G - Boundaries
G1 – Transferring Otium between East and West. Transformations of Asceticism and Monasticism
Prof. Dr. Dr. Thomas Böhm,
Late Antiquity sees the beginnings of a transfer of culture between East and West in the Middle East. It was against this background that this project investigated Muße, focusing on encounters between Western ideas of otium and contemplation, and Eastern concepts of asceticism and monasticism. The resulting transformation of these concepts shows in the novel Barlaam and Josaphat, reflecting the development of different, original traditions of monasticism and asceticism in the region. Staff: Dr. Andreas Kirchner Florian Ruf |
G2 – vita mixta. A Clerical Concept Transformed for Lay CultureProf. Dr. Henrike Manuwald
Quite similar to today’s debates, the late Middle Ages spurned a lively discourse on how to find a balance between an active social life and tranquil retreat. During this period, the clerical concept of a so-called vita mixta gains significance. Starting from here, the project analysed the early humanistic discussions about the relation between an active and a contemplative life (vita activa and vita contemplativa). Focusing on the German-language regions, our aim was to reconstruct the semantic fields of periods of action and contemplation, which might show similarities with concepts of otium.
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G3 - Decreeing Work, Regulating Leisure – and Otium?
Prof. Dr. Elisabeth Cheauré
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G4 - Leisure in Contemporary Indian LiteratureProf. Dr. Monika Fludernik
In this project, the theme of leisure was documented and analysed in Indian novels written in English and one of the north Indian regional languages in the period between 1990 and 2016. Novels like Pankaj Mishras The Romantics, Nayantara Sahgal’s A Time to be Happy, Sunetra Gupta’s A Sin of Colour and Anita Desai’s The Artist of Disappearance depict leisure in nostalgic and anti-colonial ways. They do this by arguing that there exists a genuinely Indian leisure which radically differs from the Western dichotomy of work and idleness and which correlates with moments of reflection, the appreciation of landscape and of art. Comparing English-language novels displaying this theme and comparing them with representations of leisure in novels in the regional languages elucidated whether the motif is linked to an indiginous Indian tradition or needs to be interpreted as an autostereotypical reinterpretation of a colonial heterostereotype.
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G5 - Otium and Illness – Leisure Time and Reorientation in Times of Resignation and LossProf. Dr. Dr. Jürgen Bengel,
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G6 - Learning Otium? Leisure, Creativity and Deceleration in the Context of Performance Enhancement and Self-OptimizationProf. Dr. Markus Tauschek
In modern societies shaped by discourses of optimisation, competition and the constant increase of efficiency temporal practices that are free of constraints appear as the objects of social negotiation. This negotiation process can be observed in courses in which participants are supposed to 'learn' and practice leisure in a reflexive and purposeful way. This project analysed such courses ethnographically and actor-centered and asked how Muße is discursively negotiated, performatively practiced and experienced in a bodily and sensuous fashion.
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