Dissertations
- Conceptions of the beyond in John Milton's 'Paradise Lost'
The dissertation project investigates the semantics of the “beyond’ in John Milton’s verse epic Paradise Lost (1667). The central object of study is the literary conception, construction, and depiction of the space of the work’s action, which comprises all areas of this world and the next.
- Connections between the deconstruction of ancient spaces and post-ancient construction projects, using the example of the use of spolia in the construction and new construction of St. Peters Cathedral in Rome as a case study
Within this project Bernhard Fritsch explored the links between the deconstruction of ancient spaces and post-antiquity construction projects in the city of Rome. He examined the use of spolia – antique building elements (such as columns or marble blocks) re-used in newer monuments – in the construction and re-construction of St. Peter´s Basilica in Rome.
- Das Septizonium des Septimius Severus – Geschichte, Niederlegung, Transport und Wiederverwendung seiner Baumaterialien
The dissertation project “The dismantling of the Septizonium and the reuse of its construction materials” concentrated essentially on two starting points. First, the monument was grasped on the archaeological level in its parts – few of them extant, most of them lost – and as detailed and accurate a picture of the function and original shape of the Septizonium was traced. Second, the aim on the material level was to find those parts of the Septizonium that were reused as spolia in post-ancient times, to demonstrate this in detail, and to reveal their original function in the Septizonium.
- De-limitation and acquisition - The transformation and resemantization of ancient spaces in Heinrichs of Neustadt 'Apollonius von Tyrland'
The aim of the dissertation project was to analyse the interlacing of de-limitation and acquisition, of expansion and communicative and interactive consolidation in its mechanisms and spatial depictions. The resemantization and dynamisation that can be observed in this context is meant to shed new light on the mediaevalisation of ancient subject matters.
- Perception, imagination, and construction of ancient Greek spaces in eighteenth-century English travel writing
The project focused on reports by English travellers touring Greece in the eighteenth century. The aim of the study was twofold: to show how travel gained in importance and became a means of accumulating knowledge about ancient Greek spaces; and to discuss the notion of Greece espoused in the travel reports.
- Vision and Script. The Revelation of Afterworld Spaces in Texts from Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages
In the well-known context of pagan and Jewish/early Christian ideas, Christian afterworld spaces form in the tension between patristic conceptions and visionary literary imaginings. The Apocalypse of Paul, condemned by St. Augustine, took on great significance in post-ancient times. The project based on the hypothesis that the imagining of distinct afterworld spaces is especially fertile in stabilizing and popularizing the semantics of the Christian afterworld.
- camminando vedrete. Paths through ancient Rome in the travel literature from the 7th to the 16th century
Lisa Roemer’s project focuses on the structural organization of Rome’s urban space in the travel literature from the 7th to the 16th century
Research Projects
- Moving Beyond: Towards an Early Modern Aesthetics of the Other World
Moving Beyond explored the aesthetics underlying Spenser’s Faerie Queene as well as other texts, from the Renaissance to contemporary literature. It focused on the transformations ancient discourses and modes of thinking about transcendence and the Other World undergo in their later contexts. Enquiring into, and seeking to describe the devices used in these Early Modern and Modern renderings of ancient topologies, the project aimed at showing the extent to which literary fictions not only document and mirror (“represent’) earlier discourses on space, turning them into formative agencies, but in fact actively reflect, reshape and rework them in a manner that may help to discover and thematize aspects hitherto unperceived.
- Spoliierung und Transposition. Kategorien und Methoden einer objektorientierten Archäologie antiker und antikisierender Räume und Raumvorstellungen
Das Projekt „Spoliierung und Transposition. Kategorien und Methoden einer objektorientierten Archäologie antiker und antikisierender Räume und Raumvorstellungen“ unternahm den Versuch, Perspektiven einer an den Kategorien des „spatial turn“ orientierten Erweiterung der Forschungsansätze der bisherigen Spolienforschung zu sondieren.