rrm

Reading for Resilience: Meditation and the Book in Early Modern Europe

Prof. Dr. Marc Föcking, Dr. Rogier Gerrits, Facultät für Geisteswissenschaften, Institut für Romanistik (UHH)

Prof. Dr. Sabrina Corbellini, Faculty of Arts, chair History of Reading in Premodern Europe (UG)

Mindfulness and meditation are often advertised as exciting new techniques for countering stress and feelings of burn-out caused by modern life. Few people realize, however, that Europe has an important textual and practical heritage of religious meditation learning (lay) readers to turn inward, to take care of their soul and to be energised by contact with the divine, as a strategy of resilience to cope with the hardships and challenges of premodern life. In a shared effort researchers of the Facutlies of Humanities of the University of Groningen and University of Hamburg, will examine the practice of meditation in early modern society. By looking at traces of reading in meditation books, wills, inventories, as well as advice given in the actual texts, the project will investigate how communities of early modern readers practiced meditation. The results will be presented in two workshops and will be made publicly accessible in exhibitions in Groningen and Hamburg as well as in a podcast.