Focusing on Roman and Late Antique Athens (1st c. BCE – 7th c. CE) this project analyses the mutual transformations of urban and burial space. It combines the analysis of archaeological, epigraphic and literary evidence in a wide-ranging investigation of urban social and religious dynamics and their effects. The period in question is particularly interesting as the city underwent various processes of urbanisation (2nd c. CE) and de-urbanisation (late 3rd c. CE). In Roman times, Athens was passed through by myriads of worshippers of Demeter and Kore on their way to nearby Eleusis in quest for a better fate after death. The Sacred Way hence formed a prominent burial location. However, many indicators of transformations that affected the cemeteries throughout time and space can be found: i.e. the creation of the Hadrianic ‚new town’, the construction of the Panathenaic Stadium, the emergence of villa complexes in the Imperial period to the east of the city, multiple changes to the city walls, but also the emergence of Christianity and new public spaces within the city in Late Antiquity. It is from the 4th-5th c. CE onwards that we find Christian burials sites in the very centre of the city in context of once grande monuments. All in all, a general connection between the preservation of monuments, their relevance for the collective memory of the city and the existence of the institutions associated with them can be observed.
Kategorie: Papers at the Max-Weber-Kolleg
Helen Anne Gibson presents a working paper on ‚Granny Midwives’ Epistemic and Embodied Care‘
Black feminist theory is a field that has reached an impasse in its situatedness in conversation with white historiography (or ontology), which maintains that people were reduced to property objects in the colonial Americas. Recent conversations within Black feminist theory, for example, have likened the agency of propertized beings in the aftermath of slavery to that of an actant such as a rock (Hartman 2021). Previous iterations of this conversation promised to untether such actants from ontological terror (Warren 2018) via appeals to alternative epistemologies (Robinson 1983; Spillers 1987). Black feminist appeals have been taken up by a handful of scholars writing in the Black radical tradition (Hartman 2016; Moten 2003, 2007, 2013, 2017; Taylor 2019; Weheliye 2014; Weinbaum 2019). Scholars writing largely outside of the Black radical tradition, meanwhile, have sought to reconcile tensions between the Black feminist epistemology proffered by Hortense Spillers and embodied experiences of blackness and femaleness (Hartman 2007, 2008; Morgan 2004, 2018, 2021; Musser 2018; Nash 2019, 2021). Few such scholars, however, have been willing to forgo hard-won epistemological ground that changes the terms of debates about racial capitalism in order to accommodate the apparently cosmological intervention of Womanist theory (Walker 1983; Stewart 2021). This paper seeks to untangle some of the epistemological traditions at play in these debates, and to begin to structure a theoretical frame that will allow for the unconventional analysis of midwifery as Black radical tradition.
Maria Dell’Isola presents a working paper on ‚Monastic Space and Boundary Violation in Palladius, Lausiac History 33-34‘
The present paper attempts to discuss the relation between space, property and boundaries in Palladius, Lausiac History 33-34. More specifically, I will focus on a series of spatial details that prove how they are key factors in both the shaping of monastic territorial subdivision and definition of religious and social agency in men’s and women’s monasteries. The nexus between land/space ownership, physical borders and gender difference emerges as being particularly interesting because it sheds light on many relevant questions of late ancient Christianity, such as the economic organization of monastic communities and the gender-oriented structure of monasteries.
Chapters 33 and 34 of Palladius’ Lausiac History represent a significative case in this regard. The emphasis on a sharp separation between male and female monasteries, the liminality of gendered spaces, and the crossable boundaries between opposite areas are all factors that characterize the narrative of both chapters and contribute to the creation of a rigorously property-related monastic framework. Most importantly, the association between boundary violation and gender is functional to highlight the interplay between space restriction and limitation of freedom in terms of social and religious agency.
Sofia Bianchi Mancini presents a working paper on ‚Narrative Property in Lucan’s Pharsalia III‘
Lucan’s Book III focuses on the battle of Massilia – a fight historically fought in 49 B.C. between Caesar’s forces and Pompey’s sympathisers. In the book, the poet gives voice to the brutality and viciousness of the conflict through a vivid portrayal of how Roman and Massilian soldiers were dismembered, amputated, or decapitated. However, the battle of Massilia, as recounted by Lucan, is much more than this grotesque and violent account. The peculiar construction of the entire narrative – alongside the usage of key Latin terms and references to specific elements used in Roman religious and ‘magical’ practices – shows how Lucan narrates and constructs a peculiar kind of property, namely one that is strictly related to the self and the body. The way he relates it ultimately serves the purpose of creating a new identity, through Stoic philosophy, that may solve the political problems of his own time.
Raminder Kaur presents a working paper on ‚Sacred Cities: A Sacerology of the Harmandir Sahib in Amritsar, India‘
In this paper, I adopt interdisciplinary perspectives to develop a sacerology of how the sacral flows on and through the land, and that then influences presence in the place. Departing from solely anthropogenic perspectives, such perspectives provide ontological glimpses into other worlds. There is a radical beyond that evades rationalisation and compartmentalisation while being central to human experience and existence even if they be located in the urban. With a focus on the Harmandir Sahib, otherwise known as the Golden Temple, in the Indian city of Amritsar, I elaborate on four main registers of engagements or ‘quantum qualities’ that change according to place, person and phenomena. These contingent categories are foundational, validatory, everyday and tapestry.
Lorenzo Cozzi presents a working paper on ‚The other Apocalypse: the thought of history in Nicholas of Lyra’s Postilla Litteralis‘
After a short introduction of Nicholas of Lyra’s biographic and intellectual path, I will show how this exegete’s reflection on the Apocalypse is placed within a specific groove according to which the pages of the Book of Revelation provide an opportunity for a continuous reading of the history of Christianity. I will therefore focus mainly on the most problematic moment of the work, namely the au-thor’s comment on Revelation XX. In fact, it is precisely in this chapter that Nicholas, declaring his lack of access to the prophetic gift, reveals his myopia in the face of any attempt to recompose the events surrounding him from an historical-eschatological perspective. As I will show in Part II, with this strategy, the prophetic word is therefore subjected to a speculative work aimed at subtracting it from the claims of the apocalyptic thought and at relocating it adequately within a social project suited to the needs of the Church of the time.
Christina Williamson presents a working paper on ‚Sacred circles. Enclosed sanctuaries as urban repeaters in festival networks‘
Two parallel developments in the Hellenistic period concern urban religious form. One is the increasing tendency towards inter-urban, mondial festivals, with catchment areas at multiple scales ranging from the local region to across the Mediterranean. The other is the increasing tendency towards inward-facing sacred architecture, particularly peristyle sanctuaries, but also theatres and stadia. Until now these have been examined as separate developments emerging from either new institutional practices or new architectural conceptualizations of public and private space. I suggest instead that these were not only related developments, but stem from a third tendency in the Hellenistic era, that of cities to connect. The major festivals were resoundingly inclusive events, with regional and transregional theoric initiatives that could include local marginalized groups as well. The enclosure of this festival space may show similarities with other spaces within the urban topography that were exclusive per definition, but this is due to the logic of design in fostering social cohesion. Ritual profoundly amplifies the effect. The concentration of space and attention facilitates the common knowledge and collective emotional energy needed to create a transformative and transregional experience. These ‘sacred circles’ served as powerful repeaters of this festival network, transmitting a dynamic flow of ideas that spilled over into other areas. Cities began to resemble each other more and more as this cosmopolitan culture took hold across the Mediterranean and well beyond.
Marcus Döller presents a working paper on ‚Action and Sociality: Model of Infortune‘
In chapter 20 of my PhD project I am going to conceptualize a processual understanding of subjectivity on the one side and social reproduction on the other side. In referring to Rosa I show that both accounts are interwoven with each other on a level of social constitution and reproduction. I take Rosa to radicalize how we can think of transformation in subjective and social conditions of modernity. My systematical starting point and end point as well is the concept of “practical capacities”. This is the theoretical framework in which I want to place what human action as capacity of the subject could be. My suggestion is to understand creative actions as actualization of what I call “incapacities internal to capacities”. The chapter articulates this dialectic on the level of subjective action and social structure. In developing three different models in subjectivity (i), social revolution (ii) and nature (iii) I show that transformation has to think about regressive moments as moments of standstill. The concept of standstill is crucial for my elaboration of transformative action as liberation because it helps me to think transformation as producing something that is as well a fundamental resistance against the social order and transformative potential within the social reproduction at the same time. In order to understand liberation – the overall topic of all of my chapters – we have to understand both moments.
Hermine Bähr presents a working paper on ‚Knowledge, Science and Society: The State of the Art of social Science Studies‘
The aim of this study is to examine the production of transdisciplinary knowledge in the context of real-world laboratories. The concept of transdisciplinarity describes the intentionally installed research setting of hybrid knowledge production at the science-public nexus that is aiming to solve pressing societal challenges. Especially in the context of climate change, sustainable development and urban planning, so-called real-world laboratories are implemented to co-create ‚robust‘ and ’socially relevant‘ knowledge that leads to social change.
This project takes a Science and Technology Studies account to investigate – by applying ethnographic and reconstructive sociology research methods – how practices of knowledge production change under the condition of research done in transdisciplinary settings.
One part of this project is to develop a conceptual account for a better understanding of the connections between science and society when it comes to the transfer of knowledge claims into changed structures. The other part is to empiri-cally analyze the interactions and transformations that occur when facts and ‚matters of concern‘ travel in between – that is, to reject the linear model of knowledge transfer by acknowledging the ambiguity of knowledge in the making and the complexity of its interactions.
In order to follow the implementation process between scientific and public knowledge production and deliberation, a case study is chosen, that shows the transfer from the global claim of decarbonization to the structural change in one particular region. The chosen case study is a rural periphery of post-GDR coal mining regions: Lusatia and the lignite coal mining area in central Eastern Germany (Mitteldeutsches Revier). This area is particularly interesting, as it amplifies the societal tensions between urban vs. rural understandings of energy politics and touches upon issues such as populism, skepticism, representation and marginalization.
Simone Wagner presents a working paper on ‚Space in Conflict – Cospatiality and its Effect on the Authority of Superiors‘
Many conflicts between religious superiors and their chapters as well as civic magistrates deal with spatial issues. These can be explained by applying the concept of cospatiality. Jacques Lévy defines cospatiality as „une des interspatialités caractérisée par la mise en relation de deux espaces occupant la même étendue“. During the conflicts the actors tried to conceptually and physically distinguish between the precinct of the collegiate church and urban space. However, they failed to do successfully. By challenging the meaning applied to space by their adversaries actors created cospatiality. Walls were constructed as dividing as well as permeable. Physical formations like doors and sounds could act as a switch triggering spatial interaction. Cospatiality influenced the authority of the superiors. As monastic and urban space interacted their authority was challenged.