Religious plurality. The perception of religious differentiation as reflected in the arts, theologies and society of the long 19th century

• Applicant: Dr. Tobias Christian Weißmann
• Subject Area: Musicology ; Protestant Theology ; Roman Catholic Theology ; Art History
• Term: since 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 438476014

The scientific network will analyse through an interdisciplinary perspective, how the increasing religious differentiation from the end of the 18th to the beginning of the 20th century was shaped, articulated and interpreted in music, visual arts, architecture, theologies, religious practice and social institutions. The focus will be on attitudes towards confessional and religious plurality. Besides perception as the guiding principle, the processes of realisation and instrumentalisation of religious, cultural and social congruences and differences as well as their change over the period will be taken into consideration. Religion is to be understood not only as institutional-collective and spiritual-individualised religiosity connected to the catholic and protestants churches and Judaism, but will be taken into account for other religious, philosophical and ideological formations as well as for ‘Kunstreligion’ (art-as-religion). The confrontation of composers, visual artists, writers and theologians with the increasing religious plurality may be considered a research desideratum, especially in an interdisciplinary comparative examination. The artistic, theological and social phenomena analysed in the projects reach from church music, opera and ‘absolute music’, religious history painting, sepulchral sculpture, architecture and the conversion of musicians and visual artists to liturgic literature, church historiography, domestic and scholastic education to jurisdiction. The focus lies on the German speaking area, which presents itself as particularly challenging in its social, political, church and religious historical respects and in its artistic and cultural wealth. The examination of the aforementioned and further phenomena through 16 researchers, whose expertises lie in musicology, art history and literary studies, protestant and catholic theology as well as Jewish studies, promises a better understanding of a central characteristic of the long 19th century: the religious differentiation.

• DFG Programme: Scientific Networks
• Co-Investigator: Professorin Dr. Maren Bienert