GRK 1047:  Generational Awareness and Generational Conflicts in Antiquity and the Middle Ages

• Subject Area: Ancient Cultures ; History
• Term: from 2004 to 2013
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 375234

The Research Training Group benefits from a specific approach to the culture and mentality of Antiquity and the Middle Ages which has been applied very successfully in historical social sciences before. Starting from the observation that the collective experience of generation was a specific form of shaping the self and its perception in ancient and medieval societies and cultures, the research project aims at describing and analysing pre-modern concepts of generations (pertaining to adolescents, male and female adults, mothers and daughters, fathers and sons, aged people) in various historical, political, regional and local contexts.
The individual projects will ask in what manner specific generational peculiarities and conflict constellations are represented and reflected in literary texts. Using Reinhart Koselleck’s broad concept of generation as "a space of common experience", issues like differences in age, biological-anthropological life cycles and the changing "inner situations" (W. Flitner) of people, i.e. the experience of and the specific reactions to critical and formative stages of their lives in representations of literature, art, philosophy, politics and theology will be discussed.

• DFG Programme: Research Training Groups
• Applicant Institution: Otto-Friedrich-Universität Bamberg
• Spokesperson: Professor Dr. Hartwin Brandt
• Participating Researchers: Professorin Dr. Ingrid Bennewitz; Professor Dr. Peter Bruns; Professor Dr. Klaus van Eickels; Professorin Dr. Sabine Föllinger; Professor Dr. Christoph Houswitschka (†); Professor Dr. Mark Häberlein; Professorin Dr. Dina De Rentiis