January 2019 was an eventful month at the SFB 1288. Emmanuel Lozerand (Paris), Marian Füssel (Göttingen), and Jörg Sonntag (Dresden) gave insights into their research at the SFB 1288 colloquium, Gregor Horstkemper (München) was invited by subproject INF to present the Fachinformationsdienst Geschichtswissenschaft ('Specialised Information Service for Historical Studies').

Emmanuel Lozerand was invited to the colloquium by Niko Rohé (subproject A03). Lozerand talked about comparing, especially about "Comparing to transform" using two examples drawing from Japanese history. The first example was about the haiku and the possibility to renew it through comparison. As a second example, Lozerand focused on the role of comparing for the depiction of different cultures (in this case the Jesuit depiction of Japanese people) and the reduction of their oddity for the related missionary goal.
One conclusion of Lozerand's during the junction of his examples was that the world should be given a new historic dimension in both cases to enable new perspectives.
The SFB audience especially liked a quote from Lozerand's first example, coming from Masaoka Shiki (1855): "There is nothing in the world that is more reasonable and more pleasant than comparing."

On 23 January Gregor Horstkemper and Marian Füssel payed the SFB a visit. In the afternoon, Gregor Horstkemper presented the Fachinformationsdienst Geschichtswissenschaft and gave very instructive insights into the possibilites of searching databases and into the scope of digital services for historians. Other topics were questions on open access publications and how historians as users can contribute to the development of portals like that.

In the evening, Marian Füssel talked about the historicization of practices using the example of glocalizing comparisons during the Seven Years' War. Füssel, among others, showed pictorial representations of that time which basically were medial instructions to compare. They present, for instance, Highlanders as more positive and Cossacks as more threatening. Confessional comparisons however were used as means to produce evidentness. Füssel described the repeatability of practices as the key to uphold them and their continued effects.
Practices of comparing could thereby be seen as the driving engine for glocalizing developments and processes which can be accelerated through wars and can mutually reinforce themselves.

On 30 January Jörg Sonntag (DFG-Network "Imitation") gave a talk at the SFB colloquium and stayed until the next day for an intense workshop discussion within a smaller framework on 31 January. Sonntag was invited by Lena Gumpert and Simon Siemianowski (subproject C02).
In his talk "Hybride Imitationen. Verheiligungstechniken in hochmittelalterlichen Klöstern" ('Hybrid imitations. Techniques of apotheosis in high medieval monasteries'), Sonntag, among others, introduced ten characteristics for imitations. Among these were temporally prior references, illusions, or the potential for sanctity. In the specific context of monastic everyday life there were examples like religious footwashing and the Last Supper, or the omnipresence of the holy cross. These were ultimately recitations of script-like procedures to get closer to God or Christ.
The ever underlying paradox of the imitating medieval human is, said Sonntag, that he depersonalizes more and more, becomes the imitated one through imitating which ultimately dissolves the imitation.

Photos: Rebecca Moltmann