Autor: Jovanka Weiss

Research Group „Religion and Urbanity“ awards scholarships

The research group „Religion and Urbanity. Mutual Transformations“ at the Max-Weber-Kolleg of the University of Erfurt will again award scholarships in 2021/22. The Max Weber College accepts applications until January 8, 2021.

The DFG-funded research group is headed by the historian Prof. Dr. Susanne Rau and the religious studies scholar Prof. Dr. Jörg Rüpke. It is concerned with the question of how religion and urbanity – cities and urban lifestyles – have shaped each other in the course of history. This will first be examined using individual cities or networks of cities from antiquity to the European modern period and contemporary India, and compared across continents and epochs. Is it possible to think one without the other?

The scholarships now being offered will be awarded for a period of three to six months to researchers working in the humanities, especially in (religious) history or in the fields of sociology and urban studies with a focus on historical and religious developments. For further information on scholarship requirements and modalities please refer to the Call for applications. Organisational questions can also be directed to Dr. Elisa Iori (elisa.iori(at)uni-erfurt.de).

Ethics of National Socialism – a contribution to understanding National Socialist moral justifications

If one wants to understand how the crimes of National Socialism were possible, it makes sense to look at the moral reasons that shaped the normative self-image of the acting actors. This topic is explored in the annotated volume of sources „Supposed Reasons – Ethics and Ethics in National Socialism“, which now presents for the first time a biographically contextualized selection of texts by academic moral philosophers who distinguished themselves particularly in the „Drittes Reich“.

The volume „Vermeintliche Gründe. Ethics and Ethics in National Socialism“ was extensively commented and edited by Werner Konitzer, Johanna Bach, Jonas Balzer and David Palme (PhD student at the Max Weber College for Cultural and Social Studies at the University of Erfurt). Dealing with the moral justifications of the perpetrators, who regarded their actions as „good“, „right“ or „necessary“, helps to better understand the connection between normative self-image and the crimes of National Socialism. In addition, the book enables a differentiated view of the development of moral philosophy after 1945.

Here you can find more information about the volume.

Database on religion and urbanity is online

The DFG-funded research group „Religion and Urbanity: Reciprocal Formations“ (FOR 2779) of the Max-Weber-Kolleg of the University of Erfurt has now gone online with a database on religion and urbanity at the publishing house De Gruyter.

The database contains some 200 case studies and theoretical texts, making important research contributions on the interplay between religious change on the one hand and changes in urban spaces and urban lifestyles on the other, as well as on practices and discourses of urbanity publicly accessible. The contributions focus on questions concerning the role of religious actors, practices and ideas in the emergence and ongoing development of cities and urbanity, the role of urban actors, spaces and practices, and the discourse on urbanity in the emergence and development of religious groups and religion. „The background of our project is a rich research on the city in many disciplines, which, however, often neither bring together the different global spaces nor past and present developments – this is especially true for the topic of religion and urbanity,“ says Prof. Dr. Jörg Rüpke, who, together with Prof. Dr. Susanne Rau, heads the research group and is responsible for the database. „At the end of the research project in the year 2022, a three-volume handbook in digital and printed form is to be produced, documenting the research thrust initiated by the project and making it tangible for further research. But we didn’t want to hide the results for years, we wanted to put them up for discussion right from the start. Hence the form of a digital ‚journal‘ – seemed appropriate to us.

„The authors of Religion and Urbanity Online are currently mainly members of the research group, Fellows of the Max-Weber-Kolleg and conference guests,“ adds Prof. Dr. Susanne Rau. „But we would also like to encourage other researchers who are dealing with the general topic of religion and urbanity to submit contributions, which will then be reviewed in a peer-review process. We have just published an open ‚invitation‘ for this in our blog.“

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