Max-Weber-Kolleg welcomes new fellows and fellows for the winter semester 2024/25

The following fellows will be joining the research group ‘Religion and Urbanity’, headed by Susanne Rau and Jörg Rüpke: Elisabeth Gruber, with the project ‘The Materiality of Charity. Transgressing Boundaries between Political, Ecnonomic, Social, Cultural and Religious Domains in Late Medieval Austrian Towns’, Jon Keune with the project “Transnational Buddhism and Ambedkarite Migration, Part 2: Nagpur as Nexus and Portal”, Nora Lafi with the project “Daily Life Spatialities of Religiosity in Ottoman Tunis” and Richard Lim with the project “Religious Dualism and Urbanity in the Roman West: Part I”. During her research stay at the Max-Weber-Kolleg, Gesine Manuwald will work on the completion of a new translation of individual fragments of the late-Roman Republican playwrights Accius and Turpilius, as well as an introductory book to Terenz' Eunuchus. Isabella Schwaderer will conduct research on the topic ‘Staging religion: Performative Aspects of the Religious on Theater Stages between Germany and South Asia 1900–1938’.

In addition, the Kolleg welcomes Colleen Kron as a new research fellow; she is working on a research project entitled ‘Elysian Microtheologies: Urbanity and the Religious Affordance of Greco-Roman Funerary Inscriptions’.

The research group Social Philosophy and Social Theory will host three Distinguished Fellows: Andreas Folkers with the project ‘Fossil Modernity. A natural history of the present‘, Olivia Mitscherlich-Schönherr with the project “Successful Transformation in Complementary Learning Processes of Religious and Secular Citizens” and Irene Schneider, who will research the topic “Criminal Law in Mandate-era Palestine”. She has also received an ERC Advanced Grant ’(De)Colonizing Sharia?" Tracing Transformation, Change and Continuity in Islamic Law in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) in the 19th and 20th Centuries" from the EU. This will be based at the Max-Weber-Kolleg and will enable further staff members to work on the project from November 2024 with sub-studies on Egypt, Morocco, the United Arab Emirates, Crimea and Saudi Arabia. Furthermore, the doctoral students Josefína Formanová with the project ‘Unavailability and Mediopassivity’ and Yao Siyu with the project ‘Resonance in Marxism Aesthetics: Germany Theological Lineage and Chinese Culture Adaption’ are coming to Erfurt as new members of the research group.

As part of the Merian Centre ICAS:MP (Metamorphoses of the Political) in Delhi, the fellows Rani Bhargav and Achyuta Suneetha will come to Erfurt as guests. Rani Bhargav is coming with the project ‘Performance of Historical Consciousness in Everyday Life: Banarasipan as Revelation’. Achyuta Suneetha is working on ‘City is my mother! An exploration of the migration experiences of marginalised women in Hyderabad’.

The International Graduate School welcomes Lena Spickermann, a doctoral candidate from Graz, at the Max-Weber-Kolleg, who is writing her dissertation on the topic of ‘Resonance (blockades) in the scientific genesis of knowledge about the modern woman – Viola Klein: Pioneer of a gender research that promotes resonance’.

In the Collaborative Research Centre ‘Structural Change of Property’, we welcome Flower Manase, who will use her time as a Mercator Fellow to research ‘Contemporary ownership of colonial cultural properties (ethnographic objects)’. In the new semester, the research group will also be strengthened by Alexander Obermüller, who will support the sub-project A02 as a postdoc research associate and research ‘Whiteness as Property in Slavery and Beyond’, and by Qian Zhao, who will work as a post-doc on her project ‘Research of Ordinary Life in the Internet Domain in Rapid Sociotechnical Modernizaton in China’.

‘We are delighted to be able to welcome so many exciting scholars from Germany and abroad to Erfurt again and look forward to the exchange with each other,’ said Hartmut Rosa and Jörg Rüpke, the directors of the Max-Weber-Kolleg.