GRK 564:  Space and Ritual. The Function, Meaning and use of Places of Sacred Intention

• Subject Area: Theology ; Ancient Cultures ; History ; Art History, Music, Theatre and Media Studies
• Term: from 2001 to 2004
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 272905

The human conception of the world takes shape in rooms. A room is theconsequence of orientation and for its part guides human thought,feeling and action. In the ritual use of rooms, the culture-shapinginterdependence of room and consciousness becomes self-referencing. As a paradigm, as it were, of the relationship of room and ritual, the sacred room is the crystallisation point of the research project, whereby this sacred room is to be understood primarily from the interdependence of places for a specific religious intention and the rites performed there.Among the perspectives of the course is research into the relationship'Room/Ritual' in a contemporary context of the present, as well as thequestion of to what extent the present use of holy rooms is determinedwithin the history of communities, and to what extent the ritual usecreates new additions in value and changes to existing rooms.Understood thus, sacred rooms prove to be outstanding indicators ofcultural identity which is why the course also takes account of thephilosophical, aesthetic, folkloric and religious-educational dealingswith the category room. Finally, through the necessarily transdisciplinary subject matter of the sacred room, the course is intended to help the rising generation of researchers to discover the interdisciplinary links of their own findings and to bring the same into the scholarly discourse.

• DFG Programme: Research Training Groups
• Applicant Institution: Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz
• Spokesperson: Professor Dr. Stephan Weyer-Menkhoff
• Participating Researchers: Professor Dr. Hansjakob Becker (†); Professor Dr. Axel Beer; Professor Dr. Anton Escher; Professor Dr. Jan Christian Gertz; Professor Dr. Detlev Kreikenbom; Privatdozentin Dr. Claudia Annette Meier; Professor Dr. Konrad Meisig; Professor Dr. Jürgen Oldenstein; Professor Dr. Urs Peschlow (†); Professor Dr. Günter Prinzing; Professor Dr. Hans Wissmann; Professor Dr. Wolfgang Zwickel