Diaristic self-observation as a medico-theological epistemic practice: Form, functions, backgrounds and contexts of Johann Christian Senckenberg's "Observationes"

• Applicant: Dr. Vera Faßhauer
• Subject Area: German Literary and Cultural Studies (Modern German Literature)
• Term: since 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 468948973

The Frankfurt physician and philanthropist Johann Christian Senckenberg (1707–1772) has been portrayed in previous research as a religious zealot, anxious hypochondriac, and non-systematic compiler of details. The main reason for this assessment is the fact that Senckenberg's extensive and difficult-to-decipher diaries were either not taken into account at all or only under one-sidedly positivistic parameters. Based on newly available full-text transcriptions as well as on new research results on epistemic record-keeping practices and on the relationship between religion and Enlightenment, this project pursues the question whether the supposedly fanatical and detail-obsessed diarist cannot in fact be considered an exemplary representative of his century who actually held decidedly progressive views with regard to religion and medicine. The investigation starts by examining the social, religious, and intellectual self-positioning of the author and proceeds by determining the journals’ specific form and character in comparison with other diary projects of the era. Since the records exhibit characteristics of both the religious diary and the epistemic genre observatio, their functions and epistemic potentials will be analysed in the twofold context of radical Pietist religious practice and the empiricist practice of science. Furthermore, it is asked from which sources Senckenberg may have drawn the decisive impulses for his multifunctional recording practice. Finally, Senckenberg's radical Pietist medico-theology will be put in relation to the medical, theological, and epistemological debates of the Enlightenment period.In accordance with its multi-faceted object of investigation, the project contributes to several research disciplines. Thus, research on Pietism can expect new discoveries about the hitherto scarcely studied Frankfurt Separatists and thus a deeper comprehension of radical Pietism. Senckenberg’s positions on the era-specific discourses on illness and individual responsibility, heterodoxy and tolerance as well as rationalism and empiricism moreover reveal new aspects of the relationship between religion and the Enlightenment. This area of tension is also highlighted on the field of medical history with regard to the influence of radical Pietist concepts of body and soul on the development of eighteenth-century psychomedicine. The central interest of the project, however, is a literary one: By conceiving Senckenberg's records equally as a medium of knowledge of self, nature, and God, it opens up new interdisciplinary perspectives for diary research in both content-related and genre-oriented respects.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants