Papers at the Max-Weber-Kolleg – Seite 8

Malka Wijeratne is going to present a working paper on ‚What’s in a name?: A study of the names Gaius Julius Caesar Divi Filius and name Imperator Caesar Augustus Divi Filius‘

The topic of Augustus’ connection to Mos maiorum is one that has already been well analysed. However less is understood on why the Roman people accepted the connections he was making to such ancient traditions and also significant historical figures in Rome. The project proposes that their pre-existing, emotional connections to Mos maiorum and the resonance they felt with it – particularly those built on previous habitualisation through ritual – allowed them to appreciate and understand the importance Augustus placed on these values. It would additionally have prompted them to view him as a champion of Roman values and Roman tradition, despite several aspects of Augustus’ ascent to power going against the values on morality and democracy that are embraced within the concept of Mos maiorum. This paper aims to demonstrate the overall argument by using two of the names Augustus used since 44BC, as an example of how he linked himself to these traditions. It will, in each case, analyse why he needed to change his name and which aspects of Mos maiorum he was channeling with each of the two names. Afterward, the paper will also investigate if an emotional connection could have existed between the ritual or tradition in question and if this could then have allowed them to understand Augustus’ message. Furthermore, in each instance, the paper will also question if each of the names would have meant something different to the Aristocracy and the masses.

The overall hypothesis of the paper, is that the support garnered for Augustus’ association with Mos maiorum was created through the Romans’ existing emotional connection to the traditions and rituals associated with it and their ability to resonate with these traditions and rituals. However, this paper, and the project overall will take into account the possibility of this support being created through ulterior motives, rather than as a consequence of strong emotional connection and resonance towards Mos maiorum. While emotional links to the rituals – especially those linked strongly with a sense of identity – could certainly have moved people to become devoted to Augustus, it should be noted that the Late Republican period saw the rise of numerous powerful Roman personalities, all vying for some form of power and frequently turning against each other to ensure that this power was obtained. It is perfectly possible, that in some instances, ambition triumphed over emotion.

Matteo Santarelli presents a working paper on ‚Values, concepts, and contingency: re-assessing Joas’ theory of values‘

This paper is part of the introduction to the Italian edition of Hans Joas’s
book Die Entstehung der Werte. This paper aims at discussing and
reassessing Joas’ theses from the standpoint of nowadays scientific,
political and cultural debates.
In the first section of the paper, I will briefly reconstruct Joas’ definition of
values as the articulation of experiences of self-formation and selftranscendence.
In the second section of the paper, I will try to develop Joas’ theory of values presented in his 1997 essay from a theoretical point of view. As an outcome of this discussion, two supplementary theses will be introduced and discussed: values have an abstract (or more precisely, vague) conceptual content; moral judgments and feelings exceed the conceptual content of values. In the third section of the paper I will try to apply this theoretical reelaboration of Joas’ theory to discuss a contemporary issue, that is the role that values play in contemporary political and social life. Specifically, I will try to show how limited is an understanding of western contemporary societies in terms of total loss of values. The critical focus of this discussion will be Wendy Brown´s nihilistic interpretation of the contemporary conservative reactivation of traditional values.

Konstantin Akinsha gives a working paper on ‚Writing the Fifth Gospel. Interbellum. The beginning of WWII.‘

The project is analyzing the notion of the holy places belonging to the sacred geography of the Holy Land. After the Establishment of the British Mandate for Palestine numerous churches and sanctuaries were erected on the important Biblical sites. Architect Antonio Barluzzi, who created the majority of the new churches developed quite specific architectural style, which could be defined as the style of emotional illusions. His architecture of experience produced with the help of different tricks and devices didn’t have comparable example in the European tradition.
On the eve of WW2 the Catholic authorities dreamed about Italian occupation of Palestine and Rome domination in the Holy Land. Such dreams manifested themselves in the project of the gigantic Cathedral of the Holy Sepulchre, which had to replace the old church and to change forever both the cityscape and structure of Jerusalem.

Manuel Moser presents a working paper on ‚Anthropology of cars. Resonances in the relationships between drivers and their vehicles‘

This paper is an attem pt to structure the ideas of my diss ertation project and divided into two parts: (1) First, I’m trying to develop a theoretical frame parting from Rosa’s resonance theory, passing through the meaning of rituals, connecting it with reciprocity (identified as structure behind the Andean cosmovision ), the gift (in the sense of Mauss/M.A.U.S.S.) and the Actor Network Theory and ending with sumak kawsay. On a theoretical basis, I am interested how t his different approaches are connected and/or can become connected. In the second part (2), I discover the methodological tools, which I want to use to answer my research questions: (a) how truck drivers and trucks associate with each
other in the Thurin gian and the Bolivian context and (b) how the relationship to the truck influences other relationships the truck driver might construct towards social, diagonal and essentialist entities.
This paper shall serve as starting f rame , through which I want to dive into the empirical fieldwork. Obviously it has to get further developed in theoretical deepness, as well as it has also to be rethought (on a theoretical and a methodological level) during and after the gathering of empirical data.

Emilia Jamroziak presents a working paper on ‚The linear construction of monastic history in the modern historiography: what are its consequences and is there any alternative?‘

This project aims to explain key historiographical processes that history of medieval monasticism has been the subject to from the nineteenth-century onwards. Far from being marginal, the modern historiography of medievall monasticism is a powerful test-case for a wider understanding of the interpretational processes of history, meta-levels of historiographical developments as well as opportunities of the transcultural approaches that emerged in the recent years. Although monasticism has late Antiquity roots and long post-medieval histories, the medieval period is the formative one and has been studied with particular intensity. It is frequently used as a stage that not only shaped but also defined this phenomenon. The ‘tyranny’ of origins has affected the historiography of medieval monasticism to a great extent and continues to do so. The value attached to – or rejection of – monastic heritage has been shaped in significant ways by how the history of monasticism has been incorporated into linear histories of nation-states. The confessional perspectives – Catholic and Protestant were very important in shaping western-European historiography in the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth century. The resent resurgence of the confessionally-driven interpretations in parts of East-Central Europe (especially Poland, Croatia and Hungary) and its impact on the approaches to the medieval monastic history are crucial for the wider understanding of contemporary identities and the place that medieval history has within ‘politics of history’. Since the development of the academic study of monasticism, the trans-European monastic networks have been routinely studied from the perspective of modern political borders and subjecting it to the specific periodisation concerns as well as set of questions that removed or diminished agency of such communities vis-à-vis political structures. In most extreme versions it had led to the models that removed the religious component from the analysis altogether. The powerful image of rationality and economic planning, as well as seeing strategic innovations in the monastic structures have been central to the Weberian-inspired models of interpretation. Whilst economy-focused approaches largely disappeared by the late-twentieth century, the models that interpret monastic structures and many elements of monastic culture as a precursor of modern rationality, often using the terminology of ‘innovation’ remained, at meta-level, anchored in the concept of progress and development.

Martin Christ presents 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.

Nancy Alhachem gives a working paper on ‚Cultural Trauma, Memory and Affect‘

This project explores the practices of memory among refugees and migrants (mostly from Arab countries such as Syrians, Iraqis and Palestinians), in the light of Rosa’s resonance theory, which suggests ‘thinking and feeling in exchange’, to allow the other, whether it is a person, an object or, a memory, to be touched by it and result in an affect that is felt individually. My project will investigate the obstacles that could hinder this resonance between the migrant’s memory and the Germans’ Erinnerungskultur. A substantial part of the latter is focused on the coming to terms with the Holocaust, and therefore shapes German national and cultural identity. It also plays a major role in the interaction between different groups in German society. As shown in my MA dissertation, refugees and migrants from countries shaped by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict struggle to adopt the German narrative of the Holocaust and of National Socialism. In my PhD thesis, this conflict will be investigated by exploring the role of museums and memorials. In order to do so, museums and memorials dealing with the Holocaust will be understood as ‘resonant spaces’, which allow memories to be communicated and exchanged. Investigating the historical background from which the migrants come helps understand the obstacles that could hinder a resonant experience. Such obstacles are national ideologies, the portrayal of the Holocaust in the country of origin, and the conflict that affected the region. I therefore suggest a multidirectional approach to memory, because it allows that different groups enter into a dialogue instead of competing with each other over narratives on numbers of victims and the amount of suffering, topics
usually associated with Holocaust studies. Cultural trauma is conceptualized as a ‘linking experience’, allowing for a reciprocal resonance between the migrants on one side and the German society on the other side. Hence, the central subjects of my thesis deals with the refugees and the Holocaust remembrance in the German context, memory and identity in the shades of a country new to the refugees, who are asked to integrate by adopting a narrative of the Holocaust that is foreign to them because of their upbringing. It will also deal with the role of colonialism and nationalism that made the European culture of remembrance distinct from others; as will be shown, even opposed to that of the Arab one; and it will explore the role of the Holocaust in the German national (cultural) identity of a generation that is increasingly removed from the events.

Eleonor Marcussen presents a working paper on ‚Transformations of the political in the life of Pierre Ceresole: Religion, humanitarian thought and decolonization, c. 1918-1945 ‚

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.

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.