The History Programme of the Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften

The History Programme is a subprogramme of the Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften in Bad Homburg, which itself is a collaboration between Goethe University Frankfurt and the Werner Reimers Stiftung. The department of history at Goethe University is responsible for the academic programme. Every year, the History Programme invites fellows to stay at the Institute for a few weeks or up to a few months in order to work together on a common theme.

The History Programme is a place of personal, communicative exchange and the development of new perspectives on current research topics in historical science. The fellows can take advantage of a dynamic and innovative working atmosphere in which they can discuss new projects and get them off the ground. The fact that the programme is embedded in the Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften ensures that there are always opportunities for interdisciplinary exchange. As members of the History Programme, the fellows are also active in two other areas: they participate in the academic life of the university with guest lectures and scholarly colloquia and they also contribute to the dialog with the greater public in the form of public lectures and discussions at the Institute.

Benefactors and sponsors

The History Programme, which was established for an initial period of five years, owes its start to the interest and commitment of private and public supporters with excellent reputations in academic and cultural funding in the Rhine-Main region. Among these are the city of Bad Homburg and the Bad Homburg entrepreneur, Stefan Quandt. The principal benefactor is the Dagmar-Westberg-Stiftung.

(from left) Matthias Lutz-Bachmann (director of the Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften), Dagmar Westberg (benefactor),Till van Rahden (History Programme fellow), Ellinor Schweighöfer (research associate of the History Programme), Andreas Fahrmeir (academic director of the History Programme). Image: Uwe Dettmar, 2014.

Key subjects

Subject of 2014: »The World Around 1914«

2014 widmete sich das Historische Kolleg der Welt von 1914. »1914« wurde zum Ausgangspunkt für die Diskussion über ganz unterschiedliche Perspektiven auf den Beginn des ›Zeitalters der Extreme‹, wie Eric Hobsbawm das ›kurze‹ 20. Jahrhundert genannt hat. Dabei ging es um die Kontinuitäten und Diskontinuitäten zwischen dem ›Großen Krieg‹ und den Diktaturen der Zwischenkriegszeit ebenso wie um allgemeine Fragen danach, wie die Kriegserfahrung fundamentale Aspekte der Weltsicht veränderte – in ästhetischer Hinsicht, aber auch mit Blick auf politische und gesellschaftliche Ordnungsmuster, etwa das Verhältnis zwischen Mehrheit und Minderheit. Wichtig war ebenfalls eine Bestandsaufnahme, wie man die »Welt vor 1914« zwischen Beharren und Wandel, Moderne und Tradition, Kriegsbereitschaft und Friedenserwartung einordnen kann. Diese Auseinandersetzung fand im Rahmen verschiedener Veranstaltungsformate ?  z.B. einer wissenschaftlichen Tagung, zahlreicher öffentlicher Vorträge oder einer Kunstausstellung ? statt. Die individuellen Forschungsprojekte der ans Kolleg eingeladenen Fellows trugen nicht nur zur Erforschung der Geschichte des Jahres 1914 bei, sondern sie warfen auch aktuelle Fragen der Geschichtswissenschaft auf.

Fellows 2014

Clark, Christopher
»How Europe went to War in 1914«

Corni, Gustavo
»A short History of Nacism«

Rahden, Till van
»Forms, Style and Manners: Democracy as a Way of Life«

Veranstaltungen 2014

Eine Übersicht über die Veranstaltungen des Historischen Kollegs im Jahr 2014 finden Sie hier.

Subject of 2015/16: »Varieties of Capitalism - the Atlantic World and Asia«

During the academic year 2015/2016 the Goethe-University Frankfurt’s Historisches Kolleg invites researchers from all over the world for new reflection and discussion on »Varieties of Capitalism – the Atlantic World and Asia« to the city of Bad Homburg.

The emergence and spreading of occidental capitalism from the Netherlands and Great Britain all over Europe and later the entire world is a historical phenomenon of extraordinary range. Ever since, it has attracted the interest of economists, sociologists and historians. However, for a long period of time their attention focused mainly on Europe. Only recently, the focus of research has shifted to other regions of the world, too. As a result, the dramatic divergence of productivity since 1800 between the political economies of the Atlantic world on the one hand and the Asian world on the other can be examined and described as a global historical process of the rise and relative decline of nations, transnational regions and their respective cultures. Nevertheless, the detailed causes of this »Great Divergence« are still controversial. The very same applies to the question, whether this divergence has not rather turned into a »Great Convergence« of the different varieties of global capitalism by the beginning of the 21^st century. Seemingly, their diversity was especially rich throughout the 20^th century, the era of political extremes.

In June 2015, starting with a public lecture given by the social historian Jürgen Kocka (Berlin) on general problems of a comparative history of modern capitalism, an intensive seminar for students as well as advanced researchers held by the organizer Werner Plumpe together with Jürgen Kocka, the economic historian Peer Vries (Wien) and the political scientist Tobias ten Brink (Frankfurt am Main) will try to develop a new perspective on the long-term evolution of different varieties of global capitalism in the Atlantic world and Asia, especially in China, from the early 19^th throughout the early 21^st century.

At the same time, this seminar will be the starting point for a critical reevaluation of all the basic structural features of modern capitalism that were defined by prior research and are widely accepted. Nevertheless, by reconsidering, the question occurs whether these features are still applicable to the development of the specific varieties of capitalism in the different regions of the Atlantic world and Asia. The intensive seminar itself will put the focus on two of the most important features of capitalism: first, on individual property rights and private enterprises; second, on profit orientation of economic players and price formatting markets. What was the actual relevance for the emergence and evolution of capitalism in Europe, the Americas and Asia? A series of interdisciplinary workshops will follow that shall examine other basic structural features of capitalism: How significant was the often cited ‘free wage labor’ in historic reality? How were employment relationships and social security systems designed by politics? Which role did private consumption play – a factor that has received far less attention than the production sphere by research? Did the significance of technology and sciences grow in course of the centuries? Which functions are to be attributed to money, credit, and which actual role did – politically designed or liberalized – capital markets play for the emergence and development of the different varieties of capitalism? Finally, do the answers to all of these questions call for a fundamental redefinition of the structural features of modern capitalism? Is it possible to identify and describe specific regional patterns of a long-term »co-evolution« of ideas, institutions and practices that contributed to the emergence and evolution of capitalism in the Atlantic and Asian world up to present times?

Taking into account the current and political relevance of this topic, a conclusive conference will investigate the social inequalities, intrinsic conflicts, as well as the – due to reoccurring and profound crises quite surprising – broad social acceptance of capitalism. Together with renowned researchers the vices as well as the virtues and prospective chances of contemporary global capitalism shall be highlighted. In the course of this, examining the Chinese advancement will certainly play a major role on the agenda again, as nowadays China – for the very first time in its history – seems to be willing to fully integrate into the global economy. But of course, this has not to lead into a supposed »Great Convergence«. Instead, the rise of China could come along with the relative decline of the Atlantic region and the emergence of a new Chinese-American economic area marked by mutual dependencies, which Niall Ferguson called – yet vaguely and dazzlingly – »Chimerica«. However, what does this mean for Europe?

Events
For an overview of all events of the History Programme see here.

Veranstaltungsberichte
Jürgen Kocka: »Probleme einer vergleichenden Geschichte des modernen Kapitalismus«, Vortrag vom 25.06.2015.
Den Bericht zum Vortrag finden Sie hier.

Andreas Eckert: »Kapitalismus auf dem vergessenen Kontinent: Die ›große Divergenz‹ seit 1800 und der Wandel von Arbeitsformen in Afrika«, Vortrag vom 26.10.2015.
Den Bericht zum Vortrag finden Sie hier.

Contact and information:

Dr. Friederike Sattler: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Subject of 2016/17: »Reformations«

Das Forschungskolleg Bad Homburg widmet der fünfhundertsten Wiederkehr der Thesenpublikation durch Martin Luther am 31.10.2017 in Wittenberg einen Themenschwerpunkt. Neben einigen öffentlichen Vorträgen durch namhafte Theologen, Juristen und Historiker werden mehrere Fellows im Kolleg Forschungszeit genießen können. Dies widmen sie Spezialaspekten der reformatorischen Bewegung in Europa, die sich von Wittenberg ausgehend in ganz Europa verbreitete, aber je unterschiedliche regionale Wirkungen hatte. Deshalb auch ist die enge Verzahnung von Religion und Politik, die eine der wesentlichen Folgewirkungen der Reformation war, in allen Teilen Europas unterschiedlich dicht vollzogen worden. Das ursprünglich geistliche Reformanliegen wandelte sich in dieser Verzahnung zu einem theologiepolitischen; in der Forschung ist deshalb auch oft von einer »politischen Theologie« gesprochen worden.

Diese Interpretation soll in einigen öffentlichen Vorträgen thematisiert werden, ist sie doch eine der viel diskutierten und kritisierten »unbeabsichtigten Nebenfolgen« des reformatorischen Aufbruchs. Die daraus abgeleiteten Deutungen u.a. vom stets obrigkeitsgläubigen Lutheraner und dem stets demokratieverbundenen Calvinisten sollen in ihrer Entstehung erklärt werden. Das Ziel des Themenjahrs besteht nicht zuletzt darin, durch die Freilegung solcher zeitgebundener Deutungsmuster den Kern des reformatorischen Anliegens auch für die Gegenwart wieder besser verständlich zu machen.

Fellows 2016/17

Dingel, Irene
»Von der Disputation zum Gespräch. Strategien zur Überwindung von Religionsdissens«

Jurkowlaniec, Gra?yna
»Das illustrierte Buch im 16. Jahrhundert: getrennte und gemeinsame Wege der christlichen Ikonographie nach der Reformation«

Kaufmann, Thomas
»Die Reformation des Buchdrucks - der Buchdruck der Reformation«

Ptaszynski, Maciej
»Politische Argumentation in katholischen Predigten des 16/17 Jahrhunderts«

Rando, Daniela
»Bedeutung der Konzilien am Ende des 15. Jahrhunderts«

Reinhardt, Nicole
»The re-invention of confession in the confessional age and beyond«

Veranstaltungen
Eine Übersicht über alle Veranstaltungen des Historischen Kollegs finden Sie hier.

Veranstaltungsberichte
Volker Leppin: »Es gibt einen fremden Luther«, Vortrag vom 05.11.2015.
Den Bericht zum Vortrag finden Sie hier.

Tagungsbericht: Die frühe Historisierung der Reformation. Reformation und Reformatoren in Biographien, Enzyklopädien und Geschichtsschreibung des späten 16., 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts, 02.03.2017 – 03.03.2017 Bad Homburg, in: H-Soz-Kult, 13.06.2017. Den Tagungsbericht finden Sie hier.

Contact and information:
Ellinor Schweighöfer: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Subject of 2017: »End of Empires«

The »Historische Kolleg«, the History Programme of the Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften, the Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities at Goethe University Frankfurt, is dedicating the year 2017 to the study of the »End of Empires« under the directorship of Prof. Dr. C. Cornelißen (Goethe University) and Prof. Dr. Thomas Duve (Max-Planck-Institute for European Legal History/Goethe University).

The end of empires: An early-modern perspective

Two seminal events came to determine the course of Europe’s early modern history: the discovery of the Americas and the French Revolution. They signify both the end of the old and the beginning of the new imperial structures. The Iberian monarchies deployed different imperial strategies to establish their dominance in America, Africa and Asia. In Latin America, their invasion spelled the end of the Aztec Empire as well as of the Inca Empire, despite its vast swaths of territories; in Asia, however, the situation was very different. 300 years later, both the Spanish and the Portuguese Empire stood on the brink of collapse. Independence movements began to take their course in Hispanic America, triggered not least by power shifts in Europe and the rise of the French Empire.

How did contemporaneous accounts construe and document the decline of the indigenous political and cultural orders? At the same time, how did the founders of the new empires justify their conquests? How does historiography today interpret the beginning and the end of these empires? Special attention will be given to the normative underpinnings of imperial rule: What role was allocated to »law« in the constitution of empires? To what extent were the new orders built upon the prevalent normative and institutional structures? What resources were used? How did that in turn impact the European normative systems?

The End of Empires: Legal-Historical Perspectives

The end of an empire has often been marked by a legal act. In most cases, these documents also establish a new order. Beginning and end seemingly coincide in them. A clearer picture can be gained by looking at the history of Latin America. The so-called papal Bull of Donation of 1493 to the Catholic Monarchs and the Treaty of Tordesillas of 1494, which for some were the beginning of a new world order, were at the same time the beginning of the end of the Inca Empire. In turn, the post-1810 Latin American Declarations of Independence sealed the fall of the Iberian Empires and allowed the emergence of the nation state structures that still exist today.

When long-lasting and complex historical transformations are compressed into legal acts, they receive great symbolic meaning. They provide us with the facts that are so important for our regimes of remembrance; they allow the construction of a »before« and »after« and thus develop an additional impact of their very own. In addition to this transformative dimension of law, we can also discover – by looking more closely – law’s resilience, the moment of arrest, its structural conservatism. Constitutional and political orders may change, but the valid legislation can remain astonishingly unaffected. Institutional logic, discourse and practices do not change overnight. They often domesticate the large political changes. During the 19th and 20th centuries, an international and transnational normative order developed alongside the nation state order and this normative order is considered by some to be a perpetuation of the colonial structures ? an informal but not less important empire. Thus, we must ask when do empires truly come to »an end«. How far into a new era does the influential power of their normative order reach?

For the thematic focus of 2017, we will discuss such legal-historical questions in a series of academic activities, in particular by means of historical research on the European and Latin American world of the early modern age. We will investigate how the Spanish Conquistadors made use of existing normative structures in order to establish their own order; which theoretical reflections on the spatial dimension of law we can observe in the Spanish monarchy, especially in the School of Salamanca; how long the normative structures of the Spanish Empire influenced the 19th century; and to what extent our present-day legal system still bears the imperial characteristics of this seemingly long-ago past. The activities will be carried out in cooperation with the Max Planck Institute for European Legal History, Frankfurt and the DFG Collaborative Research Centre »Schwächediskurse und Ressourcenregime«, Frankfurt.

The end of empires: Perspectives in contemporary history

The years 1917-18 represent a significant chapter in the history of modern empires. For the onslaught of the Bolshevist Revolution and the military and social challenges brought about by the First World War led to the collapse of the multi-ethnic European empires, and thereby paved the way for the triumphant rise of the modern idea of the nation state. At the same time, their demise led to a massive restructuring of political order in the former European empires overseas. Historians have long described these developments as a more or less inevitable process. After the end of the Cold War and in the aftermath of the new wave of nationalism in Europe, however, this teleological view has been steadily challenged. In light of that, the new history of empire offers a nuanced picture of the political and social framework conditions, as well as of the internal machinations of the multi-national empires right up to 1918.

How did it affect the internal and external political stability of multi-national empires in Europe before 1917/18? How did multi-ethnicity factor into the consolidation or affirmation of imperial rule, and, similarly, how does that relate to the idea of national self-determination? Other questions ensue: How can we explain the enduring changes in historical interpretation and analysis? Any response to these questions requires us to address the global impact of the collapse of the European empire. The British Empire offers a perfect illustration of that phenomenon as the sole »European« empire which harnessed all available resources to expand its global reach immediately following 1918, but soon after, also found itself confronted with demands for national independence in its overseas territories.

Fellows 2017/18

Corni, Gustavo
»Der italienische Faschismus und der Traum von einem neuen Imperium«

von Hirschhausen, Ulrike
»Empires – Die Krise der Vielfalt im 19. Jahrhundert«

Meccarelli, Massimo
»The Spatiality of the Law in the Second Scholastic Thought«

Events
An overview of all events of the Historische Kolleg can be found here.

Reports
Thomas Maissen: »Das Ende der Imperien: epochenübergreifende Überlegungen«, Lecture 30.01.2017.
Please find the report here.

Subject of 2018: »Christianizations in Late Antiquity«

When the Mediterranean became Christian, it was one of the most momentous, global-historical developments in the ancient world. It was a complex process because a variety of processes of Christianization took place in different areas of society. For example, completely new norms in sexual ethics arose as control over one’s own vices moved into focus, replacing the obligation to procreate as the center of attention. In other areas, such as philosophy, ancient, non-Christian forms were maintained. Additionally, the development of the empire toward Christianization was not a linear process. Constantine the Great’s conversion to Christianity in 312 AD did not usher in an immediate reformation of the entire empire. Instead, some areas, such as Constantine’s own self-portrayal, became religiously neutral, meaning that religious differences were no longer emphasized.

During this theme year of »Christianizations« we will highlight these complex relationships and bring them into the public eye. There will be public lectures and academic conferences that bring specialists from around the world to Bad Homburg. We will also try out various forms of collaboration with schools. And last but not least, one of our fellows will follow the trail of Christianity in Late Antiquity in Bad Homburg and will offer guided tours to the interested public. In this way, we intend to give research a new footing and to inform the public about the most recent research results.

Academic direction for the theme year will be assumed by Hartmut Leppin, professor of ancient history at Goethe University Frankfurt.

Fellows 2018/19

Niewöhner, Phillip
»Die Christianisierung Kleinasiens. Aspekte der materiellen Kultur: Kreuze, Heiligenbilder und Ikonoklasmus«/»Antikes Christentum in Bad Homburg: die Erlöserkirche und ihre Ausstattung im byzant. Stil«

Events
An overview of all events of the Historische Kolleg can be found here.