On 6 & 7 June 2024, the “Religion and Urbanity” research group is convening an international workshop in the visibility of new religious movements in urban space across time and space. The workshop is organised by Martina Stercken, Susanne Rau and Klara-Maeve O’Reilly.
The peer-reviewed, open access database of the “Religion and Urbanity” research group, which is published by De Gruyter and edited by Susanne Rau and Jörg Rüpke, has been updated with eight new articles. All articles are published open access.
Our fellow Dr Epsita Halder, Associate Professor of Comparative Literature at Jadavpur University (Kolkata), was awarded a prize by the Indian History Congress at its latest session at Kakatiya University in Waragal for her monograph “Reclaiming Karbala – Nation, Islam and Literature of the Bengali Muslisms”
Our former fellow Elyse Semerdijan on the waqf in Aleppo as spaces where religion and urbanity intersect. Recognizing pious endowments – waqf/awaqf – varied across the Islamic World. The waqf, in its most basic definition, is a registered piece of income-generating property donated to a religious foundation, a charitable cause, or to one’s heirs in perpetuity.
At the core of the research group Religion and Urbanity at the Max Weber Centre in Erfurt lies a keen interest in the ascription of value to different life forms relating to city and civic life, that is urbanity. Yet such valorisations do not necessarily presuppose one’s physical presence in a city. One may live a perfectly happy life in a villa rustica at a safe distance from interactions with the ‘masses’, but nevertheless – and presumably for that very reason – attributing urbanity to one’s own lifestyle by assuring oneself that true civil life is not found within the city, but either outside it or in the outskirts of it at the Sans souci.
Part two of recordings of the introductory comments by participants of the 2023 “Religious Ambivalences” conference, organised by Elisa Iori and Jörg Rüpke in November 2023 in Erfurt.
Opening comments by Susanne Rau, spokesperson of the “Religion and Urbanity” research group at the Max Weber Centre, given at the 2023 conference “Ambivalences of Religion” in Erfurt.
The report by Mirjam Wien on the 2023 annual conference “Ambivalences of Religion”, organised by Elisa Iori and Jörg Rüpke in November 2023 has now been published on H-Soz-Kult.
A discussion of an example chosen from the series of readings concerned with the reception of Babylonian immigrants in the domain of the Palestinian rabbis. The example is taken from the chapter in which I discuss the Palestinian rabbis’ use of the figure of the Babylonian Other in shaping their collective Self. Those examples deal with the mockery of the Babylonian newcomers. This story is a final anecdote in the tragicomic trilogy of encounters between Babylonian immigrants and the Galilee’s inhabitants.
Sometimes it is the absence that makes the obvious visible. On 4 December 2023, the music stopped at some German Christmas markets, including Erfurt. The reason for this was the protest against the high licence fees for the public – and undoubtedly sales-promoting – playing of music recordings by composers and performers who had not long since died. Christmas and songs, indeed celebrating Christmas and singing, seem to belong together. From “Silent Night” to “Dreaming of a White Christmas” and even more recent songs: it’s hard to imagine Christmas without them. And vice versa: without the festival, all these songs would lose their meaning.
Over the course of the upcoming weeks, we will publish recordings of the introductory comments by participants of the 2023 “Religious Ambivalences” conference, organised by Elisa Iori and Jörg Rüpke in November 2023 in Erfurt.
Jörg Rüpke has just published an article on Roman holidays with our colleagues at the SFB “Strukturwandel des Eigentums/ Structural Changes of Property” on “Holidays as divine property: Moving symbols of ownership from the countryside into the city”.
Maara Dass comments on her research on Ashokan places in Madhya Pradesh, India, and her trip to various archaeological sites in the Bhopal area with Susanne Rau of the Religion and Urbanity group.
KFG post-doc Dr. Sara Keller was interviewed by Anish Behti for the Podcast “Simplifying Lives”…
Kollegforschungsgruppe „Religion und Urbanität“ (FOR 2779) hat am 16. November 2023 die siegreichen Schülerinnen und Schüler der Klassen 9a und 9b der Staatlichen Regelschule Floh-Seligenthal und die betreuenden Lehrerinnen in einer Preisverleihung im neuen Forschungsbau auf dem Campus der Universität Erfurt geehrt. Das Preisgeld wurde großzügig von der Sparkassenstiftung Erfurt zur Verfügung gestellt und den SchülerInnen überreicht.
We are interested in the connections between urbanity and religion.
This blog is connected to the DFG-funded Humanities Centre for Advanced Studies “Religion and Urbanity: Reciprocal Formations” (FOR 2779). We are based at the Max Weber Centre for Advanced Cultural and Social Studies at Erfurt University.
