The project “Johann Friedrich Blumenbach –Online” (www.blumenbach-online.de) aims at making the rise of German science within the European context visible, and at supplying a missing part in accessible primary source material on the cultural history of the time: the publications of Johann Friedrich Blumenbach. This is particularly significant with regard to an essential aspect of this period: the…
The “Neue Johannes Brahms Gesamtausgabe” brings forward Johannes Brahms’ compositional oeuvre in a historical-critical edition. Included are alternative versions, that remained unpublished by the composer, as well as adaptations by the composer of his own and external works. The goal of the edition is the reproduction of authentic texts, which are relieved from typing-, copying, and engraving…
Subject of the research project is the complete critical edition of the two-part treatise on the psychical pneuma written by the Byzantine physician and scholar John Zacharias (about 1275–1328) with a German translation and its contextualization in medical and intellectual history as well as the history of its reception. This work is of central importance especially for the history of psychology,…
Karl Jaspers (1883-1969) counts among the most significant 20th century philosophers of the German language. Having earned a doctorate in medicine and a second degree (habilitation) in psychology, he held a professorial chair of philosophy at the University of Heidelberg until his dismissal by the National Socialist regime in 1937. In 1948, Jaspers followed a call to a chair at the University of…
"Klöster im Hochmittelalter" combines basic research with new perspectives from cultural studies. The project analyses the monastic world of the Middle Ages as a pioneer of modernity.
Between the 11th and 13th century, monasteries and religious communities played a major role in shaping ideas of community and individualization in Medieval Europe. With their convents, orders and personnel they…
The “Kritische Ausgabe der Werke von Richard Strauss”, financed by the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities, has been conducted since 2011 under the direction of Prof. Dr. Hartmut Schick at the Ludwig Maximilians University (LMU) in Munich. Cooperation partners are the Richard Strauss Institute and the Richard Strauss Archive in Garmisch-Partenkirchen as well as the LMU’s Humanities IT…
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716) is said to be the last polymath. This is reflected by his diverse and mostly unpublished work. Until today, there is no complete edition which forced researchers to rely on deficient partial editions from the 19th century. The project aims at a complete edition of G. W. Leibniz’ writings and of his letters. The handwritten literary remains are to a large…
Printed eulogies or funeral sermons dating back to the two centuries between 1550 and 1750, gained huge significance regarding the exploration of Early Modern history next to its initial form as funeral sermons of the Protestant upper- and middleclass. The eulogies contain more or less extensive biographies and therefore constitute one of the most meaningful types of historical sources…
The Leipzig edition of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy’s works is intended to make all accessible compositions, letters and writings as well as all other documents of his artistic work available to the public in a scientifically appropriate form. As a historical-critical edition, it aims to serve research and musical practice in equal measure. The issue is published in 13 series. Approximately 80…
The “Neue Schubert-Ausgabe” is a scholarly critical edition of all musical works of Franz Schubert (1797-1828). Its 84 volumes are classified in eight series according to groups of works and include a catalogue of works, documents concerning the biography, and catalogues of sources. Each volume lists the most important sources and interpretations, and is completed by a separate critical report.…
The Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences started with a complete edition of the writings of Immanuel Kant in 1894, which is published in the sections “work”, “correspondence”, “handwritten literary remains” and “lectures” since 1900. The project will complete the edition by reediting or revising the sections “work” and “correspondence”, by filling up essential lacunae and by correcting plenty of…
Niklas Luhmann (1927-1998) is, apart from Max Weber, the most important German sociologist of the 20th century. His social theory and theory of society, continuously developed over a period of 30 years, is internationally outstanding. The extensive body of Luhmann’s literary estate, which the University of Bielefeld was able to acquire in 2010, sheds light on the author and the edifice of his…
Texts from the New Testament are preserved in their Greek original language in approx. 5500 manuscripts. It can be assumed that actually no copy is identical with another. Thus, the most important task of the text research of the New Testament is the reconstruction of the text form, which was the starting point for the transmission.
So far, the science had to use “Große Ausgaben” (big editions)…
The aim of the internationally geared project is the critical edition of exemplary works of the European music theatre from Baroque to Modernism. Thus, for the first time an academy-project exclusively addresses the music theatre and its diverse manifestations. Published are the works from the French, Italian, German, Scandinavian, and Slavic music theatre.
Orlando di Lasso (1530/1532-1594) was the most important composer of the 16th century. His oeuvre comprises more than 1300 compositions, about 480 prints from the years between 1555 and 1687 confirm his popularity and the unbroken performance tradition long after his death. He worked at the court of the Wittelsbach dukes Albrecht V. and Wilhelm V. (from 1557 as tenor and from 1563 until his death…
The Arthurian novel 'Parzival' by Wolfram von Eschenbach is one of the most important poems of courtly literature around 1200. 1833's basic edition by Karl Lachmann, at the time an editorial masterpiece, can no longer meet current text-critical requirements, as it only takes into account a fraction of the sources known today and does not sufficiently document the variance of the medieval text. In…
The name of Dionysius the Areopagite refers to the Athenian, who according to Acts 17:34 was converted by St. Paul’s speech on the Areopagus and then followed him. The name was adopted by a prolific unknown author around 500 A.D., with a vast number of writings based on the tremendous influence of his synthesizing of neo-platonic philosophy and Christian theology. The manuscript tradition is a…
“It is only on the step, in the gateway, the entrance, the vestibule, the space between the outside and the inner chamber, between the sacred and the common, that we may ordinarily tarry with our friends.”
With these words Goethe paraphrases the title of his journal “Propylaea”, which he edited from 1798 to 1800. The title is a programmatic statement: the journal is meant to be a place of…
Until the 17th century, the astronomical and astrological works of Claudius Ptolemaeus (2nd century CE) were central source texts for the scientific understanding of the world of Arabic-Islamic and Latin-Christian cultures. The project studies the Arabic and Latin versions of Ptolemy’s major works, the Almagest and the Tetrabiblos, the minor works and pseudepigrapha, as well as the extensive…
The research project “Hebräisches und aramäisches Lexikon zu den Texten vom Toten Meer - Qumran-Lexikon” is one of the most important manuscript finds of the 20th century. Between 1947 and 1956 remains of about 1000 scrolls were discovered in caves near the ruined settlement of Chirbet Qumran on the western shore of the Dead Sea, mainly in Hebrew and Aramaic languages. The manuscripts date from…