Having already been supported by previous external funding due to its original approach, this focus channels the research on the medieval and early modern periods at the FAU.
Associated with the faculty’s interdisciplinary center for European Medieval and Renaissance studies (IZEMIR) as well as the Central Institute “Anthropology of Religion(s)” (ZAR), research in this area is decidedly interdisciplinary in focus.
Thematically, the research emphasis is distinguished by its crossing of traditional periodical boundaries and its consideration of a marco-period viewed from the respective methods and angles of the associated disciplines.
Due to its investigation of “pre-modernity,” which in its diversity and heterogeneity also prefigures phenomena of so-called “post-modernity” (i.e. multi-ethnicity, multi-religiosity), the research focus is of great relevance to the current situation.
Particularly significant are questions concerning orders of knowledge, cultures of knowledge, and practices, which are analyzed from a transcultural and transregional angle, and that offer multiple possibilities for the contributions of other non-historical disciplines.
Moreover, the MA program “Medieval and Renaissance studies” (soon to be renamed “Middle Ages and Early Modernity”) promotes a tight interweaving of research and teaching that offers ideal support for young academics and stimulates scholarly synergy.