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Tagged: Antiquity

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?

Announcements / Billets

New publication by Jörg Rüpke

Publilius Syrus was one of the most successful mimes on the stages of 1st century BCE Rome. His plays were transmitted as Sententiae of Seneca and were subject to constant re-editing and agglomeration. It is hardly possible to isolate an original core, free of imperial or late ancient additions. In a reception perspective, however, a hermeneutical approach of this widely read corpus is possible. This chapter argues that the maxims formulated are not just a cynical commentary on contemporary society, but the proposal of a multi-faceted value “urbanity”, even if the very term urbanitas is not used in the text.

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.

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…

Case Studies / Concepts & Theory / Personal Reflections

Reading Religion Economically

The relationship between religion and economy involves materiality, spatiality, and temporality—and not a little imagination. Neither seeing religion as separate from the economy, nor as a superstructural projection of existing class relations, nor again as a commodity subject to rational selection within a “marketplace” of offerings, I propose to reread some “religious” texts and rituals in broadly economic terms and to reflect on the nature of religion more broadly…

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…

Book Reviews & Exhibitions / Case Studies / Personal Reflections

Urbanität ohne Religion? Zwei Ausstellungen in München

In diesem Sommer bietet Bayerns Landeshauptstadt München gleich zwei Ausstellungen zu Stadt und urbanem Leben. Das Münchner Stadtmuseum zeigt mit “What the City. Perspektiven unserer Stadt” eine Ausstellung zu den vielen Städten (bzw. Facetten), in denen sich München als gewachsene Metropole zeigt. Sie reichen von Kunst und Kultur bis hin zu Nachhaltigkeit und der Gestaltung sowie Wahrnehmung durch die MünchnerInnen selbst. Die zweite Ausstellung ist in der Kunsthalle München in der Theatinerstraße. Sie feiert mit der Fotoausstellung “Civilisation: Wie wir heute leben” ihr 40-jähriges Jubiläum. Hier werden in ikonischen Bildern zivilisatorische Errungenschaften und Ambivalenzen in globaler Perspektive, aber zugleich intim pointiert als Fotografien, gezeigt…

Announcements / Case Studies / Concepts & Theory

2025 Entries in “Religion & Urbanity Online”

In 2025, there were 16 new entries in the database “Religion and Urbanity Online” so far. They cover the time span from antiquity to modernity, cities as different as Aleppo, Singapore and Sens, and approach religion and urbanity from a range of disciplines, including history, anthropology, literature studies and the history of religions. Enjoy reading!

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…

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…

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 / 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…