Max-Weber-Kolleg welcomes new fellows and fellow students for the winter semester 2023/24

The research group "Social Philosophy and Social Theory" has the distinguished fellows Gesa Lindemann ("Time and Violence") and Stefan Bargheer ("Culturalism: The Remaking of Race in the American Century") as guests.

The collegial research group "Religion and Urbanity" led by Susanne Rau and Jörg Rüpke welcomes as fellows: Verena Fugger, Austria, ("Saints and the City: Studies on the Christian Cult of Saints and Relics as a Connecting Phenomenon in Socio-religious Processes of Group Formation based on the Syrian Border Town of Resafa/Sergiupolis"); Claudine Moulin, Germany, ("Negotiating the Religious – Linguistic and Communicative Practices in Early Modern Urbanity"); Elyse Semerdjian, USA, ("Mapping Space and Religion in Aleppo, Past and Present"); Christina Williamson, Netherlands, ("Sacred co-temporalities. Sanctuaries and Urban Timescapes in the Graeco-Roman World"); Reuven Kiperwasser, Israel, ("A City and a Mother in Israel: Urban Stories and Their Social Background and Significance in Rabbinic Culture"); Anders Klostergaard Petersen, Denmark, ("Urbanisation and Religion at a Crossroads of Change") and Sanjay Srivastava, UK, ("Land, Village, Satellite Mapping, and the Refashioning of the Boundaries Between Religion and the Market at the Rural-Urban Frontier in Gurugram, India").

Helen Bönninghausen ("Making Things Available. Property as a Specific Form of World Relationship"); Jing Cheng ("A Comparative Study of Shareholding Cooperatives in Shequ with Different Attributes of Shenzhen"); Mario Resta ("Case Studies of Divine Property 4th and 6th Century from the Lateran to the Tituli of Rome, from Donations to Testaments in the Latin World"); Julian Windhövel ("The Only Laboring Class We Have – Planter Class and Freedmen's Bureau during the Early Reconstruction in Louisiana, 1864–1868") and Han Xu ("Spatial Evolution, Value and Redesign of Urban Villages"), strengthen the Collaborative Research Centre "Strukturwandel des Eigentums" (Structural Change of Property) as early-stage researchers and will work together with colleagues in the field.

Urmila Goel ("Nun-Running. An Analysis of Discourses") will take up a follow-up fellowship in the context of the Merian Centre ICAS:MP and work in Erfurt following her fellowship in Delhi.

New doctoral students are also beginning their work in the International Graduate School (IGS) "Resonant Self-World Relations in Socio-Religious Practices": Lukas Bartl is working on "Naturally beautiful. Naturally fit. Naturally healthy – the topos of 'Natürlichkeit' in GDR health publications and its political and social dimensions"; Emma de Koning on "A 'Pregnant' Image: The Resonance of Childbirth Iconography and Ritual in the Societies of the Ancient Mediterranean"; Zarah Naghshband on "Experiencing Resonance Amidst Uncertainty of Time: Performing Rituals and the Problem of Sacred Time among Shiites during Ramadan"; Charles White on "Resonance through YELLO: Exploring the Theory of Resonance in Young Ensemble Learning Through Laptop Orchestra" and Vincenzo Cerulli on "Resonance Praxis in Filmmaking and Film Editing".

In addition, as always in the winter semester, the second-year doctoral candidates from Graz will come to Erfurt, while the second-year doctoral candidates from Erfurt will go to Graz. Welcomed in Erfurt are: Lukas Jung ("The Agonistic 'Event Culture' in Side and Pamphylia"); Florian Oppitz ("Religiously Motivated Charity in the Late Antique Eastern Mediterranean on the Basis of Archaeological and Classical Sources") and Rupert Rainer ("The Ekphrasis of the Hagia Sophia in the Context of Self-World Relation"). In addition, Georgia Petridou with her project on "Healing Rituals, Patient-Physician Resonance, and the Lived Body: Experiencing, Communicating, and Managing Chronic Pain in Antiquity and Modernity" will enrich the IGS as a Mercator Fellow, and Alexandra Trachsel and Christoph Günther as associated postdocs.

And last but not least, the Kierkegaard Research Unit is looking forward to the guest doctoral student Ioana Moraru ("Søren Kierkegaard and the Existential Imagination").

The directors of the Max-Weber-Kolleg, Hartmut Rosa and Jörg Rüpke commented: "We are pleased to welcome so many exciting scholars from Germany and abroad to Erfurt again and are looking forward to the exchange with each other."