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Category: Talks & Papers

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.

Book Reviews & Exhibitions / Case Studies / Concepts & Theory / Personal Reflections / Talks & Papers

Reflections on the Globality of Religion and Urbanity

Since 2018, the ‘Religion and Urbanity: Reciprocal Formations’ (FOR 2779) research group within the Max-Weber-Kolleg of Universität Erfurt has hosted over 100 fellows from all over the world to investigate how these two concepts intertwined with one another in more than 80 cities across space and time in Europe, the circum-Mediterranean, and South Asia. After 8 years, the research group has entered its final phase and has invited all former fellows and members back to Erfurt to take stock…

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…

Personal Reflections / South Asia / Talks & Papers

Performance of Classical Indian Dance at the KFG Closing Conference by Yashoda Thakore

As part of the closing event of the KFG Closing Conference 2026 Dr. Yashoda Thakore will present Dancing as Memory, Memory as Resistance: The Living Repertoire of the Kalavantulu — a performance lecture that speaks directly to the conference’s central concern with the reciprocal formations of religion, urbanity, memory, and social worlds…

Announcements / Case Studies / Personal Reflections / Talks & Papers

Summer School Report: Performing Religion in the City – Urban Spaces, Interactions and Media

Amidst the plastered narrow alleys of Erfurt’s city centre, fittingly emblematic, it was a piece of light-coloured sandstone that inaugurated the Summer School Performing Religion in the City. Placed on the seminar tables of Erfurt’s International Meeting Centre by co-convenor Isabella Schwaderer, the stone fragments represented the material grounding of Erfurt as a city and its religious life. Retrieved from a ridge close to Gotha, the stone was used to build Erfurt’s landmark, the Erfurt Cathedral, and thereby, symbolically, foreshadowed the Summer School’s theme…

Announcements / Case Studies / Personal Reflections / Talks & Papers

Conference Report: KFG Annual Conference “Making Boundaries”

While the topic of boundaries has received considerable scholarly attention, this conference focussed on the dynamic processes of making, maintaining and modifying or crossing boundaries and brought together scholars from various disciplines discussing case studies from Europe, the Mediterranean and South Asia from Antiquity to today…

Case Studies / Concepts & Theory / Personal Reflections / Talks & Papers

Conference Report: Necrogeographies of the Marginal Dead

Dealing with the dead and death is a topic that attracts scholars of every period. The universal question of transitioning from one state-of-being into the other represents a basic process applicable to every human being. As we all die one day and become part of the dead, their whereabouts and treatment will eventually affect every one of us. That is why this conference’s topic Necrogeographies of the Marginal Dead has a natural attraction to it because all of us will die one day and join the ranks of the dead…

Announcements / Case Studies / Talks & Papers

The KFG and the “Urban Multilingualism” Workshop Series

The KFG “Religion and Urbanity: Reciprocal Formations” has an ongoing collaboration with the research project “Multilingualism in Eurasian Premodern Societies: Social Hierarchies and Space”, which is part of the Cluster of Excellence “EurAsian Transformations”. Three workshops are an important part of the “Multilingualism” project…

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 / Book Reviews & Exhibitions / Concepts & Theory / Personal Reflections / Talks & Papers

Historische Vorstellungen zwischen Fiktion und Geschichtserzählung

Die eigene Arbeit am Manuskript einer globalen Religionsgeschichte unter dem Fokus von „Religion und Urbanität“ wirft nicht nur Fragen nach den Möglichkeiten und Grenzen des Vergleichs, dem Umgang mit objektsprachlichen und metasprachlichen Terminologien und der ganz praktischen Frage der Stoffauswahl auf. Sie macht auch die Frage nach dem Übergangsfeld von historischem Erzählen und Fiktion auf…