Project Details
Projekt
FOR 530: Self Narratives in Transcultural Perspektive
Subject Area
Humanities
Term
from 2004 to 2011
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 5470710
The common focus of this Research Unit are written "self-narratives," i. e., writings about the author's own life that hold to specific narrative conventions. Scholars have long held "autobiography" to be a specifically western genre, and have long associated it with specifically western conceptualisations of "individuality" or of a "universal" abstract self. Such formulations tend to cast the process of modernisation as the emergence of the autonomous individual on the one hand and of market capitalism on the other. Contemporary scholarship, which interprets autobiographies as self-narratives and evaluates them in the light of new questions and new methodologies, has exposed the inadequacy of these specifically western notions. As a result, the historical study of self-narratives has developed a series of new approaches to these source materials that take as their analytical focus the writing subject as active agent in the context of her or his own social and cultural relations. In specific reference to non-European cultures, the study of self-narratives remains in an early phase but is rapidly gaining significance. This Research Unit combines the efforts of scholars from a variety of disciplines, whose studies move beyond Europe to include the Middle East and Far East, among others, not only to further the current study of self-narratives but also to develop new approaches to them.
The objective of this Research Unit is the thematisation of the "self-narrated life" in a variety of cultures, a variety of periods, a variety of regions, and a variety of contexts. By setting the autobiographical writings in the context of the writers social relations, it is possible to understand them as social and cultural praxis. Such research should dissolve the established notion-particularly celebrated in the West but applied frequently to other cultures that the developments of individuality and of autobiography are closely connected and mutually dependent. This misconception should yield to an open engagement with the specific concept of the "person" as formulated in each self-narrative.
In its encounter with western concepts of individuality, the Research Unit will contribute to the larger debates concerning the leitmotivs of classical modernisation theory. From an analysis of self-narratives and the "persons" they portray in terms of social and cultural praxis will emerge important contributions to the contemporary discussion of "multiple modernities".
The objective of this Research Unit is the thematisation of the "self-narrated life" in a variety of cultures, a variety of periods, a variety of regions, and a variety of contexts. By setting the autobiographical writings in the context of the writers social relations, it is possible to understand them as social and cultural praxis. Such research should dissolve the established notion-particularly celebrated in the West but applied frequently to other cultures that the developments of individuality and of autobiography are closely connected and mutually dependent. This misconception should yield to an open engagement with the specific concept of the "person" as formulated in each self-narrative.
In its encounter with western concepts of individuality, the Research Unit will contribute to the larger debates concerning the leitmotivs of classical modernisation theory. From an analysis of self-narratives and the "persons" they portray in terms of social and cultural praxis will emerge important contributions to the contemporary discussion of "multiple modernities".
DFG Programme
Research Units
Projects
- Bekenntnisse japanischer Kriegsgefangener in chinesischer Kriegsgefangenschaft (Teilbereich II: Konversion, Furcht, Gewalt) (Applicant Hijiya-Kirschnereit, Irmela )
- Das Tagebuch als transkultureller Ort bei Heinrich Witt, 1799-1890 (Teilbereich III: Zugehörigkeiten und Modernisierungen) (Applicant Mücke, Ulrich )
- Diary-writing at European courts at the end of the Old Regime: Concepts of person, ritual and gender (Teilbereich I: Ritualisierte Lebensweisen) (Applicant Ulbrich, Claudia )
- Die diplomatische persona im politischen Ritual (Teilbereich I: Ritualisierte Lebensweisen) (Applicant Kellner-Heinkele, Barbara )
- Die Konstituierung von Person in Beschreibungen von Furcht und Angst. Selbstzeugnisse des dreißigjährigen Krieges und der "Türkenkriege" des 17. Jahrhunderts (Teilbereich II: Konversion, Furcht, Gewalt) (Applicant Ulbrich, Claudia )
- Gastfreundschaft in Selbstzeugnissen: Personkonzepte und ritualisiertes Handeln in der Frühen Neuzeit (Teilbereich I: Ritualisierte Lebensweisen) (Applicant Ulbrich, Claudia )
- Narrative Konstruktionen von Männlichkeit in autobiographischen Texten des 15. und 16. Jahrhunderts (Teilbereich IV: Autobiographisches Schreiben als kulturelle Praxis) (Applicant Kasten, Ingrid )
- Personkonzepte in Selbstzeugnissen russischer Muslime: (1) Das Personkonzept in den Selbstzeugnissen des tatarischen Geistlichen und Politikers Abdurraschid Ibrahim (1857-1944) (Teilbereich III: Kontinuitäten und Brüche) (Applicant Kellner-Heinkele, Barbara )
- Selbstzeugnisse in transkultureller Perspektive. (Applicant Ulbrich, Claudia )
- Selbstzeugnisse innerchristlicher Konversionen aus dem Heiligen Römischen Reich und den Niederlanden im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert (Teilbereich II: Konversion, Furcht, Gewalt) (Applicant Schaser, Angelika )
- Zum Personkonzept eines osmanischen Offiziers und Mystikers. Die Memoiren des Asci Dede Ibrahim, 1828 - ca. 1910 (Teilbereich III: Zugehörigkeiten und Modernisierungen) (Applicant Kellner-Heinkele, Barbara )
Spokesperson
Professorin Dr. Claudia Ulbrich
