You are here: Home Subprojects & Working … Second funding period … G - Boundaries

G - Boundaries

sfblogo_final_blau.gif

G1 – Transferring Otium between East and West. Transformations of Asceticism and Monasticism

Prof. Dr. Dr. Thomas Böhm
JProf. Dr. Thomas Jürgasch

  

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 Culture

Prof. 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.

 

Staff:
Dr. Christian Schmidt

 

G3 - Decreeing Work, Regulating Leisure – and Otium?
Marxism and dosug in Soviet Culture

Prof. Dr. Elisabeth Cheauré

 

This project looked at the concept of Muße in Soviet society within the context of Marxist theories about work and leisure. This project was divided into several parts which are closely linked to each other: a) the concept of Muße in the writings of Marx and other Marxist thinkers; b) Muße and its changing semantic field in the Soviet Union and in the works of Soviet ideologists, c) didactic mediation of the ‚new’ Soviet concept of Muße in Soviet children’s literature; and d) literary discourses of Muße in different developmental phases of Soviet culture.


Staff:
Dr. Jochen Gimmel
Dr. Konstantin Rapp

 

G4 - Leisure in Contemporary Indian Literature

Prof. 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.


Staff:
Melina Munz
Farha Noor

 

G5 - Otium and Illness – Leisure Time and Reorientation in Times of Resignation and Loss

Prof. Dr. Dr. Jürgen Bengel,
Prof. Dr. Gabriele Lucius-Hoene


How do patients cope with the newly-created free time which is often a result of illness and how can this time contribute to concepts of coping and Muße (otiose Leisure)? This study used data from the “Krankheitserfahrungen.de” project (DIPExGermany), which includes over 300 in-depth interviews with patients with chronic diseases. Applying qualitative research methods like Grounded Theory, Conversation Analysis and Narrative Analysis, concepts of leisure and non-leisure time were identified and analysed; the associated ambivalence and social implications were considered as well.


Staff:
Lisa Müller

 

G6 - Learning Otium? Leisure, Creativity and Deceleration in the Context of Performance Enhancement and Self-Optimization

Prof. 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.


Staff:
Inga Wilke