Aims

In the Europe forum, the IEG combines reflection on overarching research perspectives with discussion of topical issues in academia and society. As a space for thought and communication that crosses institutional boundaries, the Europe forum facilitates networking among scholars working at the IEG and conceptualises the transfer of their research findings within the Institute, in the international academic community and in society at large.

The focus is on fundamental questions of historical research on Europe and how that research relates to society. In the Europe forum, the IEG interrogates the values and characteristics that are normatively inscribed in Europe and regularly universalised, as well as the European “special paths” (e.g. in the development of plurality and pluralism). This is associated with a de-essentialising perspective on “religion”, which poses the question of the significance of religion – as a construction and mobilisation – in different contexts of action afresh in each case rather than presupposing or excluding it. In this way, the IEG historicises both the connection between Europe and religion and the concept of a “Christian Europe”. A further fundamental question is the relationship between temporality and spatiality in the histor(iograph)ical construction of Europe, for example by examining the epochal designations relevant to the research foci – such as modernity, modernity or the Anthropocene – for their normative, teleological and Eurocentric connotations. One way to do so would be to compare intra- and non-European periodisations and spatial orders. Following on from this, the Europe forum can address the spatial-categorical delimitations and delimitations of Europe as they become visible, for example, in the Anthropocene debate and in the course of digitalisation.

In discussing these and other fundamental questions, the IEG reflects and formulates its historical and scholarly contribution to Europe’s position and role in the world in the Europa forum. In a diachronic comparison, the participants determine the proximity and distance between current social debates and the manifold historical problem constellations that are analysed in the research foci – with regard to social inequality and resilience, the image of humanity and the basis of values, or knowledge production and distribution in European societies. In so doing, the Europe forum connects the different approaches of the three research foci – society, religion and the environment – as well as the overarching methodological question of the digital transformation of historical research. At the same time, the Europe forum will host a comparative discussion of how the ideas of what constitutes “society”, “religion” and “environment” changed historically and how these fields were intertwined in the respective contexts of action – for example, how concepts of social orders or human-“environment” relationships interacted with religious categories.