GRK 2792:  Autonomy of heteronomous texts in Antiquity and the Middle Ages

• Subject Area: Ancient Cultures ; History ; Literary Studies ; Philosophy ; Theology
• Term: since 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 459311663

Under the title “Autonomy of heteronomous texts in Antiquity and the Middle Ages” we propose a new approach to works from these epochs which consciously depend on other texts and are in this sense “heteronomous”. By selecting and actualizing they process their pre-texts on various levels – scientific, cultural, formal, aesthetic – to constitute a unique form of textual “autonomy”. Such texts have made a decisive contribution to the development of culture and science and have flourished particularly since Late Antiquity. This process, which involves philosophy and literature, jurisprudence and medicine as well as the Abrahamitic religions, shows numerous parallels to modern practices of cultural tradition and renewal, but also to simplifying reductions of complex issues (e.g. in teaching and the Internet). Amidst unsettling global crises it until today exerts significant influence on religious and secular traditions that offer orientation in a multipolar world. Also for this reason it is at present of high interest that a Research Training Group convey to doctoral students specific competences in dealing with such phenomena. In order to elicit the dialectic of autonomy and heteronomy in literature of Antiquity and the Middle Ages concerned with the transmission and continuation of particular pre-texts, we for the first time propose a set of methodological and heuristic instruments that can be applied interdisciplinarily. Building on the well-established interdisciplinary cooperation of scholars in Jena, the aim is to provide doctoral students with terminological and methodological instruments that transcend previous approaches, which were mostly limited to commentary literature. These phenomena, to which not only commentaries, paraphrases and synopses but also handbooks, lexica, chronicles, summaries, anthologies and retold novels belong, will be studied interdisciplinary across genre-specific, cultural and epochal borders with regard to their common heteronomical traits as well as to the specific autonomy of the particular texts studied. We therefore intend to investigate with respect to the pagan, Jewish and Christian cultures in Antiquity and the Middle Ages a broad spectrum of heteronomical phenomena such as scientific progress, the actualizing of content, didactic mediation in teaching and proclamation as well as literary forms and textual aesthetics. In order to focalize this research programme, four concrete research fields – commentarius, continuatio, collectio and renarratio – are defined in accordance with the historical literary phenomena. The dissertation topics of the doctoral candidates are situated within the framework of these fields in order to examine the studied works in the context of other texts which are related in form and content. Thus the ancient and medieval authors of heteronomous texts and their recipients will prove to be “(alleged) dwarfs on the shoulders of giants” who “see more and farther” than their predecessors.

• DFG Programme: Research Training Groups
• Applicant Institution: Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena
• Spokesperson: Professorin Dr. Katharina Bracht
• Participating Researchers: Professor Dr. Hannes Bezzel; Professorin Dr. Susanne Daub; Professor Dr. Achim Thomas Hack; Professor Dr. Jan Dirk Harke; Professorin Dr. Sophie Marshall; Professor Dr. Karl-Wilhelm Niebuhr; Professor Dr. Matthias Perkams; Professor Dr. Timo Stickler; Professor Dr. Rainer Thiel; Professor Dr. Meinolf Vielberg