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 Repräsentationen sozialer Ordnungen im Wandel
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SFB 640 > Staff Members > Pohlig, Matthias


Matthias Pohlig

Büro: Hausvogteiplatz 5-7, Raum 207
Tel.: 030/2093-1947; Fax: 030/2093-2237
Email: matthias.pohlig@rz.hu-berlin.de

Subproject A3 "Religious and Secular Representations in Early Modern Europe"


Curriculum vitae

  • born December 23rd, 1973 in Westerstede / Niedersachsen
  • 1993-1999 student of history, German studies, and philosophy at Göttingen University, Strasbourg (France) and Berlin
  • 2000-2005 Ph.D. student at the Institut für Geschichtswissenschaften at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (Ph.D. dissertation: Zwischen Gelehrsamkeit und konfessioneller Identitätsstiftung: Lutherische Kirchen- und Universalgeschichtsschreibung 1546-1617  (forthcoming)
  • 2000 Research assistant at the Institut für Geschichtswissenschaften, research project: ‚Europäischer Gesellschaftsvergleich in der werdenden Neuzeit’ as a part of the DFG-research project ‚Gesellschaftsvergleich’
  • 2001/02 Research assistant (with Prof. H. Schilling)
  • since 6.7. 2004 Research fellow of the research project „Confessional of secular representations in Early Modern Europe“
  • 2006 Research assistant (with Prof. H. Schilling)
 

Research topics

  • reformation and confessionalization
  • history of historiography in Early modern Europe
  • apocalyptic thought in Early modern Europe

 

Publications

  • Konfesjonalizacja rzeczypospolitej szlacheckiej w XVII i XVIII wieku? (mit Anja Moritz / Hans-Joachim Müller), in: Kwartalnik Historyczny 58 (2001), 37-46
  • Konfessionskulturelle Deutungsmuster internationaler Konflikte um 1600 – Kreuzzug, Antichrist, Tausendjähriges Reich, in: Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte 93 (2002), 278-316
  • Frühneuzeitliche Naturwissenschaft und Konfessionalisierung, in: Tagungsband zur Tagung Reformierte Bildung und Erziehung, erscheint: ZHF-Beiheft Berlin 2005
  • Lutherische Apokalypsenkommentare als Kirchengeschichtsschreibung, erscheint in: Konfessionen und Kulturen, hg. v. Thomas Kaufmann/Kaspar von Greyerz (2005)
  • Luhmanns Mond. Ist Säkularisierung ein historischer Prozeß? In: Vorgänge. Zeitschrift für Bürgerrechte und Gesellschaftspolitik 173 (2006), S. 30-39.

Main Focus in the Subproject

The End of Apocalypse: On the Decline of Representations of the End of Time in the Process of Secularization

Research of the last decades has situated representations of apocalypticism, which have for a long time been interpreted as revolutionary or esoteric, within the mainstream of religious confessions and of Protestantism in particular. The idea of living at the end of time and to fight a more or less open apocalpytic struggle had a tremendous impact on different fields of discourses: certainly on theological debates, but also on political affairs, or on the early Scientific Revolution. But it seems that since about 1650, religious and learned concepts of the end of time lost their social and religious significance. The project outlined here tackles various questions:
1. Is it true that representations of apocalypticism were starting to lose their religious and social power around 1650?
2. If this is indeed the case: should it be constructed as a process of secularization of a Christian model of representation? Does apocalypticism vanish from every day life (for instance from politics) and is it transferred to a distinct and exclusively religious discourse?
3. What is the relationship between popular representations of the last times on the one hand, and learned, often technical exegesis of the Bible on the other?
4. Why does the expectation of imminent apocalyptic change disappear? Is this due to the decline in importance of religious arguments in political discourse in general and to the taming of religious war? Or can we speak of a devaluation of apocalypticism as a consequence of its inflationary rhetorical use?
5. What are the consequences of the decline of apocalyptic representations? Was it transformed into secular concepts of progress, or could it be accommodated into modern utopian literature that offered secular means of response?
 
In order to approach these issues, we first have to look at the ways in which the development and significance of apocalyptic representations in early modern Europe has been discussed by scholars so far. An analysis of primary sources of various kinds will then serve to elucidate reciprocal connections between elite and popular discourses.

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