Project Details
Projekt
The enlightenment in the referential context of modern esotericism
Applicant
Professorin Dr. Monika Neugebauer-Wölk
Subject Area
Modern and Contemporary History
Term
from 2004 to 2011
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 5470689
The project takes its point of departure from an observation that research on the Enlightenment in the past two decades has developed around ideas about "the Alterity of Reason" and the "Obscure in Enlightenment". These designations though occupying a significant position in the present scientific discourse on the 18th Century, lack a comprehensive systematic concept of historical understanding and explanation. The project is directed toward overcoming this deficit through bringing together research on the Enlightenment and Modern Esotericism. As such, "Esotericism" is conceived as an integrative concept of occidental belief and scholarly scientific tradition extending into the 18th Century, at once modified by and influencing the Enlightenment. The aim of this group effort is to analyze the 18th Century as an epoch, the internal contradictions of which can be bound together in a comprehensive understanding through these contrasting approaches, which thereby shed new light on the character of transformation straddling between tradition and modernity. The individual themes lead in this direction and treat relations specifically pertinent to Halle between Esotericism, Pietism, and Early Enlightenment, Esotericism in Wolffianism, Emanuel Swedenborg´s position within Enlightenment and Esoteric discourse of the 18th Century, Johann Georg Hamann´s aesthetics in relation to Enlightenment, Christianity and Esotericism, and finally - once again in relation to Halle as a centre - "Rational Christianity" in the strained domain of Esoteric-Masonistic development.
DFG Programme
Research Units
