Trance Media and New Media of Two Thresholds of Globalisation (1900 and today)

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Erhard Schüttpelz
• Subject Area: Theatre and Media Studies ; Social and Cultural Anthropology and Ethnology
• Term: from 2010 to 2016
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 163335900

This research-project investigates the relationship between personal trance-mediums and new technical media in the two eras of globalization. We find public debates about the modernity of trance-practices that are integrated around 1900 into the modern concept of the medium, and at present are "glocalized" by religious and secular organisations. The ethnographic part of the current project has been observing the transfer of a regionally anchored practice into a globalized diaspora, and will in the future investigate the competing modernizing strategies that deal with trance mediums and new media in the arab-speaking transnational space between North Africa and Europe. The investigations of this dynamic development will contribute to a revision of media anthropological key-concepts, via historical comparisons.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Participating Person: Professor Dr. Marcus Hahn