Project Details
Projekt
Coordination Funds
Applicant
Professor Dr. Johann Anselm Steiger
Subject Area
German Literary and Cultural Studies (Modern German Literature)
Term
since 2025
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 435118611
The research unit investigates intermedial forms of representation and dissemination of religious content and practices from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century. Its goal is to analyze spiritual artefacts and phenomena that are shaped to varying degrees by the interplay of media and that generate a surplus of semantic, aesthetic, devotional, and affective value through the multitude of media involved. While the research unit builds on existing concepts of intermediality, it crucially develops them further in light of the specifically religious contexts within which these intermedial constellations unfold. The research unit operates on two foundational assumptions: insofar as religious praxis is always media praxis, the early modern production and use of spiritual-intermedial artefacts (1) is to be examined from a horizontal perspective in terms of the way in which the media and people interact within them, and (2) it will be shown how the relevant media connections (image-text-combinations, vocal music, oratorios, etc.) also constitute a vertical intermediality between God and man. Seven subprojects will carry out a broader interdisciplinary collaboration in the areas of German studies, English studies, romance studies, historical musicology, art history, history, Ethiopian studies, Jewish studies, and Protestant and Catholic theology. This broad multidisciplinary approach and the interdisciplinary orientation of all subprojects make it possible to adequately grasp the extremely complex and multifaceted phenomena of spiritual intermediality in the early modern period within the framework of the chosen approach. The focus is on spiritual vocal music, image-text combinations involving the ars emblematica (including emblematics beyond the book), meditation theory and practice, spiritual oratorios, as well as manifestations of intermediality in prayers of thanksgiving, body images of saints, and in Jewish-kabbalistic sources parts of which were adapted by Christians. Building on the insights already gained in the first phase of funding and through the further development of the collaborative approach, the second funding period will focus more closely on the eighteenth century, on the relationship between bodies, on different degrees of intensity of intermediality (including vertical intermediality), and on the multiplication of the modes of reception evoked by intermediality. The research unit ties in with numerous joint research projects (including those in collaborative formats) at the University of Hamburg. It is a part of the Faculty of Humanities, which, in a long process of structuring and profiling, has established itself as a central hub in the field of early modern studies. This provides an ideal environment for the research unit to conduct cutting-edge research that meets both national and international standards.
DFG Programme
Research Units
