Project Details
Projekt
FOR 606: Processes of the Reorganisation of Knowledge Traditions between the 13th and 17th Centuries
Subject Area
Humanities
Term
from 2005 to 2011
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 13369539
The Research Unit began its work in September 2005. It undertakes the analysis of the patterns that feature in the process of transmission and transmutation of knowledge. Six projects selected from the fields of history, art history, philosophy, sinology and comparative literature have been chosen as research paradigms. To ensure the compatibility of results, the field of research is centred on the period between the 13th and 17th centuries.
The main presupposition of the undertaking is that especially in this period scientific, juridical, iconical and cultural topics come into a speeding process of transfer, tradition and change of knowledge. This process can be understood as the breaking-up, fragmenting and rearranging of new knowledge. With its studies our Research Unit expects to establish a model of cultural change which is valid also for other cultural processes and can be used for research in neighbouring fields. It should be applicable especially to comparative cultural studies.
As a result, we try to overcome more vague and undifferentiated concepts of influence, of intertextual or social interdependence which are, moreover, notoriously difficult to interrelate. The specific advantage of the present Research Unit s method consists in the achievement delivered by the concept of topoi. Topoi can describe many varying cultural phenomena which can be isolated and can be transferred to other fields of cultural, scientific and political activities. Each of those topoi should be analysed with disciplinary skills in order to make them transparent to neighbouring fields. When topoi are transferred to new contexts they change their original meanings. This can be reconstructed as the tool of the new arrangement into which the knowledge overcome has been woven.
The main presupposition of the undertaking is that especially in this period scientific, juridical, iconical and cultural topics come into a speeding process of transfer, tradition and change of knowledge. This process can be understood as the breaking-up, fragmenting and rearranging of new knowledge. With its studies our Research Unit expects to establish a model of cultural change which is valid also for other cultural processes and can be used for research in neighbouring fields. It should be applicable especially to comparative cultural studies.
As a result, we try to overcome more vague and undifferentiated concepts of influence, of intertextual or social interdependence which are, moreover, notoriously difficult to interrelate. The specific advantage of the present Research Unit s method consists in the achievement delivered by the concept of topoi. Topoi can describe many varying cultural phenomena which can be isolated and can be transferred to other fields of cultural, scientific and political activities. Each of those topoi should be analysed with disciplinary skills in order to make them transparent to neighbouring fields. When topoi are transferred to new contexts they change their original meanings. This can be reconstructed as the tool of the new arrangement into which the knowledge overcome has been woven.
DFG Programme
Research Units
Projects
- Christliche Kabbala: Topik und Geschichte. Fragmentierungsformen und Synkretismus einer philosophisch-theologischen Wissensgeschichte der Frühen Neuzeit (Applicant Schmidt-Biggemann, Wilhelm )
- Die Fragmentierung der spätantiken mittelalterlich-christlichen Ethik-Tradition und ihre Neuordnung unter intellekttheoretischen Gesichtspunkten durch Albertus Magnus (Applicant Frank, Günter )
- Ekphrasis: Literarizität und Tradition in der englischen Literatur des Spätmittelalters und der Frühen Neuzeit (Applicant Johnston, Andrew James )
- Hospitalreformen in Frankreich, Italien und Deutschland, 14.-16. Jahrhundert (Applicant Thumser, Matthias )
- Imagines und Picturae - Wissensorganisation durch Emblematik und Mnemonik (Applicant Kocher, Ursula )
- Pagane Weisheit und christliche Offenbarung - Zur topischen Struktur frühneuzeitlicher Modelle universalen Wissens (Applicant Eusterschulte, Anne )
- Signa und Res - Bildallegorien in der Renaissance (14.-16. Jhdt.) (Applicant Krüger, Klaus )
- Topik und Tradition. Prozesse der Neuordnung von Wissensüberlieferungen des 13. bis 17. Jahrhunderts (Applicant Schmidt-Biggemann, Wilhelm )
- Tradierung hermetischen Wissens in literarischen Texten des 17. Jahrhunderts (Applicant Alt, Peter-André )
- Tradition und Wandel: Niederländisch-deutsche Wissensordnungen 1600-1700 (Applicant Konst, Johannes Wilhelmus Hendricus )
- Wissenskanonisierung und -überlieferung in der chinesischen Gesellschaft vom 15. bis 17. Jahrhundert (Applicant Li, Wenchao )
Spokesperson
Professor Dr. Wilhelm Schmidt-Biggemann
