries of the city and the internal impact of the permanent crossing and breaking down of these boundaries. Then and now, imperial expedition and internal treason, permanent and temporary absence, burying outside and loving inside, admission to and exclusion from sacralised and gendered space and finally the vertical dimension of life’s above and death’s below explore these limits and transfers and constitute the urbanity of the city as well as the urbanity of religion.

David Palme presents a working paper on ‚In the Turn of the River‘

The river as a metaphor for „the world“, „the things“, „time“, etc. is ubiquitous in philosophy. This paper starts with a short-story by Bertolt Brecht and investigates the meaning of the metaphor in Brechts story about philosophy and transfers this to Hercalitus‘ and Wittgenstein‘s use of the river-metaphor. The paper differentiates the river-metaphor into two „rivers“, an actual river and a metaphorical river. Brecht‘s story gives an account of philosophy as criticizing the metaphorical river. With Wittgenstein and Marx the paper suggests a critique of language that goes back to the actual river. This critique of language can help to solve problems of modern moral philosophy.

Julie Casteigt follows again invitation of the Gotha Research Center

Dr. habil. Julie Casteigt, Professor of Philosophy at the Université Toulouse – Jean Jaurès, has been granted the Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Research Award by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. This prize is awarded annually to scientists from abroad for outstanding scientific achievements. The award, which is endowed with 45,000 EUR, also includes the sponsorship of a research stay at a self-selected scientific institution in Germany. Julie Casteigt will return to the Gotha Research Center of the University of Erfurt for one year at the invitation of Prof. Dr. Martin Mulsow, where she has already spent two months as a Hiob-Ludolf-Fellow in 2019.

Julie Casteigt is an internationally outstanding specialist in the history of medieval philosophy and member of the Meister Eckhart Research Unit of the Max-Weber-Kolleg. With her also methodologically highly innovative work on Meister Eckhart, Albert the Great and the medieval commentaries on the Gospel of John, she has presented groundbreaking approaches for a new understanding of these texts. Her current research project, which focuses on textual bridges between the Middle Ages and the early modern period, intellectual networks, and the history of ideas in this period, will also be conducted in cooperation with the Max-Weber-Kolleg of the University of Erfurt.

Julie Casteigt: „I am very happy about this award and I am looking forward to working in Gotha and Erfurt again, where I have found an excellent research environment and exciting dialogue partners at the Gotha Research Center as well as at the Max-Weber-Kolleg“.

Stefan Schmalz receives Heisenberg research funding

PD Dr. Stefan Schmalz, currently deputy professor at the Latin America Institute of Freie Universität Berlin, will be included in the Heisenberg Programme of the German Research Foundation (DFG). The funding is based at the Max-Weber-Kolleg for Cultural and Social Studies at the University of Erfurt.

Schmalz will conduct research at the Max Weber College on „Globalisation in the Cancer Course: New Lines of Conflict in the International Division of Labour“. The project is devoted to current conflicts which are being caused by the rise of China in the world economy. One focus is on disputes over Chinese direct investment in the high-tech sector. It discusses what ‚deglobalisation‘ means. Schmalz also plans to conduct research in China and the USA in the coming years.

The Heisenberg Programme is aimed at „outstanding scientists“ whose research projects are characterised by „high scientific quality and originality“. Hartmut Rosa, Director of the Max-Weber-Kolleg: „In this project, which focuses on problems of the international division of labour using the example of China, we also see great potential for inter-faculty cooperation with colleagues at the Faculty of Economics, Law and Social Sciences, and especially the Willy Brandt School.“

New publication: Gottesdiener und Kamelzüchter

With „Gottesdiener und Kamelzüchter“ (Servants of God and Camel Breeder), Benjamin Sippel has now published his dissertation submitted to the University of Erfurt in the Harrassowitz publishing house. It deals with the everyday and social life of the Sobek priests in the Fayum of the imperial period and is at the same time volume 144 of the series „Philippika – Altertumswissenschaftliche Abhandlungen“.

When Octavian conquered Egypt (30 B.C.), several large temples that cultivated the cult of the crocodile god Sobek were enthroned in the villages on the edge of the Fayum. Rich archaeological, epigraphic and papyrological evidence has been handed down from this region for the following three centuries, illustrating the daily life of the priesthood between ritual acts, temple administration and family life under Roman rule.

Benjamin Sippel is the first to paint a picture of the relations of the Sobek priests of Fayum among themselves, with their village communities and with state officials. The focus is on the villages of Bakchias, Narmuthis, Soknopaiu Nesos, Tebtynis and Theadelphia. Four thematic areas form the core of the study: (1) the peculiarities of naming among priestly families, (2) the efforts of the temple colleges to attract a Hellenistically educated audience, (3) the secular earning opportunities for priests and (4) the sources of conflict in the temple environment. On the one hand, Sippel succeeds in deconstructing the stereotype of Egyptian priests as an ‚indigenous elite‘. On the other hand, the study closes a research gap by shedding light on the situation of the Egyptian Sobek cults in the Fayum under Roman rule.

More information about the publication here. (German only)

New publication: Marx und Eucken 2.0 – Ein Manifest zur Transformation der Marktwirtschaft

With their book „Marktwirtschaft: Zu einer neuen Wirklichkeit – 30 Thesen zur Transformation unserer Wirtschaftsordnung“ („Market Economy: Towards a New Reality – 30 Theses on the Transformation of our Economic Order“), Prof. Dr. Carsten Herrmann-Pillath, economist at the Max-Weber-Kolleg of the University of Erfurt, and the Cologne education entrepreneur Dr. Stephan Bannas have now presented a concept of how the global challenges of climate change and increasing inequality could be met by reorienting our economic coexistence.

They focus on the ‚real market economy‘, which they see as an alternative to the ideology of ‚capitalism‘. In doing so, they place themselves in the tradition of German ordo-liberalism, but extend it by a new economic-ethical and ecological framework.

More information about the book here. (German only)

Markus Vinzent presents a working paper ‚From a critical theory of scholarship to a critical historiography‘

The present paper reflects upon a post-postmodern criticism of scholarship from a historical perspective. Taking into account the move from hypersceptical auto-criticism of the postmodern period to a rather sceptical understanding of auto-criticism of scholarship in light of Trumpism, the paper advocates that scholarship cannot dispense of auto-criticism or relegate it to specialist fields like philosophy or sociology. In contrast, even a discipline like history has to critically reflect upon its own methodological approaches if it keeps to being scholarship and does not hand over agency to populists.