Research group "Society"
Research group "Society": Differentiation – Mobility – Conviviality
Research under the heading of “Society” examines European history from the perspective of human coexistence. It enquires into changes, continuities and ruptures in social ideas, practices and orders over a period of more than five hundred years, from the early modern period to the present. Historical variants of coexistence in different parts of Europe are analysed both comparatively and in terms of transfer between them. Particular attention is paid to European relations with other regions of the world, which have always had an impact on European conditions. The cultural-historical approach encompasses all dimensions of the coexistence of people and groups (social, political, legal, ecological-economic, cultural, etc.) and thus also ties in with the focus on “Religion”.
News from the research group
6–7 March 2025Menschen unterscheiden. Historische Perspektiven der Humandifferenzierung (Part 1)
Workshop of the SFB 1482 Human Differentiation on the topic "Distinguishing Humans. Historical Perspectives on Human Differentiation" organized by Gregor Feindt, Anne Friedrichs and Johannes Paulmann (IEG) at the IEG in Mainz.
Workshop programme
13 February 2025
Migration und Humandifferenzierung
Workshop of the Collaborative Research Center 1482 »Humandifferenzierung« at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz und the IEG, in collaboration with guests from the Collaborative Research Center 1604 »Produktion von Migration«, based at the University of Osnabrück.
Workshop programme
15 November 2024
Telling People Apart: Distinguishing, Categorizing and Representing Displaced Persons and Refugees between Europe and Asia in the Twentieth Century
Workshop at the University of Vienna organized by Anne Friedrichs (IEG/LMU Munich) and Kerstin von Lingen (Universität Wien).
More information
Programme
10–11 October 2024
Menschen unterscheiden. Historische Perspektiven der Humandifferenzierung (Part 1)
Workshop of the SFB 1482 Human Differentiation on the topic "Distinguishing Humans. Historical Perspectives on Human Differentiation" organized by Gregor Feindt, Anne Friedrichs and Johannes Paulmann (IEG) at the IEG in Mainz.
Website of the SFB 1482
Programme
12–13 September 2024
Connections and Entanglements: Trade, Mobility, and Cultural Transfer between the North and Baltic Seas and the Iberian Atlantic in the Early Modern Period
Workshop organized by Thomas Weller (IEG) and Manuel Fernández Chaves (Universidad de Sevilla) at the IEG in Mainz.
Programme
6–7 June 2024
Medicinal Plants, Empires and the Industrialization of Drug Production: A Symposium
Workshop at the IEG in Mainz organized by Matti Leprêtre (EHESS, Paris) and Bernhard Gißibl (IEG).
Programme
25–27 April 2024
Dark Green Religion in Europe: History and Impacts, Dangers and Prospects
International conference at the IEG in Mainz organized by Bernhard Gißibl (IEG), Kate Rigby (MESH, Universität zu Köln) and Bron Taylor (University of Florida).
Programme
14–17 March 2024
Polish Cultures of Nature: Plants, Politics, and Natural Histories in Poland from the Nineteenth Century to the Present
Panel by Jared N. Warren (IEG), at the Sechster Kongress Polenforschung, Dresden.
Congress programme
– For activities in the Leibniz Research Alliance "Value of the Past" see the Europe Forum.
Selected publications
Feindt, Gregor / Gissibl, Bernhard / Paulmann, Johannes (ed.): Cultural Sovereignty, (= European History Yearbook 21, 2020), Berlin: DeGruyter Oldenbourg, DOI.Feindt, Gregor: New Industrial Men in a Global World: Transfers, Mobility, and Individual Agency of Jewish Employees of the Baťa Shoe Company, 1938–1940, in: Simon Dubnow Institute Yearbook 18 (2019 [2022]), pp. 27–52, DOI.
Friedrichs, Anne: Charting the Boundaries of Societies in a Trans-European Perspective. The “Ruhr Poles” in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries, in: Annales HSS: English Edition (2024), pp. 1–37, DOI.
Friedrichs, Anne / Severin-Barboutie, Bettina: Mobilities, Categorization and Belonging: The Challenge of Reflexivity, in: Annales HSS: English Edition (2024), pp. 1–10, DOI.
Gißibl, Bernhard: Mannheim postkolonial. Versuch einer anderen Stadtgeschichte. Ubstadt-Weiher: Verlag Regionalkultur [in publication, expected spring 2025].
Gißibl, Bernhard / Hofmann, Andrea (ed.): Multiple Sacralities. Rethinking Sacralizations in European History. Goettingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2023, DOI.
Gißibl, Bernhard: Wilderness, Deep Evolution, Circle of Life: Sacralizing the Serengeti, in: Bernhard Gissibl / Andrea Hofmann (Hg.): Multiple Sacralities, Rethinking Sacralizations in European History. Goettingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2023, pp. 241–268, DOI.
Gißibl Bernhard / Hofmann, Andrea: Sacralizations as cultural practices – an introduction, in: Bernhard Gissibl, Andrea Hofmann (Hg.): Multiple Sacralities, Rethinking Sacralizations in European History. Goettingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2023, pp. 9–40, DOI.
Gißibl, Bernhard: Hermann von Wissmann, in: Neue Deutsche Biographie, Bd. 28, Berlin: Duncker & Humblot 2024, columns 544–546.
Klein, Denise / Vlachopoulou, Anna (ed.): Transottoman Biographies, 16th-20th Century, Goettingen: V&R unipress 2023, DOI.
Klein, Denise: Living in a City of Migrants: The Risale-i Garibe on Difference and Belonging in Early Modern Istanbul, in: Archivum Ottomanicum 40 (2023), pp. 87–116.
Klein, Denise: Eine Stadt mit vielen Gesichtern: Migration und Differenz in Istanbul, 1453–1800, in: Sarah Panter/ Johannes Paulmann / Thomas Weller (ed.): Mobilität und Differenzierung: Zur Konstruktion von Unterschieden und Zugehörigkeiten in der europäischen Neuzeit, Goettingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2023, pp. 143–182. DOI.
Klein, Denise: Review of Empire of Refugees: North Caucasian Muslims and the Late Ottoman State, von Vladimir Hamed-Troyansky (Stanford, 2024). Turkish Historical Review 15:2 (2024), pp. 1–7.
Kühnel, Florian: Childish Tributes. Diplomatic Gifts between Europe and the Ottoman Empire around 1600, in: Reinhard Eisendle / Suna Suner / Hans Ernst Weidinger (ed.): Culture and Diplomacy. Ambassadors as Cultural Actors in Ottoman-European Relations from the 16th to the 19th Century, Bd. 1, Vienna 2023, pp. 167–188 (Diplomatica 1 / Ottomania 11).
Kühnel, Florian: Diplomatie als kollektive Praxis. Botschaftssekretäre und diplomatischer Alltag im frühneuzeitlichen Istanbul, Goettingen: Wallstein Verlag 2024 (Frühneuzeit-Forschungen 29). DOI.
Panter, Sarah / Paulmann, Johannes / Weller, Thomas (ed.): Mobilität und Differenzierung. Zur Konstruktion von Unterschieden und Zugehörigkeiten in der europäischen Neuzeit, Goettingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2023, DOI.
Panter, Sarah: Zwischen Verlust und Aneignung von „Heimat”: Transatlantische Reflexionen deutscher Revolutionsflüchtlinge, in: The Germanic Review: Literature, Culture, Theory 96 (2021), no. 3, pp. 276–292, DOI.
Panter, Sarah: Processing the Revolutionary Past: The Transatlantic Marriage of Mathilde and Fritz Anneke, in: Sandra Dahlke / Nikolaus Katzer / Denis Sdvizhkov (ed.): Revolutionary Biographies in the 19th and 20th Century. Imperial – Inter/national – Decolonial, Goettingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2024, pp. 193–208, DOI.
Panter, Sarah: Auf der Flucht. Transatlantische Mobilität und Eigentum revolutionärer Familien nach 1848/49, in: Historische Anthropologie 32 (2024), 2 [article in special issue Hab und Gut, ed. by Simone Derix / Margareth Lanzinger], DOI.
Paulmann, Johannes: Globale Vorherrschaft und Fortschrittsglaube: Europa 1850-1914, Munich: C.H. Beck, 2019 (arabic translation Abu Dhabi: Kalima Verlag 2022; chinese translation Peking: Social Sciences Academic Press 2024).
Paulmann, Johannes: Zivilisierungsmissionen – Kunst und (Post-)Kolonialismus in Paris, 1931-2019, in: Lilian Haberer / Karina Nimmerfall (ed.): Movement Mouvement. Handlungsfelder des Ästhetischen und Politischen in der Kunst, Munich: edition metzel 2020/2022 [ersch. 2023], pp. 281–286.
Paulmann, Johannes: Geschichtswissenschaft und gesellschaftliche Differenzierung: Überlegungen zur historischen Erforschung von Differenzierungsprozessen, in: Dilek Dizdar / Stefan Hirschauer / Johannes Paulmann / Gabriele Schabacher (Hg.): Humandifferenzierung. Disziplinäre Perspektiven und empirische Sondierungen, Weilerswist: Velbrück Wissenschaft, 2021, pp. 35–75. (engl. u.t.T.: Researching the History of Social Differentiation and Human Categorization, in: European History Yearbook 22 (2021) [publ. 2022], DOI.
Warren, Jared N.: In the Shadows of the Commonwealth: Catholicism, Religious Tolerance, and Nineteenth-Century Polish Independence, in: East European Politics and Societies and Cultures, vol. 38, no. 2 2 (May 2024), pp. 553–575, DOI.
Warren, Jared N.: Cyprian Norwid and Slavic Race Theory, in: An Archeology of Modernity: Cyprian Norwid Revisited, Zeitschrift für Slavische Philologie, hrsg. von Eliza Kącka / Jared N. Warren / Christian Zehnder, vol. 78, no. 2 (2022), pp. 239–334, URL.
Weller, Thomas: Ungleiche Partner. Die spanische Monarchie und die Hansestädte, ca. 1570-1700 (Veröffentlichungen des Instituts für Europäische Geschichte 270), Goettingen 2023, DOI.
Weller, Thomas: Fließende Grenzen. Mobilität und Zugehörigkeiten »deutscher« Kaufleute im iberischen Atlantik, in: Sarah Panter / Johannes Paulmann / Thomas Weller (Hg.): Mobilität und Differenzierung. Zur Konstruktion von Unterschieden und Zugehörigkeiten in der europäischen Neuzeit, (VIEG, Beiheft 139), Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2023, pp. 109–142, DOI.
Wilckens, Malin S. / Kurzwelly, Jonatan: Calcified identities: Persisting essentialism in academic collections of human remains, in: Anthropological Theory 23 (2023) 1, pp. 100–122, DOI.
Wilckens, Malin S. / Kurzwelly, Jonatan: Wert und Verwendung menschlicher Überreste – Vergangene und gegenwärtige Perspektiven im interdisziplinären Dialog, in: Historische Anthropologie 30 (2022) 3, Totes Kapital, pp. 329–349, DOI.
Wilckens, Malin S. / Gärtner, Julian T.D. (Hg.): Racializing Humankind. Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Practices of ‘Race’ and Racism, Wien/Köln: Böhlau 2022.
Wirth, Christina: בבית בסקסוניה-אנהאלט. Zu Hause in Sachsen-Anhalt, Jüdinnen und Juden zwischen Verfolgung, Selbstbehauptung und Anerkennung, issue 7 of the series QuellenNAH, Landesarchiv Sachsen-Anhalt (ed.), Magdeburg 2022.
Wirth, Christina /Henkel, Riccarda: Die Familie Elbthal: Akteur:innen der Jüdischen Gemeinde Magdeburg im 19. Jahrhundert, in: Anton Hieke / Edith Schriefl (ed.): Kleine Hefte zur Landesgeschichte Sachsen-Anhalt, issue 1: Gute Orte – Jüdische Grabstätten in Sachsen-Anhalt, Halle (Saale) 2022, S. 50–60.
Wirth, Christina: Die Befreiung und Kategorisierung jüdischer Frauen in Kaunitz (Westfalen) ab 1945. Ein Fallbeispiel für Differenzierungsprozesse in der Nachkriegszeit, in: Westfalen/Lippe – historisch, 14 August 2024, DOI.
Wood, John C. (Hg.): Christian Modernities in Twentieth-Century Britain and Ireland. London: Routledge 2023.
Wood, John C.: ‚The Rightful Purpose of Things‘: The World Council of Churches and the Technological Society, 1937–1948, in: Bernhard Gißibl / Andrea Hofmann (Hg.): Rethinking the Sacred in Modern European History, Göttingen: Vandenhoek & Ruprecht 2023, pp. 191–212, DOI.
Wood, John C.: Crime, Media and Modernity in the Twentieth Century, in: Paul Lawrence (Hg.): A Global History of Crime and Punishment in the Modern Age, London: Bloomsbury 2023, pp. 165–185.
Research Aims
Research under the heading of “Society” examines European history from the perspective of human coexistence. It enquires into changes, continuities and ruptures in social ideas, practices and orders over a period of more than five hundred years, from the early modern period to the present. Historical variants of coexistence in different parts of Europe are analysed both comparatively and in terms of transfer between them. Particular attention is paid to European relations with other regions of the world, which have always had an impact on European conditions. The cultural-historical approach encompasses all dimensions of the coexistence of people and groups (social, political, legal, ecological-economic, cultural, etc.) and thus also ties in with the focus on “Religion”.
Societies are dynamic and interconnected: rather than being closed, homogeneous structures, they are subject to change over time. On the one hand, change stems from differentiation. This concerns the demarcation of large groups from one another and the affiliation of people to estates, denominations and religions, professions, genders, classes, nations or digital filter bubbles. However, this also includes everyday practices that people use to differentiate themselves and others. These include, for example, practices of the body as well as clothing, language and communication, deference and stigmatisation, forms of work and family relationships, all of which are historically determined. On the other hand, almost all societies are characterised by different forms of mobility. Social, cultural and spatial movements give rise to social change, and social change in turn triggers mobility, for example in the form of labour migration, flight and displacement, tourism, gain or loss of social status, the exchange of roles between official and private persons or the change of party affiliations.
These dynamic processes of mobility and differentiation presented societies with challenges by reinforcing social, cultural and political boundaries and conflicts, and by questioning patterns of order. However, they also facilitated new connections across internal and external social boundaries. Analytically, the various forms of social togetherness, antagonism and coexistence can be summarised as conviviality and examined historically. Following on from the research on mobility and differentiation carried out in the previous programme, the question of conviviality, which will be made the focus of research interest in the coming years, represents both a conceptual expansion and a shift in perspective. The question is not so much why certain societies functioned or failed because or in spite of differentiations and mobilities, but rather how European societies of the modern era managed these fundamental and inherent processes of transformation at different times and in different historical contexts. Historical research thus assumes an actor-centred perspective and seeks to understand the changeability, the conditions of possibility and the diversity of forms and practices of social coexistence – also with a view to the history of contemporary Europe.