This text excerpt is part of my manuscript which is progressing well. The main argumentative purpose of my investigation is to explain the longevity of Europe’s empires in the Americas from the 16th till 19th century. Herein, I provide theory formation based on a new concept which I’m developing: friction-based cohesion. It describes empires which were engaged in structural friction and thus created domestic coherence. Structural friction, then, refers to competition, which was often based on ideas of zero-sum thinking, exclusivity, monopolies and conflicts in many sections such as politics, military, religion and trade. In the following text I concentrate on the Greater Caribbean and provide a new temporal classification which accounts for all European empires throughout the centuries as well as a classification of inter-imperial interactions resulting in 3 major geostrategic options: expansion, defense and stalemate.
Kategorie: Papers at the Max-Weber-Kolleg
Winfried Kumpitsch presents a working paper on ‚Warrior Saints and Warrior Ideal‘
The following paper tries to investigate the possibility of a connection between warrior saints and a Christian warrior ideal. For this purpose I present seven work in progress case studies with which I investigate the connection creatd within the text´s themselves between military service and faith, and the information we can gather about their cult.
Ranjeeta Dutta gives a working paper on ‚Unequal Spaces, Equal Access: Negotiating Religion in the Temple Town of Srirangam in Early Modern South India‘
The present paper will examine the ways in which sacrality and urbanism provide the basis of relations of social dominance influenced by caste, occupational hierarchies and ritual rankings of the social groups. On the basis of a case study of the craftsmen at Srirangam, the paper will discuss the ways in which unequal social spaces were created within the city reflected in the existence of different streets around the temple, the distance of each of which from the temple was directly proportional to the social status of the inhabitants residing in those streets. Various religious groups associated with the temple interacted with this hierarchical urban morphology and developed followings by creating spaces of ‘equal’ access through inclusivistic ritual activities within the temple. While these ritual spaces had a semblance of equal access, in many ways the social hierarchy of caste was still maintained within the temple. In many ways, the temple provided an arena of competitive control of resources and followers for different religious groups. These religious groups dovetailed between social hierarchies and fluidity of the city boundaries lending dynamism to religion and urbanity.
Devmini Malka Wijeratne presents a working paper on ‚ Bedazzling the city of brick: Why did Augustus renovate and reconstruct existing temples, rather than add new temples to the landscape?‘
The previous chapter focused on Augustus‘ use of his names to imply that he was somehow a saviour and preserver of ancient traditions. This chapter will focus on how he demonstrated this physically. Essentially, this chapter will argue that his restoration and preservation of the decaying temples showed his desire to restore and preserve Roman traditions. It will also argue that prior to building these temples -and then throughout his political carer – Augustus glorified Rome’s past and particularly exaggerated how the city’s adherence to its traditions and rituals were the reason for its success. It will imply that, having little memory of how frequently these practices were observed by older generations, the Roman people would have felt more guilt and grief over the loss of this imagined, glorious past. This in turn would have created greater appreciation for Augustus and his supporters, and their contribution to the revival of the temples and also their traditions. It will also point out that some other reasons for his decision to reconstruct may also have existed. However, while these would not directly have involved some manipulation of sentiments towards old traditions, the reasons behind them were still very political and were still carried out with the intention of maintaining Augustus‘ image of being a moral leader who had the peoples‘ best interests at heart.
Gabriel Malli presents a working paper on ‚Religious subjectivity in new social media: the discursive construction of the modest self‘
The following paper addresses the construction of moral subject positions – understood as normative templates for “proper” religious conduct and self-understanding – in Islamic Web 2.0 discourse. In the first section, I discuss four distinctive features of online based social media (participatory potentials, community building, multisensory character, technical infrastructure) with regard to their consequences for the production and reception of religious discursive knowledge. Acknowledging that also purist and fundamentalist Islamic agents make use of Web 2.0 potentials, in the second part of the paper I present empirical findings from certain positions of Islamic gender discourse on YouTube, labelled as religious-authoritative. In their discursive practice they produce strictly binary moral codes of gendered con-duct based on certain conceptions of a God-willed order. Relating to every-day situations of a mostly young audience, they constitute a certain model of subjectivity – the modest self – characterized by self-disciplination and rigid gender practice.
Simone Wagner gives a working paper on ‚The provost / abbot as father, the abbess as mother – punishment and gender‘
One chapter of my dissertation deals with gender-specific discourses shaping the authority of superiors in collegiate churches. In this paper I’ve focused on the discourse of motherly love and lenity in punishment. After summing up the current state of research the paper traces the discourse a) in statutes of the collegiate churches (i.e. internal normative documents) and b) in conflicts with civic authorities (the mayor and city council). The last section analyses how abbesses dealed with gendered expectations and if they could subvert them.
Lenity and severity were not gendered binarily. Male superiors also were supposed to be clement. Nevertheless, they could defy expectations of lenity more easily than abbesses. Only the authority of abbesses was attacked fundamentally by accusing them that they punished too severely. Civic authorities did attack abbesses comparatively harshly by applying gendered discourses. However, citizens weren’t necessarily more misogynist than other medieval actors. Urbanity did influence the abbesses’ authority indirectly. It increased contact between the members of collegiate churches, citizens as well as serfs of the collegiate church and thus opportunities to control abbesses.
Michal Kaczmarczyk presents a working paper on ‚Dystopia – an Alternative to Sociology?‘
Dystopia originated as a variant of utopia and its inversion. In this respect it shares many characteristics of classical sociology. However, as a fictional genre dystopia broke with utopia in a much more radical way. In addition, it became much more than a mere counterpoint to the declining utopian literature. The major advantages of dystopia, as compared to sociology, proved to be 1) the self-confident future-orientation and 2) the inclusion of imaginaries into the realm of social ideas. Through the adoption of methods offered by narrative flexibility and non-determinist visions of individual and social change, the considered type of literature has been able to contextualize nad transpose social phenomena and mechanisms identified by sociologists. In result, dystopian worlds are instrumental in imagining potential experiences to which various social scenarios can lead. Moreover, they enable readers to look behind the curtain of the Unknown by delivering its specific visions along with their alternatives. Finally, dystopia is a dialogical endeavor because almost all dystopian authors use their works as tools to convey arguments and warnings that cannot be expressed in a typically scientific way. This dialogue takes place between different generations of writers, between different dystopias as well as between sociology and dystopia. This widespread and profound exchange might be seen as an opportunity to examine more carefully the complex relationships between ideas and images.
Steffen Andrae presents a working paper on ‚Microphysics of Resistance. Alexander Kluge’s Political Philosophy of Feelings‘
My article deals with Alexander Kluge’s understanding of feelings as a potentially productive yet untapped form of political agency. Through an original reading of Marx and Freud, Kluge develops a conception of Antagonistic Realism in which feelings appear as part of a rich aggregation of obstinate subjective capacities resistant to the maintenance of the status quo. In my paper, I examine the broader socio-theoretical framework that guides Kluge’s investigation, his idea of an antirealism of feelings, as well as his reflections on their ideological engagement and their relationship to the political. Moreover, my article is an attempt to introduce Kluge’s stimulating thought to discourses of critical social and political theory where it has hitherto been largely overlooked.
Emiliano Urciuoli presents a working paper on ‚Jumping Among the Temple Towers Snapshots of an Early Christian Critique of Polytheism’s ‘Spatial Fix’‘
The paper aims to critically resort to the materialist-geographical concept of the ‘spatial fix’ for deepening understanding of the functioning of ancient Mediterranean polytheism as urban religion. In its second and main part, it focuses on a few selected samples of the early Christian critique of the polytheist production of a religious built environment in order to better foreground the spatialized character of these polemical arguments. Lastly, it touches on the major changes occurred in this polemical discourse at the time of the increasing ‘materialization’ of Christian religious space.
Anton Röhr gives a working paper on ‚Metamorphosis of criticism in affirmation? Hartmut Rosa and Theodor W. Adorno‘
This paper contains a productive confrontation/conversation between the concept of resonance by Hartmut Rosa and the negative Dialectics of T.W. Adorno. As its starting point it takes Rosas proposition, that his concept is in advantage to Adornos, in so far it contains an elabo-rated concept of the good life, while Adorno‘s seems to remain dark and pessimistic. Based on that, this paper tries to show, why the „pessi-mism“-label doesn‘t fit really to Adornos work. Rather there are very reasonable concerns, that lead Adorno to the view he holds. In this pa-per the concept of resonance meets Adornos concerns, that can be summed up by the term „metamorphosis of critique to affirmation“. In the course of this paper, I try to reveal with Adornos thoughts, that because of the method of social critique Rosa applies, his theory of re-sonance tends to perform this „metamorphosis“ literally behind his back.