Tag Archives: City

Swearing day at the Weinhof in Ulm. Gouache by Jonas Arnold (um 1650)

“Sensory Communities”

By Prof. Dr. Philip Hahn

Full title: Sensory Communities: Perception, Order, and Community Building in the Early Modern Town, ca. 1480-1880

The timeframe of this book project is deliberately broad and proposes an over-long early modern period. Spatially, it is the opposite, as it offers a case study on Ulm, a middle-sized free imperial city (until 1802/03) on the river Danube. The goal of this study is to uncover long-term transformations and short-term changes in the meaning and function of sense perception in urban society over 400 years. While it is meant principally as a contribution to urban history, the book will also relate to research in the history of natural science and medicine, environmental history, the history of religiosity and confessionalization, and the cultural history of politics.

Project Website (Universität des Saarlandes)

Augsburg leaflet: copper engraving by Raphael Custos, around 1635, 17,5 x 25 cm.

Sensing Danger. Material Threats and Citizen Prevention in Early Modern Augsburg

By Dr. Brendan Röder (Contact: brendan.roeder@lmu.de)

The project examines the multiple ways in which early modern urban dwellers perceived and aimed to prevent material dangers. Concentrating on the three critical areas of infectious disease, contaminated food, and fire in the Southern German city of Augsburg, it highlights the active involvement of citizens in prevention practices. Far from being fatalistic or indifferent to collective threats, inhabitants creatively drew on their bodies and senses in food control as well as disease and fire prevention. At the same time, who could authoritatively “sense danger“ in the city and what it meant to be a good citizen in the face of threats was highly contested and underwent considerable transformation during the early modern period.

Personal Website (LMU München)