Prof. Dr. Stefan Grohé (Dekan, Philosophische Fakultät)

Prof. Dr. Günter Blamberger & Prof. Dr. Dietrich Boschung (Directors, Morphomata) - "Biographie und Porträt als Figurationen des Besonderen"

Introduction of the new Fellows

Opening Lecture by Prof. Dr. Hartmut Böhme (HU Berlin)

Hartmut Böhme: The ancient world between destruction, preservation, and transformation

Beginning from the thesis that it would be a nightmare to preserve everything and forget nothing, the question is developed of which activities (including negative ones) were available and reasonable for the posthumous heirs of antiquity. This question is especially urgent with respect to the sensitive media of language and the arts. Acts of preservation and transmission are for the most part out of balance with non-intentional contingencies of change in meanings, fragmentation, loss, or destruction.

The past vanishes and grows, weighs down and frees, and does so unpredictably. In relation to the “Ancient World” which is Europe’s exemplary past, we need a concept that no longer takes its cue from the notions of ‘heritage’ or Nachleben, or an unquestioning imperative to preserve, but from an unavoidable change in forms, designs, and semantics, which achieves the reference to the ancient world, but does so without limiting the space for present-day options. Examples of this will be presented, from the Early Modern Period and the period around 1800.