PhD training – Exploring resonant global relationships
Each PhD student is assigned a supervisor from one of the partner universities. Each PhD student forms a tandem with a colleague from the other institution, ideally from a complementary discipline. Through interaction with their tandem partner, participants gain insights into other subject areas and develop new interdisciplinary ideas.
Funding is available for work on a dissertation project, covering data collection, archival, field or library research, participation in conferences or workshops, and invitations to visiting scholars.
Theoretical framework
The international doctoral programme run by the Universities of Erfurt and Graz is dedicated to researching resonant global relationships through the interplay of classical studies, biblical studies and sociology. The central question is under what conditions and with what consequences global relationships are experienced as resonant, that is, as dialogical and responsive. Close cooperation across two complementary locations enables a comparison rich in source material, the development of new methods and high-quality doctoral training.
Resonant World Relations in Ritual Practices
Ritual practices – in antiquity mostly rooted in religious contexts – are increasingly becoming the focus of research. The research group investigates how resonant world relations arise, are reflected upon, or are disrupted in such rituals. By combining sociological and historical perspectives, both the cognitive and expressive dimensions of these practices come into focus.
The research examines ritual acts as socio-religious practices that generate and structure significant human relationships with the world – with other people, with objects, with nature, with the self, with the heavens, or with God or gods. The nature of these resonant world relations provides insights into cultural patterns of interpretation, social hierarchies and gender roles.
Research steps and objectives
In a first step, an inventory and typology of a wide variety of socio-religious practices and their patterns of world relations will be developed. Subsequently, the focus will be on analysing the interactions between resonant and non-resonant (‘silent’) world relations.
The format of an international doctoral college enables this research into the theory of resonant world relations to be conducted on a broad scale and with a wealth of material. In the field of classical studies, this creates new spaces for contextualising practices that establish relationships with objects, bodies, stories, spaces and the transcendent.