Author: urbrel
— Sara Keller (ORCID 0000-0002-2506-2887) Time and space are essential dimensions of the human existence, yet difficult to grasp and define. While science and technology aim at defining a universal time and space that can be measured physically (Euclidian space and astronomical calendar), artists, poets, religious actors and philosophers have…
UrbRel podcasts: Corinna Riva & Mara Albrecht
In her last podcast as our host, Corinna Riva (UCL), the 202/21 Distinguished Fellow at the Max Weber Centre, talks to our fellow Mara Albrecht (University of Erfurt) about that island and what to bring. Mara Albrecht is a postdoctoral researcher at Erfurt’s chair for Western Asian History. She specialises…
Projecting Urbanity: In/Exclusion of the Dead in Erfurt (City Walk 8)
— Martin Christ The dead were always closely tied to religion and urbanity. Members and fellows belonging to the KFG have undertaken a range of projects discussing death in cities, ranging from antiquity to the present and including cities, such as Rome, London, Munich and Córdoba. Core group member Martin…
Christmas and Christmas Markets
— Jörg Rüpke The basic theological idea of the Christian Christmas is the incarnation of God, the “birthday of the Lord”, as it has been called since the fourth century AD, natalis domini. What the Latin churches celebrate on 25 December, the Eastern churches associate with 6 January, Epiphany, the…
UrbRel podcasts: Corinna Riva & Harry Maier
In this week’s edition of our podcasts Corinna Riva (UCL), the 202/21 Distinguished Fellow at the Max Weber Centre and member of our UrbRel research group, talks to Harry Maier about his research and the books and music he’d take to that island out at sea. Harry Maier is professor…
Walking along Prince Anwar Shah Road, Kolkata
— Epsita Halder Image 1: A flag of Ashura procession on Prince Anwar Shah Road Prince Anwar Shah Road, stretched between Jadavpur Police Station to the east and Tipu Sultan Shahi Masjid to the west, where Anwar Shah Road meets Deshapran Shasmal Road, has a unique demography consisting of multiple…
Open-Air Preaching and a Muslim Festival: Religious Rituals, Violence, and Urban Space in mid-19th Century Belfast and early-20th Century Jerusalem
— Mara Albrecht Conflicts between different religious groups were a frequent occurrence in cities of the British Empire, particularly from the Victorian era to the interwar period. The imperial agents had a paternalist and orientalist perspective[1] on these episodes of communal violence and assessed them as uncivilized manifestations of religious…
Disability and the City. Deep Hope and Creativity in a Sacred Site in Amritsar
— Raminder Kaur Sacred sites have a special propensity to attract not just people of faith but also those with ailment and disabilities seeking a cure and/or better life. They draw those with deep hope, especially when recourse to other avenues of healing come with less conviction or even fail…
Disability and the City. Deep Hope and Creativity in a Sacred Site in Amritsar
— Raminder Kaur Sacred sites have a special propensity to attract not just people of faith but also those with ailments and disabilities seeking a cure and/or better life. They draw those with deep hope, especially when recourse to other avenues of healing come with less conviction or even fail…
Finally, a Long-Awaited Research Trip to France!
— Austin Collins Throughout most of my time as a doctoral student, I have been living and studying in the United Kingdom, where I am in a co-tutelle arrangement with Durham University. Most of this time has also unfortunately been spent under travel restrictions, which made it difficult to travel…
Citification and Its Contents – What I owe to Robert A. Orsi
Emiliano Rubens Urciuoli The content of this blog post corresponds to the first part of lecture I gave on February 10 2022 during an online seminar series on “Re-thinking Roman Religions” organized by the Institute of Classical Studies of the University of London. I am grateful to Kate Cooper and…
Urban and Religious Fabrics of Public Ludic Games: Late Antiquity and the Late Middle Age in Conversation
–Vanina Kopp & Richard Lim Vanina Kopp (University of Passau, Germany) Vanina Kopp is an historian and a medievalist specialising on the cultural history of the late medieval France. For the past few years, she has been working on literary games and poetic competitions at the French court through the…
Closing Comments of the Conference “Blurring Boundaries: Diffusing and Creating Urban Religion beyond Urban Space”
— Susanne Rau & Martin Fuchs From the 23rd to the 26th of November 2021 the research group Religion and Urbanity: Reciprocal Formations, welcomed international researchers at Ettersburg castle for the conference “Blurring Boundaries”. Organised by Jörg Rüpke and Emiliano R. Urciuoli, the conference aimed to investigate the diffusion of…
Closing Comments of the Conference “Blurring Boundaries: Diffusing and Creating Urban Religion beyond Urban Space”
— Susanne Rau & Martin Fuchs From the 23rd to the 26th of November 2021 the research group Religion and Urbanity: Reciprocal Formations, welcomed international researchers at Ettersburg castle for the conference “Blurring Boundaries”. Organised by Jörg Rüpke and Emiliano R. Urciuoli, the conference aimed to investigate the diffusion of…
Urban Exclusions (City Walk 6)
— Sara Keller Diversity is one of the distinctive features of urbanity as we define it in our research group (Rau and Rüpke 2020). The plural character of urban life acts as a stimulating force enabling large-scale endeavours and remarkable achievements. Prehistoric monumental architectural projects such as Göbekli Tepe and…
Urban and Rural Plague Prevention: Johann Georg Schiebel’s “Plague Pharmacy” (1680)
— Martin Christ It is not always easy to find “urbanity” in early modern sources. Many times, historians have to reconstruct what an author considered to be features of urbanity, by reading carefully and between the lines. This is especially the case because words, such as “urbanity” or “rurality” do…