Study Group "Urban and Community Studies" (until 2012)

Project B4 Blessings for the Mighty: The Legitimacy and Legitimation of Political Rulership in Late Medieval and Modern City Processions 

The study group, designed to be interdisciplinary, epoch-spanning and transculturally comparative, deals with basic concepts and current case studies of urban and community studies. Here, particular attention is paid to historical, social and cultural anthropological as well as urban sociological and geographical research approaches.

In a first stage, the study group will discuss approaches of classical urban history research, starting with Max Weber’s ideal-type approach to the character of the occidental city and Fernand Braudel’s work about the meaning of the early modern city for the development of the economic system. In addition, the contributions of historical social science, of cultural historical research, which performed a turn to the thematisation of urban space in the past decade (spatial turn), and of postmodern, constructivist criticism of the science of history will be taken into consideration.

The study group aims to elaborate the religious and/or denominational character of cities and urban communities – perceived as cultural and social forms of living.