Participating scholar:
Prof. Gert Melville
Gert Melville read History and German Studies in Munich. He was awarded his doctorate in 1971 and then worked as research assistant at the Historisches Seminar, University of Munich. A research sabbatical in Rome (1979/80) and the completion of his habilitation (1983) was followed by interim and guest professorships in Tübingen, Frankfurt/M., Passau, Münster and Paris. From 1991-94 he was Professor of Mediaeval History at the University of Münster, and up until 1996 project director in the Collaborative Research Project 231. Since 1994 he has held the chair for Mediaeval History at the TU Dresden, and since 1997 is spokesman for Collaborative Research Centre 537 'Institutionality and Historicity’, which he inaugurated in Dresden. In 2000 he likewise founded the Internationale Graduiertenkolleg 625 in Dresden, and since 2005 he is Director of the Research Centre for the Comparative History of Religious Orders at the Catholic University Eichstätt, where he is a permanent guest professor.
Major publications include:
Institutionen und Geschichte (1992); Die Bettelorden im Aufbau (1999), and Das Sichtbare und Unsichtbare der Macht (2005). He is editor-in-chief of the series Norm und Struktur and Vita regularis.
>> next Participating scholar:
Among the scholars who have
agreed to participate are:
>> Prof. Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger
Welcome
Welcome to the homepage of the conference "Ritual Dynamics and the Science of Ritual". The conference will take place from 29 September -
2 October in Heidelberg, one of the oldest University towns in Germany.
Aim of the conference
The Collaborative Research Centre "Ritual Dynamics" (SFB 619 "Ritualdynamik") was set up in 2002 as an interdisciplinary centre to research the dynamics of ritual. It is the world's largest research centre dedicated solely to investigating these issues, with over 90 scientists and researchers working in seventeen sub-projects. Our focus is on the (re)invention of rituals, transfer and change - which we see as the rule not the exception. Through questions such as: "Who invents rituals and why?" "When and why do rituals die?" "How variable are rituals and how do new media affect old rituals?" new avenues have been opened up, such as research into inter-cultural ritual transfer, ritual agency, and the connections between rituals and new media.
It is now time to develop collaborative models to research rituals at an international level. We thus invite scholars worldwide to come, discuss, and expand our results, and to explore new approaches such as ritual economics, ritual design, and scientific rituals.
Conference structure
To give focus to the enormous potential of this field, the conference will be structured around themed panels. At present twenty two panels are being organised. The diversity of topics will reflect the diversity of backgrounds of the participants - from Anthropology to Musicology, Assyriology to Mediaeval Studies, Medical Psychology to Indology - to name a few.
