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DFG Research Unit 5138 „Spiritual Intermediality in the Early Modern Era“ (DFG Research Unit 5138 „Spiritual Intermediality in the Early Modern Era“)

Ausschnitt aus Johann Sadelers König David spielt Harfe mit Engeln die Tanzen und Musik machen, ca.1590-1600

Photo: CC0, Wikimedia Commons/MET

Welcome to the website of the DFG research unit 5138

The DFG research unit (FOR) 5138 investigates intermedial artifacts and phenomena of the Early Modern period. It aims to make a fundamental contribution to the history of religious media and piety in the pre-modern era.

The first funding phase spans 4 years (2022-2025) and includes financial support from the DFG amounting to approximately 4 million euros.

The research unit consists of six subprojects:

  • Subproject 1: Musica angelica et consociatio hominum cum angelis. Angelic music in ecclesiastical spaces
  • Subproject 2: Representations of love in the early modern period within the context of Baroque conceptions of symbolic art
  • Subproject 3: The constitution of media, intermediality, and media criticism in Italian, French, and English meditational literature from the 16th and 17th centuries
  • Subproject 4: Manifestations of spiritual intermediality in Protestant drama around 1700: Plays, operas, and oratorios
  • Subproject 5: Intermedial spheres of action in sacred performances: Rogation processions as intermedial practices in Southern German Catholicism
  • Subproject 7: The medial status of the body – the body as an image and images of the body: King Kāleb and other Ethiopian saints depicted in Portugal and Brazil in the 18th century