Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger, “Entscheiden als Kulturtechnik” / “Decision-Making as a Cultural Technique”
Thursday, 2 May 2024, 19:15 CET
Senatssaal of Humboldt University
Unter den Linden 6
10117 Berlin
GERMANY
With Lothar Müller
Sponsored by:
The Mosse Foundation
Institut für deutsche Literatur
Humboldt University
Mosse Lectures
Lecture Overview: Deciding is not a matter of course, it is not even probable. A look at the early modern period makes something visible through the contrast that seems so self-evident to us today that we hardly notice it anymore, namely the assumption that all actions are normally based on decisions. In contrast, the thesis of the lecture is that whether and to what extent a situation is framed, modeled, staged, perceived and interpreted as a decision-making situation is variable and culturally dependent. In other words, decision-making has a history. It is a cultural technique that has been shaped and practiced in different ways throughout history.
Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger: Historian, Professor of Early Modern History at the University of Münster until 2021; Rector of the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin since 2018; from 2015 to 2019, Stollberg-Rilinger headed the sub-project »Decisions by Lot in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Period« in the special research area »Cultures of Decision-Making« at the University of Münster; her research focuses on the cultural history of politics in the early modern period, in particular political metaphors and symbols, rituals and procedures, the history of ideas of the Enlightenment and the constitutional history of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation; her most recent publications include the biography »Maria Theresia. Die Kaiserin in ihrer Zeit« and the anthology »Tyrannen. Eine Geschichte von Caligula bis Putin«.
