Courses Summer term 2023

Lecture series

PD Dr. Mirko Breitenstein / Nathalie Schmidt / Lukas Boch (WWU Münster)
Ringvorlesung: Von bierbrauenden Mönchen und kriegerischen Nonnen – Klöster und Klerus in analogen und digitalen Spielen [Monasteries in Modern Media Teil 1]
OPAL course
Website of the lecture series
Course description:
The depiction of nuns, monks and monasteries in analogue and digital games is an important component of modern (church) history cultures: Besides actual historical sources and artefacts as well as reminiscences of Hollywood films or historical novels, it is above all the values, norms and ideas of their time and environment of origin that influence the design of the games. The significance of this comparatively little-researched topic was demonstrated by last year's exhibition "Mönch ärgere dich nicht - kriegerische Nonnen, trinkfeste Brüder und geheimnisvolle Klöster im Spiel" (Monks don't get angry - warlike nuns, hard-drinking brothers and mysterious monasteries in games) at the Museum Abtei Liesborn, which for the first time explored the presence of monastic culture in the popular medium of games. 2023 will also see the publication of the anthology "Von bierbrauenden Mönchen und kriegerischen Nonnen: Klöster und Klerus in analogen und digitalen Spielen", which will further explore the topic.
The digital lecture series of the same name aims to take up the topic again and communicate it to an interested public. In addition to the lectures relevant to the content, the presence of church history, Christian cultural heritage and monastic culture in games and the mediation of all these aspects will be discussed. The lecture series will therefore focus on the perception and reproduction of history and events in relation to monastic history and what this in turn tells us about the significance of monastic history for the present.
The lecture series is a cooperation between the Institut für historische Theologie und Ihre Didaktik at the WWU Münster, the Research Centre for Comparative History of Religious Orders (FOVOG) at the TU Dresden as well as the project Boardgame Historian and the Arbeitskreis Geschichtswissenschaft und Digitale Spiele (AKGWDS). A continuation of the lecture series on the presence of monasteries in other popular culture media such as films and social networks is planned for the winter semester 2023/24.

Übungen

PD Dr. Mirko Breitenstein / Mathias Herrmann / Martin Reimer
Hauptseminar (Didaktik)/Übung: Monasteries in Comics & (Board)Games
OPAL course
Kurschreibung: The history of the Middle Ages is an integral part of European memorial and historical culture. Christian monasteries, which were not only places of faith but also centres of education and culture, also belong in this context. Despite this undoubted importance, they do not play a central role within today's historical education in the school context. The main seminar wants to address exactly this point and make the topic accessible by means of analogue and digital games as well as comics. In this way, the potentials of monasteries and monastic culture for integration into historical education processes within different types of schools will be demonstrated.
From the perspective of the didactics of history, the following dimensions will be addressed:

• The location of the topic in the curriculum and the discussion of its possible extension by perspectives of transnational research (curriculum analysis).
• Analysis of the respective analogue and digital media as media of historical culture (deconstruction and reconstruction of historical-cultural narratives)
• Development of concrete lesson plans

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PD Dr. Mirko Breitenstein / Dr. Annette Teufel
Übung: Klöster im Kino
OPAL course
Course description:
Monasteries are places where people have lived differently at all times. They are places of silence and prayer, but also cultural, scientific or economic centres. Even if their social significance has clearly receded in the modern age, monasteries still stand for a certain life model of the search for meaning - in their case, the search for God. The fact that monasteries are still generally known as places of otherness today, despite their increasing disappearance, is largely due to their presence in film.
This course is offered jointly by FOVOG and the Chair of Media Studies and Modern German Literature as well as the Kino im Kasten. Within this framework, students will not only be able to familiarise themselves with the world of monasteries and religious orders, but also receive an introduction to the methods of analysing feature films and documentaries - because understanding how films work also means understanding how our cultural memory is filled. In addition to the monasteries, the seminar will also focus on theories of fictional spaces, which monasteries exemplify in film. Building on this, the semiotisation of cinematic spaces and the cinematic reflection of the change in meaning of these 'other spaces' in the context of social developments will be examined.
Introductory reading

• Hickethier: Film- und Fernsehanalyse, 5. Aufl., Stuttgart/Weimar 2012;
• M. Krützen: Dramaturgie des Films. Wie Hollywood erzählt, Frankfurt a. M. 2004;
• T. Fischer, T. Schuhbauer: Geschichte in Film und Fernsehen. Theorie – Praxis – Berufsfelder, Tübingen 2016;
• P. Hasenberg, W. Luley, C. Martig (Hg.): Spuren des Religiösen im Film. Meilensteine aus 100 Jahren Filmgeschichte, Mainz 1995;
• T. Heimerl, P. Wiesfflecker (Hg.), Himmlische Frauen. Nonnen in Film und TV, Marburg 2017;
• T. Heimerl, L. Kienzl (Hg.), Helden in Schwarzz. Priesterbilder im populären Film und TV, Marburg 2014;
• R. Bartlett: The Middle Ages and the Movies. Eight Key Films, London 2022.

Verwendung
Hist EM 1, Hist GM 2, Hist Erg EM 1, Hist GM 2, Hist EM 1 PhF-Hist EM 1, Hist Erg M 1 PhF-Hist Erg M 1, Hist Erg EM 1, Hist Erg M 1

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PD Dr. Mirko Breitenstein / PD Dr. Jörg Sonntag
Übung/Praxisseminar: Schreibwerkstatt Mittelalter: Heiligkeit (er)fassen. Studierende als Autoren
OPAL course
Course description:
Under the direction of FOVOG, a directory of all members venerated as saints in the Cistercian communities (Cistercians, Trappists, Feuillants) from the beginnings until today is currently being compiled. The aim of this project is to obtain, for the first time, a scholarly overview of those women and men who were venerated as saints in the above-mentioned orders and to summarize the relevant information in a handbook-like manner. In the exercise, insights into this project will be given. The aim is to provide those interested with the methodological knowledge to do their own research on saints. As a result, the participants of the exercise should be able to write contributions to this directory based on their own research and publish them.

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PD Dr. Jörg Sonntag
Übung: Der Ostseeraum im Mittelalter
OPAL course
Course description:
The Baltic Sea had a turbulent history in the Middle Ages as well. From the early migrations of the Germanic tribes, the settlements of the Vikings, the ecclesiastical and monastic development, the great empires in the north and east, the most important battles or piracy to the prosperity and ruin of the Teutonic Order or the Hanseatic League, the course aims to give a cultural-historical insight into the Baltic Sea region as a natural, living, trading and pious space. Together we will read and discuss paradigmatically selected sources from the early, high and late Middle Ages.

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Dr. Ekaterina Novokhatko
Übung: Iberian Peninsula in the High Middle Ages: Transcultural Perspective
OPAL course
Course description:
This course will provide an overview on the socio-political and cultural situation in the Iberian region, between the 9^th and the 12^th centuries. On the basis of various sources (Christian, Jewish and Muslim) we will analyse particular features of the narrative created by each of these groups with regard to others. What was considered as “right” or “false”? What was described and understood as “our” or “other”? How did the narratives, depending on genre of sources and the ideological basis behind them, define the inclusion, integration or, maybe, segregation? How shall we interpret the passages, where the sources put the stress on religious and cultural notions?
2 introductive sessions will create a platform for the discussion of main theoretical concepts (cultural/transcultural) and of historical particularities of the Iberian region (with the notions of ‘Reconquista’, ‘convivencia’, ‘frontier’ and their complex meaning). 6 following sessions will be dedicated to various sources produced in or related to the Iberian region, and the understanding of different cultures and religions in each genre of these sources (e.g. chronicles, hagiographies, apologetic treatises). The last sessions will be held together as a workshop, where students in groups will work on 3 various sources and present their analysis to each other. 
The course will be held in English.