Bernd-Christian Otto is going to present a working paper on '„Magie im Islam“ aus diskurstheoretischer Perspektive'

The present paper functions as an „afterword“ to a German anthology on „Magie im Islam“, edited by Sebastian Günther and Dorothee Lauer (Göttingen University), to be submitted to Brill later this year. A TOC to this volume is attached, and parts of my contribution discusses papers of said volume, which I have read before writing the piece. The core of the argument, however, is devoted to demonstrating that the discursive approach towards “magic” (or “Western learned magic”) which I have pursued in several other publications, can also be applied to the study of „magic in Islam“. The article is thus divided into three chapters: the first attempts to demonstrate that a discursive approach towards Islamic material deemed “magic” is not only possible but yields various analytical advantages, such as overcoming Eurocentric stereotypes on the matter, or re-reading some Islamic sources that deal with “magic” (arab. siḥr). The second chapter aims at embedding Islamic material within the much wider history of “Western learned magic”, thereby de-contextualizing said material, which leads to asking different questions that inevitably arise from a diachronic, comparative, and necessarily interdisciplinary perspective. The focus here lies on ritual dynamics from a longue-durée perspective, that is, on continuities and discontinuities as well as transformations and innovations. The third chapter devotes some final considerations to the question of whether – and to what degree – Islamic “learned magic”, particularly in the medieval Era, was actually “deviant”, or whether there were considerable social spaces of liberal attitudes, legalized practice or even “institutionalization” (e.g. in schools).

Qian Zhao offers a working paper on 'Trial Comparative Research of Chinese and Britain Cultural Entrepreneurs in pre-modern Time'

My research is on Chinese young cultural entrepreneurs under socio-technological innovations in China. In a close observation of Chinese entrepreneurs, we can observe an interesting phenomenon that a group of Chinese entrepreneurs, especially some famous successful ones have many cultural actions in their economic activities.
In this paper, I would like to turn to historical comparative analysis of cultural entrepreneurs in Britain and China in pre-modern time and try to answer the questions as following: how should we view this cultural entrepreneurship phenomenon, unique or ubiquitous? How they acted as cultural entrepreneurs? Where did their cultural propensity come from? As a part of my dissertation in the topic of cultural entrepreneurs, I am also very interested in the research of the evolvement of cultural entrepreneurs in history, to find the source and course.
I suppose, given that business and personal values were so closely intertwined, we should find answers in the culture and its relation with entrepreneurs’ certain values. What is less discussed is a set of cultural values that pertain to entrepreneurs’ cultural activities.

Bjørn Schiermer presents a working paper on 'Ontological Dualism and Theory of Agency'

The present chapter investigates the detrimental theoretical and phenomenological consequences of metaphysical dualism and subject-centered approaches to action. The chapter is critically centered on the phenomenology of German-Austrian phenomenologist Alfred Schutz. It explores how Schutz's dualism impacts on his depiction of our relation to the objects around us.
First, I turn towards Schutz most general formulations of his understanding of objectivity and of our practical relations with the physical world, as these conceptions are formulated in his writings on the "world of working". Second, I investigate the impact of Schutz cognitivism, i.e. the way he understands objects in his so-called "theory of relevance". Thereupon, I seek out some of the more progressive moments in Schutz: I thus explore, third, his attempt to phenomenologically describe the process of choice or deliberation, focusing on the object-oriented impulses emerging at this occasion. And, fourth, I examine his scattered attempts to do justice to our practical familiarity and transparency with artefacts and technology, that is his theory of Zuhandenheit or 'black boxing'.
As will be clear, however, Schutz dualism forbids him to develop these progressive object-oriented impulses in any consistent way. The conclusion thus remains negative: The separation of the subject from the things, technologies and artefacts in which it is entangled fundamentally disfigures and misconstrues our relation to the objects.

Harry Maier is going to present a working paper on 'Practicising Places: Spatial Imagination, Imperial Location, and Lived Religion in 1 Clement'

After a brief statement of the paper’s main thesis, the discussion introduces 1 Clement to non-specialists as a letter written by a Roman Christ assembly to a Corinthian one in the last quarter of the first century CE. There follows a brief discussion of traditional readings of the letter. Next the discussion turns to spatial study as a social geographical discipline and then applies it to the letter. It argues that two types of civic space – that of concord and of dissent – form the letter’s chief spatial orientation, with characteristic behaviours assigned to each type. Discussion of two passages shows that Clement deploys rhetorical tools (ekphrasis and topographia) to create vivid representation of spaces of concord and discord. Analysis of two further texts considers the way Clement places his listeners within a broader biblical sapiential tradition thereby locating them within a divinely appointed cosmic space. Finally, the paper turns to a long prayer for the emperor at the letter’s conclusion to consider the way Clement places imperial rule within his spatial conceptualization. The paper concludes with a proposal that the letter’s affirmation of imperial concord echoes a Flavian ideology of civic and political harmony following the destructive reign of Nero and the urban Roman civil war of 69 CE that followed his death. The fire of 64 CE and the war left a densely populated city in ruin. The Flavians set to rebuild the city and used a variety of propagandistic means to portray themselves as restorers of harmony. Without arguing for a direct causal connection, the paper concludes by noticing the way Clement’s letter echoes Flavian ideals in its attempt to end faction and restore peace to the Corinthians.

Call for Applications

The Max-Weber-Kolleg invites applications for up to
4 positions for Ph.D. projects (TV-L 13, 65%)
in the fields of Religious Studies, Sociology, Philosophy, History, Classics and related subjects within the framework of the International Research Training Group "Resonant Self-World Relations in Ancient and Modern Socio-Religious Practices".
 

https://www.uni-erfurt.de/fileadmin/public-docs/Max-Weber-Kolleg/9_ausschreibungen/18-2017_4x_WiMa_phD_MWK_Ruepke_englisch.pdf

Christoph Henning asks: What can we learn from Karl Marx today?

On May 1, thousands of people in Germany are again on the road to demonstrate for more justice and improved working conditions. As a 'Labor Day', the national holiday continues the legacy of the workers' movement, which since the second half of the nineteenth century has struggled in many places against the oppression and exploitation of the working classes newly created by industrialization. For the socialist-communist camp within the workers' movement, Karl Marx once provided the theoretical background, and even today the social theorist is gladly quoted. But what does Karl Marx actually say? Christoph Henning, Junior Fellow for Philosophy at the Max Weber College of the University of Erfurt, asked: 'What do we still have in common with Karl Marx's contemporary workers today, and what can we do for our work? Can capitalist societies still learn from Marx today?'

The writings of Marx still address us in many ways. So we can find a number of answers. I would first distinguish between crisis diagnosis and therapy. If one follows the Marxian theory, then the disruption of the present is mainly due to economic mechanisms: the capitalist mode of production in which everything is based on the profit-making of capital is a process, subject to a destructive growth strategy. If the prospects for profit become uncertain, as in the past decades, the capital goes hunting for other profitable investment opportunities, 'robbery' - public goods, natural goods, intellectual property, or hitherto collectively managed regions are incorporated into capitalist forms by use of violence. This is called 'privatization, globalization, or financing', or less soothingly, for example, 'takeover'.
According to Marx, profit is achieved on the one hand through the exploitation of labor, but on the other hand also by the appropriately questionable appropriation of seeming, miserable goods (accumulation by expropriation). And as in the time of Marx, most people today still need to find a 'buyer' for their workforce, and to make themselves as marketless as possible, at the risk of impoverishment and exclusion. In the present, therefore, not only are processes such as the rising social inequality or the spread of crisis-prone financialised capitalism us well explained with Marx, but also the increasing phenomena of an 'exhaustion' or a burnout which I would call with Marx 'alienation'.
As to the possible answers to this smoldering crises, one can learn from Marx that 'national' answers lead to a dead end. Of course, one can try to get rid of these dangers and build walls (in the minds or at the supposed borders). But since capital, goods and money (and, in many cases, labor too) are mobile on a global scale, the problems may be exacerbated in this way - and they also see xenophobia and exclusion. It is therefore still a matter of transforming the destructive tendencies of the capitalist mode of production either into socially and more environmentally compatible ways of dealing, or, if this does not succeed, at least to curb them, but without falling back into repressive and exclusive patterns of a central administration. To strive for this in international co-operation is a challenge that has grown even more since the time of Marx. Since the next year marks the 200th anniversary of Marx, I therefore expect a small revival. We will also organize events in Erfurt.

Claudia Bergmann is going to present a working paper on 'Messiah and Meal: Early Jewish and Christian Ideas of the Role of the Anointed One at the Meal in the World to Come'

My Habilitation „Endzeit als Mahl-Zeit“ investigates early Jewish texts that develop the idea of an abundant meal in the World to Come. Located at the intersection of Religious and Ritual Studies, it discusses the foods served at the utopian meal, the location imagined for the meal, the participants at the table and the hierarchies among them and attempts to develop a matrix, with which to understand this biblical and extrabiblical motif.