Scientific Network: Mediality and Practice of Prayer in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Age
Spokespersons: PD Mirko Breitenstein (FOVOG) and Dr. Christian Schmidt (Göttingen / Freiburg i. Br.)
The network with members from seven countries aims to examine the medial and communicative conditions of the practice of prayer in pre-modern society with a special focus on the High and Late Middle Ages as well as the Early Modern Age.
The prayer transcends the border between this world and the beyond and addresses communication partners who are not present physically but are imagined and brought to mind as attendants. It constitutes a medial phenomenon sui generis that imposes requirements on the praying, which do not occur within the terms of conventional face-to-face communication. Media of prayer facilitate the dealing with these requirements. As a basic societal phenomenon, the prayer is liable to interdependencies of social practices, medial structures and performative execution. The network will develop theoretical models, which allow to describe those interdependencies systematically. The goal is to surpass the previously prevalent single-disciplinarily and synchronously structured access to the prayer and establish an interdisciplinarily, diachronically observative perspective on the theoretical level of current discussions within cultural studies. For this purpose, presence and practice of prayer in different social formations shall be analysed comparatively.
Meetings regarding different topics will occur in no particular order:
13./14.09.2017 Dresden (D)
14./15.02.2018 Fribourg (CH)
20./21.08.2018 Freiburg i. Br. (D)
https://www.frias.uni-freiburg.de/de/veranstaltungen/gastveranstaltungen/workshop-handbuch-gebet
As a first result of this work, the publication of a thematic issue about “Theorien und Praktiken des Gebets im Mittelalter” (theories and practices of prayer in the Middle Ages) within the journal of the Mediävistenverband “Das Mittelalter. Perspektiven mediävistischer Forschung” (The Middle Ages. Perspectives of mediaevistic research) could be funded and will be published in 2019: