Reconciliation

The present is characterized on the one hand by military, religious and economic conflicts and on the other hand by increasing private conflicts. At the same time, the desire for reconciliation is booming. But what does 'reconciliation' mean in different cultures at different times? The aim is to develop a theoretical concept of reconciliation that is suitable as a basis for empirical research. The projects are based on sociological, theological, philosophical, legal, political and educational approaches.

The 'Center for Reconciliation Studies', newly founded in 2022, brings together all activities related to the topic and is supported by Prof. Dr. em. Hans-Georg Soeffner as senior professor.

Projects of the profile area 'Reconciliation'

Reconciliation process in Bosnia in the international framework

Project leader
Prof. Dr. Ulrich Schlie

Staff
Philip Pauen (WHK)
Neele Windelen (SHK)

Information about the project

Further information will follow.

Teaching events

SoSe 2023 (Exkursion): Versöhnung als außenpolitische Aufgabe

Charis – Gift – Grace: Historical, Cultural and Social Dimensions of a Complex Concept (closed)

Project leader
Prof. Dr. Sabine Mainberger
Prof. Dr. Christian Moser

Information about the project
Currently, the highly political question of social cohesion is being raised time and again: What ties us together beyond economic and legal relations? For attempts to think of sociality without utilitarian or normativist reductions, the French sociologist and ethnologist Marcel Mauss’s theorem of the gift is - so our hypothesis - still productive. For in the gift, economic, political, religious, moral and aesthetic dimensions come together. It thus stands at odds with the currently predominating view of society as a complex composed of fully differentiated and autonomous systems. With recourse to the gift it is possible 1) to make visible hidden crossconnections between the autonomous realms, 2) to conceptualize alliances as well as agonisms, to condcut 3) historical studies and 4) analyses of contemporary issues. Charis, Gift and Grace form a dynamic, historically versatile constellation of terms.

Events

Workshop: Künste – Agonismus – Konvivialität: Analysen im Anschluss an Marcel Mauss (13.-15.10.2022)

Teaching events

Publications

Sabine Mainberger: Grazie‘, charis, Gabe. Winckelmann gelesen mit Marcel Mauss, in: Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte, 95.3 (2021), 255-312.
Sabine Mainberger: Grazia, Gabe und Salz. Tischszenen mit François Ier und Benvenuto Cellini, in: Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte (2022) 96.1:1–34.
Christian Moser: “I have sworn an oath, that I will have my bond”: Money, Law, and Pre-Legal Liability in Shakespeare and Kleist. In: Cultures of Currencies. Literature and the Symbolic Value of Money. Ed. Joan Ramon Resina. New York and London: Routledge, 2022. S. 165-178.
Sabine Mainberger: Kunst, Gabe, Macht – Zu zwei antiken Erzählungen, ersch. in Michael Hutter / Birger P. Priddat (Hg.): Geben, Nehmen, Teilen. Gabenwirtschaft im Horizont der Digitalisierung, Frankfurt . M./New York: Campus, 2023. S. 197-222.
Sabine Mainberger: Kunst, Macht, Agonismus. Auf der Suche nach einer Gabentheorie der Kunst bei Plinius dem Älteren, in: Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte, OA, 6. Nov. 2023 (Printversion 2024).

Enemy, Stranger, Neighbor, Friend: Religion and the Semantization of In-/Out-Groups (closed)

Project leader
Dr. Matthew Ryan Robinson

Staff
Miriam Dorlaß (SHK)

Julia Wesser (SHK)

Information about the project
Religious communities can affect social cohesion in powerful ways, but this influence is highly ambivalent. The project explores the concepts of the Enemy, Stranger, Neighbor, and Friend in religious peacemaking to observe how how the semantics of otherness are deployed and reinterpretated.

Events

Intercultural Training (04.10.-01.11.2021)

Publications

Reconciliation in interdisciplinary and intercultural perspective (closed)

Project leader
Prof. Dr. Clemens Albrecht

Staff
Christoph Nienhaus (WHK)

Information about the project
The aim of the project is to develop a theoretical concept of reconciliation that is suitable as a basis for empirical research. The starting point of the consideration is the understanding that practices of reconciliation are an indispensable component of define the concept of reconciliation and to outline it in an interdisciplinary way. To realise this, the project draws on sociological, theological, philosophical, legal, political and educational approaches.

Events

Presentation at the 4th Research Conference of the Faculty of Arts (04 Feb. 2022); Further information here.
Ceremonial opening of the Bonn Center for Reconciliation Research (13 Jun. 2022); Here you can watch the opening ceremony again.
Click here to listen to the podcast of the project.
Conference (13-14 Oct. 2022): 'Erinnerungspolitik im Zeichen von Ambiguitätstoleranz‘; Click here for the conference program.
Book presentation and audience discussion (07.12.2023): ‚Erinnerungspolitik im Zeichen von Ambiguitätstoleranz'. Further information here.

Teaching events

Publications

Straßenberger, Grit: Menschenbilder in Politischen Theorien, in: Handbuch Menschenbilder, hg. von Michael Zichy. 2022, S. 1-24 (zus. mit Malte Miram)
Straßenberger, Grit: Konfliktaustragung und Konfliktbegrenzung. Zum Verhältnis von Demokratie und Recht in agonalen Politiktheorien, in: Politik im Rechtsstaat, hg. von Benno Zabel und Christian Schmidt, Baden-Baden: Nomos 2021, 43-59.
Gardei, Esther/ Soeffner, Hans-Georg/ Schulz, Michael (Hrsg.): Versöhnung. Theorie und Empirie, V&R, Göttingen 2023.
Gardei, Esther/ Soeffner, Hans-Georg/ Zabel, Benno (Hrsg.): Vergangenheitskonstruktionen. Erinnerungspolitiken im Zeichen von Ambiguitätstoleranz, Wallstein 2023

Other activities

Click here for the project's podcast.

Subproject „Memory Politics under the sign of the tolerance for ambiguity“ (closed)

Israeli-German Dialogues: Provenance Research and Restitution Rules for Nazi-Confiscated Art in a Binational Perspective (closed)

Project leader
Prof. Dr. Christoph Zuschlag
Prof. Dr. Matthias Weller, Mag. rer. publ.

For Tel Aviv: Prof. Dr. Leora Bilsky, Tel Aviv University

Staff
Antonetta Stephany (WMA)
Joëlle Corinne Warmbrunn (SHK)Arthur Abs (SHK)

Information about the project
The restitution of Nazi looted art constitutes an unaccomplished desideratum of reconciliation occupying our as well as Israeli society. Meanwhile, this also affects Israeli museums, which increasingly aim at facing these challenges. To achieve this, research on the object histories (provenance research) is as vital as reaching agreements on just and fair solutions for the individual case at hand. For this purpose, certain rules have been developed. The process of formulating these rules, their application as well as their critical reception are supposed to be developed in dialogue form by Israeli and German students within a joint online lecture to be held by the faculties of law of the Hebrew University of Tel Aviv and the University of Bonn during the winter term 2021/22 as part of the respective general curricula. Corresponding formats of provenance research are expected to be devised subsequently.

Events