In Search for Home – Musical Practice in East Asia (B01)

• Subject Area: Musicology
• Term: since 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 517096657

Why, at particular times in East Asian history, are certain musical practices modeled as homelike or not? How are implicit concepts of home (the old (home) village, the land of the ancestors) taken up in the process? The aim of this subproject is to reveal the multi-layered dynamics that determine these acts. Two instruments that have been declared ‚national instruments‘ at the beginning of the 20th century in each of the countries will be examined as model objects: the pipa / biwa lute and the zither zheng / koto: the first instrument is recognized to have come from afar in both countries, and had to undergo integration to be homed, while the second can be traced back to the earliest documents and archaeological finds and thus appears to be firmly at home in both countries.

• DFG Programme: Collaborative Research Centres
• Subproject of: SFB 1671: Home(s): Phenomena, Practices, Representations
• Applicant Institution: Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg
• Project Heads: Dr. Stefan Menzel; Professorin Dr. Barbara Mittler