Digital resources in the Social Sciences and Humanities OpenEdition Our platforms OpenEdition Books OpenEdition Journals Hypotheses Calenda Libraries OpenEdition Freemium Follow us

Category: Europe

Articles on European case studies from late Antiquity until today.

Billets / Europe / The Mediterranean

Eine Inschriftenreise nach Chur und Meran

Bei der Abschlusstagung der Kollegforschungsgruppe „Religion and Urbanity“, Anfang Juni 2026, habe ich in meinem Beitrag „Stability in transit? Inscriptions as markers of the sacred landscape of the ancient province of Raetia“ die sehr wenigen lateinischen Sakralinschriften aus dem hochalpinen, südlichen Teil der römischen Provinz Raetia unter die Lupe genommen. Es ging dabei um Fragen wie: Wer ließ diese Steine vor rund 2000 Jahren zum einen am Fuß der Bündner Pässe auf 1.800 m Höhe im Engadin und zum anderen im Vinschgau nahe Meran aufstellen? Was waren die Beweggründe für diese individuellen, öffentlich aufgestellten religiösen Zeichen an Orten fernab jeglicher urbanen Strukturen? Wer sollte diese Bekenntnisse und Interaktionen mit übergeordneten Mächten sehen?

Billets / Europe / Talks & Papers / The Mediterranean

Tod im Bad – eine antike Kulturgeschichte

Badeunfall, Badeunglück, Badetod – allsommerlich liest man Meldungen über tragische Ereignisse an Baggerseen und Badestellen, was teilweise auf fehlende Bademeister und Rettungsschwimmer zurückgeführt wird. Doch auch so mancher Badegast beweget sich in gefährliche Gewässer, besucht verbotene Badestellen oder verhält sich schlicht unvorsichtig. Auch gibt es gibt einen erstaunlich hohen Anteil an Nichtschwimmern. Doch das hält die Betroffenen nicht davon ab, ins Wasser zu gehen. Zu verlockend ist das kühle Nass bei den warmen Temperaturen im Sommer.

Case Studies / Europe / Talks & Papers

“Lost Places” – 16th City Walk

Our group discovered lost places and urban memory culture within the city of Erfurt during our 16th City Walk on the 15th of April 2026. We visited three former religious or urban places and explored how they are still present, remembered or otherwise used within the urban space of Erfurt today…

Book Reviews & Exhibitions / Case Studies / Europe / Personal Reflections

„Hier gibt es kein Auferstehn“ – Religion und Urbanität in der Oper ‘Die tote Stadt’ (1920) von Erich Korngold

Von weitem ertönt Kindersang, die Kirchenglocken läuten. Feierliche Erwartung macht sich in der festlich geschmückten, mittelalterlichen Stadt breit. Der Gesang schwillt an, Frauen stimmen mit ein, lateinischer Mönchsgesang mischt sich in die hellen Stimmen. Immer lauter wird die Musik, die Prozession zieht heran. Auf dem Höhepunkt schreiten die Priester mit dem goldenen Schrein vorbei, in der sich die kostbare Heilig-Blut-Reliquie befindet. Der Gruppe folgt eine bunte Menge in liturgische Gewänder gehüllter Menschen, rote Chormäntel und Banner stechen hervor. Dieser ekstatische Aufzug lässt niemanden der Umstehenden kalt…

Case Studies / Europe / Personal Reflections

„Religion, Urbanity and Sound “– 15th City Walk

Walking around in cities can be connected to hearing multiple things: People chatting, the tram and other vehicles passing by, church bells ringing, maybe even a melody coming from street musicians or an organ playing when passing a church. On our 15th City Walk on the 23rd of October, we explored how those and other sounds and music have an impact on Religion and Urbanity…

Case Studies / Concepts & Theory / Europe / Personal Reflections

Exploring Urban Religion in Poland: The Urban Religion Archive and the Religion Urbanity Mapping Project

This post introduces the Religion Urbanity Mapping (RUM) project. It started in 2021 with a dual focus. First, to rethink the concept of urban religion; and second, to apply this reframed concept in exploring the relatedness of religion and urbanity in the post-socialist CEE (Central and Eastern Europe) context. To date, the latter focus has been overlooked by urban studies and in the study of religion…

Case Studies / Europe

The Jewish Town of Izbica: History Inscribed in Space

In June, together with other members of the Urbanity and Religion research group, I went on an excursion to Mühlhausen. Our main aim was to visit the Thuringian state exhibition Freiheit 1525. 500 Years of the Peasants’ War. However, we also had time to take a walk through the beautiful historic town. As we were exploring the town, I came across a Stolperstein in memory of Leopold Löbenstein, who was deported in 1942 and, presumably, died in Izbica. This small town, located around 250 kilometres south-east of Warsaw, served as a transit ghetto during the Second World War, to which many Jews from Western Europe were deported…

Case Studies / Concepts & Theory / Europe / Personal Reflections

Where the Void Touches the City: Subtraction and the Sacred at the Edge of Istanbul

There is a moment, just before arrival, when Sancaklar Mosque is entirely invisible. The sunflower fields thin out. The hum of construction trucks grows louder. Then, a sharp-edged minaret (and nothing more) breaks the horizon. Everything else sinks. Following the slope; downwards instead of upwards. The city has vanished, but something else begins…

Case Studies / Concepts & Theory / Europe / Personal Reflections / The Mediterranean

How to write the history of religion in the making?

Traditional religious historiography attempts to grasp ‘religions’ in their becoming, possibly their founding, their slow or radical changes – similar to how urban historiography undertook. This brought transformations into view that, in the extreme case, could take on their own form in the splitting and splitting off of religious groups…

Case Studies / Concepts & Theory / Europe / Personal Reflections / The Mediterranean

Comparing World Religions?

Today, the academic study of religion in the discipline widely called Religious Studies or Religionswissenschaft has developed into a large array of thematical fields and foci, of general approaches and source-specific methods. As such it is ranging from historical and anthropological disciplines through social sciences and economics to philosophies and theologies, either conceived as a proper discipline overlapping with these other disciplines or seen as a subdiscipline to the one or other of them. What I am advocating today is the use of a term defining the traditional object of Religious Studies, namely “religion” and its use for comparison on a global scale…

Announcements / Europe / Interviews / Personal Reflections / South Asia / Talks & Papers

Indo-German Exchanges in Religion and Aesthetics: Insights from Dr. Isabella Schwaderer

This interview marks the beginning of a series in which Ahmad Ali will be engaging with scholars working on India at the Max-Weber-Kolleg. He is a student of Religionswissenschaft at the University of Erfurt, currently working on the project “Religion and Urbanity: Reciprocal Formations”.

Announcements / Case Studies / Concepts & Theory / Europe / South Asia / Talks & Papers / The Mediterranean

Workshop: Necrogeographies of the Marginal Dead (15-16 May 2025)

Critical studies of death (thanatology) have illuminated how human societies organize spaces of burial according to gender, race, class, sexual preference, and religion. Informed by these works “Necrogeographies of the Marginal Dead” introduces how studies of death, especially of persons within groups excluded from systems of power in the living world, illuminate how the structures of power exceed life extending into the afterlives of the dead…