Jutta Vinzent presents a working paper on 'Towards a Spatial Art History'

The colloquium introduces a methodolgy provisionally called Spatial Art History. It is actually part of the introductory chapter to a monograph titled From Constructive Space in Modern Art to a Spatial Art History. Reassessing Constructivism through Circle, which I have been writing during my Fellowship at Erfurt.
The monograph focuses on aesthetic theories of space in the first half of the twentieth century. Taking the book Circle edited by Naum Gabo, Ben Nicholson and Leslie Martin and published in 1937 as a springboard for avant-garde views on space, this book traces the relevance of space to modern art. On the basis of such conceptions and their limitations, the book develops a methodology based on recent theories which conceive of space as neither simply natural geography nor an empty container but as being produced (Henri Lefebvre, Edward Soja and the Spatial Turn, but also Martina Löw). Provisionally termed ‘Spatial Art History’, it considers things in their spatio-temporal appearance (art works, books, etc) as the product and producer of society (artists, readers, spectators, etc), whereby society on the one hand and works as things on the other perform correlatively, advancing continously and multi-directionally (Bruno Latour and Gilles Deleuze). This performative act brings to the fore both, society and thing and is thought of as a spacing. This methodology will be applied to
Circle (1937), which has defined constructive art and theory in a way that already considers the art work as the producer of space.

Gábor Gángó is going to present a working paper on 'Leibniz and Eastern Europe'

The aim of this paper is to reconstruct Leibniz’s views on Eastern Europe in the context of his concept of Europe. First, I present his picture on Europe in the mirror of the historical semantics of the word, while confronting Leibniz’s silence concerning the name of the East European region with the usage of the 18th century. In connection to this, I give an overview of his scientific and political activity with relation to Eastern Europe. I shall focus on the year of 1697: this year brought a shift in Leibniz’s conception of Eastern Europe with it and therefore contributes to a better understanding of his position. In the last section of my paper, I develop the political implications of Leibniz’s critique on the region, formulated by him in an aesthetical clothing.

Bernd-Christian Otto gives a working paper on 'The Illuminates of Thanateros and the Institutionalization of Religious Individualization'

The ‚Illuminates of Thanateros‘ (IOT) is a modern new religious movement founded in 1976 (re-founded in 1986) and an initiatory order dedicated to the study and practice of ‚Chaos Magick‘, which is one of the most advanced and individualistic currents in the history of ‚Western learned magic‘. In the article, which I have written for the final proceedings of the Kollegforschergruppe, I interpret the foundation of the IOT as an attempt to institutionalize religious individualization, and henceforth its major schism – the so-called ‘Ice Magick War’ in the early 1990s – as an indicator that institutionalizing religious individualization is inevitably ambivalent and eventually determined to backlash into de- or non-individualization. But, as ever, the finding is ambiguous.

Julie Casteigt is going to present a working paper on 'Thinking in images and through images: Eckharts one-being in the other'

In this workshop, I would like to examine the problem and the method of my next book Mutuality and pocessual Thinking: Meister Eckhart and focus on the concept of reciprocal inbeing. The reason for choosing this topic is to develop the broader problem of dynamic unity in the context of a processual thinking. Here I concentrate on the commentary of a single verse (Jn 10:38) and the network of verses to which this commentary refers. In doing so, I would like to show how the metaphysical unfolding of the concept of “Being-­‐one in the other” is inseparable from the exegetical
method of Eckhart. The reciprocal inbeing of the Father and the Son in the biblical verse is not only to be metaphysically understood in the framework of the theory of participation, but as the mutually constituting being of two correlative terms. In order to think processually of the  mfutual being, Eckhart uses an exegetical method that links one  biblical image with another. At  the same time, he develops his doctrine of image as an image, or as an example, of the Being-­‐one and of the inbeing of
the Father and of the Son.

Tomas Bartoletti gives a working paper on 'Greek Divination from an Amerindian Perspective: Reconsidering 'Nature' in Mantike'

'Oracles' and 'divination' as subjects of study were constructed fuzzily by Classical Scholarship and Anthropology. This was because they sought to create a universal category in which religious and healing practices from diverse cultural contexts could be incorporated. The limits of this blurred definition became marked by the Christian tradition and European modernity that first understood the diverse practices as demonic idolatry, and then as a product of irrational-primitive thought, directly in opposition to monotheistic faith and institutionalized rational-scientific  knowledge.  With  the 'discovery' of the 'New' World, 'divination'-along with 'magic'-became projected in overseas colonial contexts as conceptual (and even inquisitorial) tools to identify demonic belief and 'primitive-savage' mentalities or, diplomatically, 'exotic' forms of believing and thinking. Although the definition of 'divination' began with being constructed epistemologically on the basis of Ancient sources, it was appropriated as an alterity of scientific rationality and, furthermore,  used  to  catalogue practices of 'other' cultures. In this paper, I propose a symmetricizing reversion to diffract the epistemological interpretation of mantic practices. To do so, I analyse Greek divin ation through an Amerindian perspective, focusing on the Andean notions of cam ac and wak'a documented in different colonial sources, and establish translations that call into question some epistemological principles of the subject  of 'divination', as it was understood based on the Greek tradition. Several meanings of Andean  divination can similarly be traced back to Greek sources. But their meanings were either marginalized  by ClassicalStudies, or a partial and biased selection of certain Creek sources was made, leading to some canonical epistemological path. This symmetricizing reversion between Andean and Greek divination makes it possible to reconsider mantike as a cosmopraxis of eure between beings of a different nature.

Jürgen Martschukat is going to present a working paper on "The Age of Fitness. The Power of Able-Bodiedness in Recent American History"

The article explores the power of fitness in recent American history. It argues that  modern fitness is more than the physical condition to succeed in sports, but means having and shaping a body that stands for the willingness and ability to self-improvement, to lead a productive life, and to pursue happiness successfully. Today, a dynamic understanding of fitness seems self-evident, yet as the article argues, it is deeply embedded in modern history and in the shaping of societies based upon liberalism, self-government, and competition as their core principles. In order to come to terms with the climax of fitness in recent America, the article begins with a long-shot perspective on how a discourse revolving around an autonomous, liberal, and competitive self gained shape from the American Revolution to Charles Darwin, and how this sparked a dynamic understanding of fitness that became a most powerful, regulatory ideal of liberal societies. In a second step, the article zooms in on the beginnings of today’s fitness craze in the 1970s and 1980s in order to explore Major paradigms of the age of fitness in greater detail. The concept of ability is crucial to understanding the power of fitness, and examining the history of fitness is most important for a critical analysis of ableism.

 

Christoph Hennig presents a working paper on "Materiality and Experience in Creative Labour: A Pragmatistic Interpretation of Interviews with Artists and Designers"

In an interdisciplinary research project at the University of St. Gallen („Creativity as a Vocation", 2013/14) we conducted 20 interviews with local artists and designers. Our aim was to analyse these interviews both from the perspective of sociology and philosophy. This, however, proved more difficult then expected, not least because a philosophical analysis of qualitative sociologicla data is a methodological innovation, not always well received by established traditions, and not to be achieved so easily. In this paper, which I did not have the time to translate unfortunately, I use some ideas from the field of „New Materialism" and Latours „Actor-Network-Theory" in order to interpret sections of these interviews in a new way. This also leads me to discuss Harmut Rosa`s ideas about art in his book on resonance (2016).

Roman Madzia is going to present a working paper on "Only a Life Can Understand Life: Dilthey and Dewey on the Inevitability of the Aesthetic"

The paper deals with philosophical foundations of Dilthey's philosophy of life and Dewey's insights on qualitative thought. In the first part, the author focuses on the projects of both Dilthey and Dewey of establishing what one could call a "new science of experience". By this endeavor, both thinkers (each in his own manner) reacted to the undeniable progress of natural science of the late 19th century which jeopardized the status of social sciences (or Geisteswissenschaften in Dilthey's rendition). After a short analysis of similarities and differences between their respective approaches, the author focuses more closely on Dilthey and explains the fundamental concepts of his Lebensphilosophie (such as the principle of phenomenality, reflexive awareness, structural nexus of life, etc.) and tries to demonstrate why they took the form they did. In the last part of the paper, the author elucidates Dilthey's reformulation of certain life-categories, previously known from Kant, and makes a connection to certain aspects of contemporary philosophy of biology.

Alexander Jordan gives a working paper on "The Legacy of “Centre” Hegelianism in German Thought, c. 1830 - 1880"

Following the death of Hegel (1770-1831), his followers split into factions. The "Left" has attracted huge attention, due to the assumption that Hegelianism led inevitably to "Left" Hegelianism, and "Left" Hegelianism to Marxism. In contrast, there is very little on the "Centre". This is remarkable, given that the "Left" soon collapsed, whereas the "Centre" continued to exist as a coherent movement for decades. Unlike the revolutionary "Left", the "Centre" Hegelians remained optimistic about Prussia becoming what Hegel called a "Vernunftstaat" (rational state), led by an enlightened civil service, dedicated to the public good. Thus, the "Left" Hegelian emphasis on negativity, critique, and revolution (culminating in Marxism) was not the only possible outcome of Hegel's thought. The current paper offers an initial outline of the project, including a few hypotheses and points for discussion.

Andrés Quero-Sánchez presents a working paper on "Nietzsche’s loneliness as metaphysical core principle"

Nietzsche’s loneliness is not primarily to be understood as a psychological  phenomenon, but as a metaphysical one,  namely as his request to become a really unique and singular individual. A few decades later, Martin Heidegger  will use the German neologism ‚Jemeinigkeit‘ to express such an aspect.  Nietzsche’s loneliness is connected with his request for immoralism as well as with his critique of idealistic metaphysics.

Claudia D. Bergmann is going to present a working paper on "Full Belly vs. Starving Body: Ritual Reversal and the Human Body in Biblical and Early Jewish Texts”

Aspects of imagined ritual reversal in regard to ancient ideas about eating are the topic of this paper. It will particularly focus on the opposition of satisfied and starving human bodies both in early Jewish texts that deal with this world and in texts that discuss circumstances in the World to Come. The aim is to apply both the ritual theories that might be applied to these texts and investigate the human characteristics that, according to the texts discussed, would lead human bodies either to starvation or satisfaction. Finally, the question will be ask whether the texts view this world or the World to Come as the mundus inversus, the world where the usual laws and norms are (temporarily) out of order.

Amrita Mondal gives a working paper on "Promise of the State: Execution of Acts and Policies"

The second chapter ‘Promise of the State’ postulates the distinctiveness of categories, ‘land’ and ‘soil’, by explicating functional and non-functional dimension of land. For doing so this chapter will engage in describing the transition in political ethos during 2009-2011 in Bengal when the 34-year long Left-Front Government of West Bengal led by Communist Party of India (Marxist) lost its power to Trinamool Congress, discuss the functional aspect of land through the social policies and executions of them in the local level and arrive at a gendered analysis of Government officials’ interaction with the people in the village.

The present paper provides a narrative of the context of the farmers’ protest against the state government’s (farm)land acquisition policy and how the opposition (Trinamool Congress) engages and mobilizes a substantial rural population under its banner for anti-government public protest. To understand how Trinamool Congress successfully launched a movement that eventually led to its historic victory to assume the role of governing party for the first time in 2011 we need to critically examine how its primary political agenda pegged the functionality of land with the rolling out of several land related social policies for rural development as a promise of pro-poor growth. Moreover, this section gives a detail explanation of land owning mechanisms that women must comprehend to effectively access land. Thus, dynamics of women’s interaction with the bureaucracy becomes essential factor determining the efficacies of policies concerned. Section 3 of Chapter 2 will delve into this aspect.  

Cornel Zwierlein receives Heisenberg scholarship from the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft)

The current Fellow of the Max Weber Center for Cultural and Social Studies of the University of Erfurt, Prof. Dr. Cornel Zwierlein, has received a Heisenberg scholarship for his research project "Close Distance. A knowledge history of European merchant colonies in the Levant, 17.-19. Century". The Heisenberg program is granted to scientists who already fulfill all the prerequisites to be appointed to a permanent professorship, in order to carry out their top-class projects.

Merchant colonies of pre-modern trading empires were not only the central network nodal points for economic import and export flows of goods and values, they were also cultural and epistemic units of their own kind. In the last decades the research concerning large parts of the Levant trade and local (west) European actors has been neglected.  This includes their characteristic, epistemic and cultural functions, communication and representative performance. Based on this observation the project seeks, from a historical perspective, to contribute to fundamental research for the actors, especially English, French, and the comparative outlook for the Italian and Dutch merchant colonies in the Levant from the 17th to the early 19th century in this respect.

The project, which Zwierlein is working on at the Max Weber Kolleg, closely follows this project. He works on early forms of religious studies, which were embedded in the exchange of the network of Mediterranean consuls and merchant colonies of France, England and the missionaries and societies of Europe such as the Royal Society and the Académie des sciences. In particular, for the preparatory smaller case study, he focuses on an important Greek orthodoxy and Eastern Church researcher in France around 1700, Eusèbe Renaudot, who also supported English Catholics as a spy and, succeeding his grandfather, publisher of France's oldest national newspaper, the Gazette de France was.

"We are happy about the success of  Prof. Dr.  Zwierlein in the recruitment of this prestigious scholarship of the German Research Foundation (DFG), which will enable him to profile for his further scientific career. We wish him all the best for his work following his research stay at the Max Weber Kollege, which fortunately will continue until March 2018, "said Professor Hartmut Rosa, the director of the Max Weber Kolleg.

Start of the PhD-preparation-program at the Max Weber Kolleg for Cultural and Social Studies

With the beginning of the winter semester 2017, a doctoral preparatory program has commenced at the Max Weber Center for Cultural and Social Studies. As part of this program, two MA graduates started their work in various projects at the Max Weber Kolleg, in order to gain the skills and knowledge they need for the interdisciplinary projects planned as PhD projects.

The program offers intensive mentoring by Fellows of the Max-Weber-Kolleg for 6 to 12 months. It is aimed at students who have an excellent MA degree and are seeking an interdisciplinary doctorate in the context of Weber's research program.

The program has a highly modular structure and offers individual support for the participants, in which the needs and goals of the candidates are supported by a mentor. The result of the program will be the creation of a project outline, which will enable a successful application to doctoral programs.

More about the PhD preparation program:  

https://www.uni-erfurt.de/va/max-weber-kolleg/kolleg/studienprogramm/

Applications are accepted until August 30 (for the winter semester) or February 28 (for the summer semester) of the year. The program starts at the beginning of each semester. The contact person for applications is Dr. Elisabeth Begemann.

A variety of public lectures and guest lectures are taking place at the Max Weber Kolleg this Semester

For further Information please mind following links:

https://www.uni-erfurt.de/fileadmin/public-docs/Max-Weber-Kolleg/6-pdfs/Tagungen/2017/Guest_Lecutures_WS17_18.pdf


https://www.uni-erfurt.de/max-weber-kolleg/veranstaltungen/tagungenworkshops/

Janico Albrecht is going to present a working paper on "Religio imperatoris and religio urbis in the Late Republic: The Case of Lucius Cornelius Sulla"

The following text is a synthesis of several subchapters (bold) that treat the Late Republican politician and general (imperator) Lucius Cornelius Sulla (ca. 138-78 BC). My interest is not so much a biographical one but rather focusses on some aspects of his well-documented self-stylisation. For the sake of brevity, I don’t include the wider perspective on his political environment and on other agents who also brought forward religious claims during this time (chapters 5.1.3.2+3) as well as – building on this – the interpretation of transgressive religious behaviour as potentially desirable for  imperatores especially in a civil war. 

Sulla is commonly known for becoming the first imperator to turn his army against Rome, for waging a bloody civil war on Italian soil, for (after his victory) systematically murdering any perceived opposition and as dictator making drastic changes in the political system. In my thesis, though, his political ambitions and reforms play a less important role than his career as imperator Felix (~the Fortunate) – his literary self- stylisation as divinely inspired general. Special emphasis is put on the imperatorial context. Here, the underlying idea is that Roman religion showed its highest structural density in the public sphere where political ambitions and religious office-holding went hand in hand and were tightly connected to the idea of senatorial authority in religious matters. The situation changed during wartime which for centuries usually meant the warmer seasons of every year. The turn from 2nd to 1st century saw the development that military campaigns didn’t only last for months but could take armies and generals away from Italy for years. When Rome was at war the imperator (usually the acting or a recent consul) was invested with almost unlimited authority not only in military but also religious matters. Far away from the social control of his peers (except those who accompanied him as subordinates) it was expected from him not only to interact with his men but also the gods whose cooperation was both formally necessary and of utmost importance to motivate the soldiers. 

Within historiography the religious behaviour of generals almost became an own genre  of exemplary accounts which stand out because here Roman senators (and thereby often religious office-holders) adapted behavioural patterns which would have been entirely out of place in the civil sphere (e.g. claiming personal divine inspiration). Furthermore, already many ancient historians show a peculiar awareness for the importance and problems of bringing such claims back to Rome. In such cases even when treating obviously transgressive behaviour moral criteria rarely play a role. The focus lies rather on interactional considerations: audiences are not only impacted but can also play an active part so that confirmation, modification and rebuttal by the ‘claimant’ become integral parts of negotiating imperatorial claims.

  It is this double setting of imperatorial religious claims in the military context and their negotiation at Rome in which Sullas literary account of his military and religious deeds comes in as an extraordinary source – especially since his autobiographical work antedates the historiographical material that we have for this epoch by half a century! By taking a closer look at the transport of Sullas religious narratives from the battlefields of the east to the form of literary apology I try to stress not only his ability to circumvent contemporary scrutiny by his peers but also his systematic contextual overlay due to the fact that he never ‘civilised’ and even in Rome never refrained from using imperatorial modes of communication. This assumption is the starting point for the analysis of the later civil war periods which are no less characterised by charismatic approaches to imperatorial authority and claims to religious preordination.

 

Richard Gordon presents a working paper on "The Greeks, religion and nature in German neo-humanist discourse from Romanticism to Reichsgründung"

This paper is part of a larger study devoted to the representations of ancient Greek religion in German neo-humanist scholarship, 1750-1914. The sub-topic here is that of Nature. Rather than focusing on the physicalist interpretation of the Greek gods, which is a major theme in the literature, I seek to locate shifts in the conceptions of nature in German scholarship on Greek religion from the later eighteenth century to c.1870 against the background of the modernisation of the German university system(s), the debate over Fr. Creuzer in th 1810-20s, the rise of pseudo-historicism, the failure of 1848 and emergent industrialisation.

George Pattison gives a working paper on"God speaks within: from devout silence to calling"

The paper offers an introduction to the project on which I am working at the Max Weber Centre, namely, the second part of a three-part work on a philosophy of Christian Life. This focusses on the question of language and, in particular, the phenomenon of calling. Whereas the first part of the philosophy of Christian Life (phenomenology of the devout life) looked at the attraction to devotion without specific regard to its linguistic character, the second part begins by reflecting specifically on 'the call' as occurring in language. Heidegger is used to clarify the dynamics of calling, although his own methodological atheism makes any idea of a divine calling impossible. Although both his analysis of the call of conscience (in Being and Time) or the poetic calling (in his writings on Hölderlin) hint at a religious pathos, this is clearly in a different sense from that of monotheistic revelation. Contemporary with Heidegger, a sequence of Russian philosophers, some also influenced by Husserl and all by German Idealism, developed a philosophy of language based on the primacy of the name. These thinkers also reflect a religious practice of invoking the divine name (hesychasm) strongly represented in Russian religious life at that time. Their work thus lends itself to an analysis of calling. Thus, the paper has three mani foci: (1) The transition from 'attraction' to calling, (2) the Heideggerian account of calling; and (3) the analysis of the name in the work of Pavel Florensky, the most explicitly theological of the Russian thinkers in question. As this is a report on work in progress, the further development of this theme through A. Losev, G. Shpet, and M. M. Bakhtin is postponed for later consideration.

The Max Weber Kolleg welcomes new fellows and kollegiaten

In the winter semester 2017 many new fellows and kollegiaten (PhD-candidates) from Germany and abroad are starting their research at the Max Weber Center for Cultural and Social Studies, which is currently located at Steinplatz 2.

Within the framework of the research group "Religious Individualization in a Historical Perspective", the following researchers will be working at the Max Weber Kolleg: guest doctoral candidate Marialilia Cavallaro, she will be working in Modena and at the Max Weber Kolleg on "Social transformations and religious practices, The Cult of Apollo in Archaic and Classical Greece ". Teresa Morgan (Oxford) will be working on her research project "The faith by which it is believed ...": the development of interior faith and individual devotion in Christianity between c. 100-400 CE ". Prof. Dr. István Keul, who is working on a project entitled "Individualization and institutionalization using the example of two recent Asian New Age religions". Guest doctoral candidate Tomás Bartoletti, will research on "Comic oracles as a paradigm of superstition in Early Modern Europe. The epistemological discourse of "Greek divination" in classical sources and colonial chronicles of the Americas ".

The research group "Urban Religion" welcomes: Dr. Asuman Lätzer-Lasar, scientific associate who is working on her project "Mutual Transformations between New Gods and the City"; Junior Fellow  Dr. Giulia Pedrucci, COFUND-Fellow at the Max Weber Kolleg, and working on the project "Mothering and (Wet) Nursing: A Metadisciplinary Study on Parenting Strategies in Greek and Roman Worlds".

In the ICAS project welcomes COFUND-Fellow Dr. Juhi Tyagi. She is working on her research project entitled "Peasant Discontent & States: How armed groups impact state-capital trajectories and forward peasant interests".

The International Graduate School "Resonant Self-World Relations in Ancient and Modern Socio-Religious Practices" welcomes, in cooperation with the University of Graz, the first doctoral candidates: Olivera Koprivica, who will discuss the topic "Female Bodies and Angelic Likeness: The Place and Role of the Body in Everyday Life of Orthodox Women Monasticisms - A Qualitative Study "; Diana Pavel, who will talk about" Platform of encounters or a table for offerings? The aspects of the Etruscan Altar in the Public and the Private Sphere in the 7th-2nd Centuries B.C.". Bennet Bergmann is researching “In Harmony with God and the World. Examining the Relationship of Meditation Rituals and Phenomenological Resonance Relationships to the World". Stella Rehbein, who is authoring a paper entitled" Romanticism in Times of Declining Resonance - A Sociology of Inequality and Gender-Sociology of Love between Ritual and Routine ".

In the project “Natural Law” we welcome Prof. dr. Emmanuelle de Champs (Université de Cergy-Pontoise), a COFUND Fellow at the Kolleg who is working on the subject of "Happiness, Law and Progress in the Age of Revolution (1780-1800)"; Dr. Alexander Hugh Jordan, with his postdoctoral project “The Battle for Hegel: 'Center' Hegelianism in German and British Political Thought, 1830-1920". He is also one of this year's COFUND-Fellow.

Dr. Kathi Beier is a Junior Fellow and new at the “Meister Eckhart Research Group”. She  works on the topic "Reasons of Virtue - On the Foundation of the Aristotelian Virtue Ethics in Thomas Aquinas".

Anton Röhr works in the field of "Social Philosophy and Social Theory" on the doctoral project "The Ritual as a Space of Serenity - Resonance in the Dialectic of Identity and Non-Identity".

At the Research Center "Dynamics of Ritual Practices in Judaism in Pluralistic Contexts from Antiquity to the Present" Dr. Rebecca Sebbagh started her habilitation project "The Use of Psalms in the Jewish Liturgy" in the summer semester. Prof. Dr. Naomi Feuchtwanger-Sarig (Jerusalem) is a Fellow at the Center during November and works on "Huppah: The Cloth that Determines Spacial Sacrality". Prof. Dr. Jürgen Zangenberg (Leiden) begins his six-month research stay as a Fellow at the Max Weber Kolleg in January 2018; Prof. Dr. em. Günter Stemberger (Vienna) and Prof. Dr. Clemens Leonhard (Münster) also start their research stays at the end of the winter semester and work together on the theme "Images of the Temple Cult in Early Rabbinic Literature - Remembrance and / or Creativity".

 

Another component of the study program at the Max Weber Kolleg is the doctoral preparation, which should enable particularly good graduates to prepare an exposé for applying for a doctoral scholarship. At present, Niklas Gebauer and Rebecca Selz are in this position to prepare for doctoral studies at the Kolleg.

 

Asuman Lätzer-Lasar presents a working paper on "Citification of Magna Mater in Late Antiquity?"

Aim of this paper is to present the archaeological and literary remains of the Magna Mater Cult in the late antique city of Rome and sketch an image of the religious city-scape at that time. Having the concept of Urban Religion in mind, I will focus on the question of how the pagan cult was appropriated and did develop against the backdrop of the competing Christian religion as well as the prohibition of pagan cults in the late 4th century. How – under the challenging circumstances – did the religious agents (priests,adherents etc.) claim or somehow defend urban space assigned to Magna Mater? Did they in consequence of this situation change or adjust their way of religious communication, e.g. are there any innovations of religious practices or did they give up space or practices to the benefit of other deities?

As analytical tool I will use the term “citification”, coined by our colleague E. Urciuoli, to single out religious phenomena related to city and its characteristics, and more generally to determine the status of the cult in relation to the city, the city´s history and its Organisation of urban space. This will lead to a final question to what degree was the cult citified?