Decision-making in the Prose Novel of the 15th and 16th century

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Bruno Quast
• Subject Area: German Medieval Studies (Medieval German Literature)
• Term: since 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 445577090

Decision-Making is said to be a characteristic trait of modernity. The freedom of making decisions over one’s life, was even described as an imposition of modern society which sociologists thus identified as "society of decision-making" (Schimank). Any process of decision-making is tightly linked to the socially determined self-concept of the individual, since processes of decision-making reflect the scope of self-determination and -alienation of the individual. Having to decide and therefore having to cope with the contingency and implicit risk of decision-making constitutes an exceptional and risky social practice. As such, however, decision-making is not exclusively linked to modernity, but occurs already in premodern times. In particular, literature of the premodern era reflects upon and negotiates situations of decision-making.The project is aimed at systematically reconstructing and evaluating decision-making within the genre of the early modern prose novel. Thus, it will be re-evaluating the indices, research has claimed to mark the fundamental historical turn at the beginning of the 16th century (around 1500). Analyzing decision-making as a prominent form of social action opens up an innovative perspective of reconstructing the relationship between individual and society, self-determination and -alienation (be it provoked by God or by fate). Within the text material, experiences of decision-making are linked to biographical turning points as well as to crossroads of adventurous experiences. Here, pivotal questions are: Is decision-making expected of the characters, or are decisions regulated by transcendental forces? What topics are claimed to be the subject of human decision-making?Within the project, decision-making will be analyzed from three perspectives: In sub-project A, the relevance of religious knowledge on decision-making will be analyzed with regard to identity concepts of the premodern prose novel. Sub-project B aims at exploring narrative modes of depicting decision-making from the Middle Ages to Early Modern Times. The project shall be exploring whether the changes in depicting situations of decision-making are related to general transformations of interpreting the world and the self within this period of time. Sub-project C turns to the didactic potential of narrated decision-making when asking in how far narratives of decision-making are used to reflect upon ethical or religious norms.Methodologically, the project will be based on narratological paradigms as well as on theories of discourse history. Although the three sub-projects focus on separate topics within the scope of the general project, all investigations will be based on a common heuristic. In each project modes of decision-making will be differentiated with regard to the categories of internalization, collective negotiation, and externalization. All in all, the project opens up an innovative field of scholarly investigations into the early modern prose novel.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants