Benjamin Bunk (Max-Weber-Center) receives Feodor Lynen's research fellowship by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation

For the project "Education, Biography and Movement(s). Education processes in the landless movement and refuse collection initiatives in Brazil between personal reference and social conditions", Benjamin Bunk receives a Feodor Lynen research fellowship of 15 months by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.

The aim of the project is to further explore and to show the educational significance of social movements, following previous work. The project is part of the study of international movements and at the same time a contribution to the establishment of a new field in education science. The interdisciplinary approach of the project is fundamentally aimed at linking the theory of education and socialization theories by means of the methodological reconstruction of educational processes and biographies in movements. The project is initially located in a regional, Latin-American context. However, this also results from a post-colonial critique of the place and the tradition from which current knowledge production takes place - opening up the possibility of contrasting global with local phenomena and ways of thinking.

In essence, the research project examines the question of how subjects are formed in social movements. More precisely, how do self-relationships, world-understandings, and world-conditions transform and / or transform themselves into movements and to what extent does this play a role for the bio-graphic development? At the same time, it can be assumed that educational processes are different under conditions of change and that protest movements are therefore special socialization areas. Since, from a subject-centric perspective, personal relationship contrasted with movement varies and changes in the life-history as well as the social conditions for educational processes in movements differ. Research will focus on method-oriented case studies, related to ‘movement’, ‘movements’ and their regional embedding and a typology worked out. The main research target is the landless movement (Movimento dos Sem Terra, MST) as well as three local rubbish collector initiatives (Catadores de Papel, CdP) in Brazil.

As of June 2017, a research stay of 12 months in Brazil (host: Prof. Dr. Emil Sobottka) is planned, followed by up to three months in Finland (host: Prof. Dr. Teivo Teivainen). The project is integrated into the educational research network ‘Education and Social Movement’ and the Max Weber Center at the University of Erfurt and the interdisciplinary project ‘Local politicization of global norms’.

Marco Pasi presents a working paper on 'Nationalism, religious individualisation, and Western esotericism in modern Europe (1823-1939): an introduction'

This paper is the first draft of an introduction to the book I am currently working on, based on the research I am doing during my fellowship at the MWK. The book argues for the existence of a significant interplay between three distinct cultural and social phenomena in 19th and 20th -century Europe: nationalism, religious individualisation and Western esotericism. The examination and the interpretation of this interplay is based on the analysis of a number of case studies, taken from different periods and different countries. The present introduction has the purpose of introducing the main concepts and theoretical tools that the analysis will make use of. Due to space constraints, the present version does not discuss all the issues relevant for the project, but tackles only the most important ones. I will proceed first by introducing the three main concepts that feature as protagonists in this work, and I will then explore the way in which they can relate to each other. Finally, I will present the working hypothesis of the project and illustrate the way in which my work will proceed, i.e. through the analysis of a number of selected case studies. Due to space constraints, the present version does not discuss all the issues relevant for the project, but addresses only the most important ones.

Congratulation to Mikhail Khorkov who has given the Paper of the month of January!

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Mikhail Khorkov is giving a working paper on 'Cusa... 30 Nov 2016	215
Angelika Malinar is presenting a working paper on ... 14 Dec 2016	210
Bernhard Kleeberg gave a paper on 'Do executives t... 16 Nov 2016	204
Bernd-Christian Otto presented a working paper on ... 16 Nov 2016	166
Roberto Alciati presents a working paper on 'Ars A... 3 Nov 2016	112

Congrats also to the others - as we can see, the MWK blog is becoming more and more popular around the world. With over 7.000 page views last month, the blog is further growing in its outreach with a particular strong presence in the US:

Valentino Gasparini presented a working paper on ''

The paper is part of the larger project on 'Isiacus. Embodiment, experience and communication in everyday Isiac cultic practice'

Because of a sort of unconscious cultural debt for dogmatic Protestant models, scholarship has often fallen in the trap of arbitrarily applying to ancient societies some modern interpretative categories which were later proven to be inadequate or even mystifying. Thus recent research (led by John Scheid) has finally rejected concepts like “belief” and “orthodoxy”, moving to the much more fruitful ones of “practice” and “orthopraxy” and showing that Graeco-Roman religion was not based on what it is now conceptualised as faith or creed, but rather on the scrupolous (sometimes nitpicking) compliance with regulations for the correct carrying out of rituals, which entailed the strict observance of interdictions and, in case of infraction, the payment of sanctions. Because of a parallel distorted historiographic paradigm (again built on Jewish/Christian bookrevealed religious traditions and canonical Catholic law), the idea of a Greek and (in particular) a Roman religion strongly focussed on a meticulous respect of ritual prescriptions generated the search for an original Sakralrecht and a related Ritualtext, that is a juridical corpus of laws based on some ancient libri sacerdotum and regulating, item by item, the constellation of different aspects linked to the religious praxis. But, as underlined by Laura Gawlinski, “leges sacrae was a category created in the nineteenth century as part of an effort to organize and make accessible the inscribed documents deemed most useful to scholars of the history of religion”. We cannot deny that religious specialists were regularly involved in political affairs (advicing magistrates in the case of ritual concerns) and that their consultations might be actually registered both in the priestly commentarii (e.g. of the Fratres Arvales) and in the official magistratual reports stored in the public archives. But the transmission of the ritual knowledge was basically operated orally, from one individual to the other, from one generation to the following, and there is no actual evidence supporting the idea of the existence of such unified written collections of laws. In Greece, the huge number of decrees dealing with ritual norms led to the construction of the histographical category ambiguously called “sacred laws” (hieroi nomoi), which has been strongly questioned during the last dozen years. In fact, the Greeks never distinguished it “as a category of rules separate from other laws, nor did they ever gather sacred laws together in any recognizable collection. Leges Sacrae is a modern category with no exact equivalent in ancient Greece”. Despite oracles and myths might be collected into books, and Orphic texts on papyrus rolls could be recited during the Dionysiac initiations, these texts can not be considered tout court “sacred books”. Nor the Romans did possess similar texts describing in detail origin and features of religious regulations or even a systematised corpus of religious jurisprudence (ius sacrum or divinum). This is why, as underlined by Scheid, Augustus himself had to ask lawyers and antiquarians to write down treatises on cultic institutions in order to bring to completion his religious restoration. In spite of the ancient presence of books of Sibylline Oracles, Etruscan libri fatales and libri pontificales, there was no Latin liber sacer or sanctus, and the very sporadic hints at “sacred books” in archaic or early Republican Rome are just mentioned by Greek authors, namely Dionysius of Halicarnassus and Plutarch. The latter significantly recalls that the corpse of Numa was buried in a sarcophagus on the Ianiculum, as well as the sacred books which he had written out with his own hand and taught orally to the priests. In plain words, an institutionalised religious norm fixed on written texts simply did not exist in the Graeco-Roman world.

Karin Neutel presents a working paper on 'Constructions of the Past in Recent Debates on Male Circumcision: How Paul Makes Circumcision History '

Male circumcision is a debated issue in many countries today, creating substantial social and political tension. Such tension has a long history: already in Antiquity, Greeks, Romans, Jews and Christians clashed over male circumcision. These ancient controversies play a significant role in recent public discourse, where both advocates and opponents can build their arguments on particular interpretations of this religious past. The question of how participants in contemporary debates on male circumcision construct their arguments with reference to ancient circumcision controversies is central to this study. Answering this question will not only increase scholarly understanding of attitudes towards circumcision, but could also have a positive impact on the contemporary cultural dialogue on this divisive issue.
This article examines a number of references to the New Testament author Paul in recent German publications that discuss male circumcision. It offers an exploratory analysis, looking at the way in which these sources present Paul in relation to circumcision, and how they see his relevance for the present. Its goal is to develop an understanding of the competing constructions of the past that support contemporary view on circumcision, as well as on contemporary conceptions of Paul.
Since this is, for the most part, a first exploration of these sources, I would be interested to hear whether the analysis presented here is useful and which further questions could be asked. I would also welcome any contributions on its possible relevance, as well as comments about translation and interpretation.

Andrés Quero-Sánchez presents a paper on 'Meister Eckhart’s Rede von der armuot in the Netherlands: Ruusbroec’s Critique and Geert Grote’s Sermon on Poverty'

At the very beginning of his well-known interpretation of Meister Eckhart’s Sermon on Poverty in the first volume of Lectura Eckhardi, that is to say: of his interpretation of Eckhart’s German Sermon 52 according to the numeration by JOSEF QUINT, KURT FLASCH states: ‘This sermon is a beautiful one’. Although I myself do think that this text by Eckhart – which not only Valentin Weigel (d. 1588), Pelgrim Pullen (d. 1608), Jacob Boehme (d. 1624) and Angelus Silesius (d. 1677) but also Schelling (d. 1854) and even Nietzsche (d. 1900) knew and highly valued – is to be seen as one of the most important works in the history of German philosophy – or, maybe, Theology –, I do not think that FLASCH‘s assertion is a true one. Why not? I will answer this question in a moment, but let me first raise another question – the following one: Being, as it is, a particularly radical text, including some theses which are – or, at least, seem to be – especially unorthodox, how could it be that no sentence of this sermon was discussed in the context of Eckhart’s inquisition trial? For, as KURT RUH expressed , the inquisitors ‘could not have found a better text’ for their purposes. That is surely particularly right of the sentence that – to give you a well-known example – Nietzsche quotes in The Gay Science: ‘I pray God to liberate me from God’ (sô bite ich got, daz er mich quît mache gotes). For, as Eckhart in the continuation of the passage says, if God is rightly conceived, ‘I am then the cause of myself’ (sô bin ich mîn selbes sache). Some scholars, with EDMUND COLLEDGE and JACK C. MARLER leading the way, tried to find an explanation for this problem by stating that Eckhart had given that Sermon on Poverty in the last years of his life, as his inquisition trial was already ongoing: ‘The Sermon [on Poverty] was too late for it to be used against him’. However, I think that there is another, more natural explanation for that apparently incomprehensible fact. At the beginning of the text, Eckhart actually speaks not of a ‘Sermon’ but of a ‘rede’, that is, a ‘Speech’ or ‘Lecture’, by saying: ‘Now, I beg you to be so that you can understand dise rede [i.e. this Speech or Lecture]’ (Nû bite ich iuch, daz ir alsô sît, daz ir verstât dise rede). And at the end of the text, he says in a similar manner: ‘For as long as man has not become identical with truth, he will not understand dise rede [here again, this Speech or Lecture]’ (Wan alsô lange der mensche niht glîch enist dirre wârheit, sô lange ensol er dise rede niht verstân). Of course, one can understand the expression ‘rede’ that Eckhart is using here as meaning ‘that which I am saying in this sermon’, that is, as just meaning: ‘my words’: ‘I beg you’ thus ‘to be so that you can understand my words’. But I do not see any reason impeding from thinking that Eckhart is here rather describing the literary form he is using: this text is therefore not a ‘sermon’ but, as I said, a ‘speech’ or ‘lecture’, that is, a ‘discourse’, or an ‘address’. The technical term in Latin is ‘collatio’, meaning a sort of ‘talk’ that was not thought for a general public in the church or at the university, but to be delivered in private circles, in the case of this Speech on Poverty, or Rede von der armuot, surely to be delivered by Eckhart only – precisely because of the radicalism of the used formulations – in presence of his nearest disciples. We know some other Speeches, Discourses or Talks by Eckhart, namely his so-called Erfordian Reden, or – even – Talks on Instruction. JOSEF QUINT edited them as Eckhart’s Second Treatise, but instead they represent an anthology of ‘collationes’ that were – most probably – delivered and discussed in Eckhart’s convent in Erfurt, as the title in some extant manuscripts explicitly declares. This becomes particularly clear by comparing the beginning of the Talks on Instruction with that of the Book of the divine Consolation, which was undoubtedly published by Eckhart himself as a ‘Treatise’. The Talks on Instruction is surely not a work by Eckhart himself but rather an anthology of Eckhart‘s texts – of Eckhart’s collationes – published by some anonymous editor, most probably after Eckhart’s death. This is the reason why we do not find any sentence taken from that work among the articles discussed during Eckhart’s trial, neither in Cologne nor in Avignon. And this is also the explanation why Eckhart’s Speech on Poverty did not play any role in his trial: since it is not a Sermon, it had not yet been delivered by Eckhart at that time (ca. 1326–1329) in a public form or been published in book form, but it was only known to his nearest circle of disciples, who are responsible for the publication of this radical Speech, surely after the death of their master. Eckhart’s text on poverty is – maybe – beautiful, yet not a beautiful sermon.

Siddharth Sareen delivers a paper on 'Politics, procurement, bail-out and buy-in: Woes and ways for Rajasthan’s distribution sector'

What are the recent consequential developments and current issues in Rajasthan’s electricity distribution sector, which the state government has just bailed out of debt exceeding ten billion dollars? If political interference got it there despite sectoral unbundling in 2001, what measures are being instituted to safeguard against a repeat? As Rajasthan’s distribution companies turn to technology adoption, efficiency enhancement and loss reduction measures, this study offers an in-depth analysis of the sector’s stakeholders, capturing contrasting perspectives. Based on 30 expert interviews besides secondary research, it pries open the political economy of distribution in Rajasthan, spanning concerns of various consumer categories and providing insights into the roles played by a number of institutions, from the regulatory commission to the renewable energy nodal agency. The article bookmarks stakeholders’ expectations with regard to current developments on tariffs, renewable energy growth targets and compliance, the advent of competition and a franchisee model introducing private players in distribution, and demand-side efficiencies. It contributes an understanding of the current issues and concerns that characterise this sector at the state level. Prime among these are the continuation of an organisational culture that led to heavy indebtedness despite recurrent attempts to bolster efficiency, continuing political influence rather than the autonomous functioning of discoms, and an adverse configuration of incentives to ensure an adequate growth map for renewable energy despite high expectations from the state.