Gleanings from the GRK 1876 International Conference 2019 “Concepts of Humans and Nature between Specificity and Universality”

A blog post by Ulrike Steinert.

Three years after the first International Conference of the RTG, on 15-17 July 2019, we held our second International Conference at Mainz University, bringing together outstanding scholars from Europe, Israel, Turkey, Mexico, the USA and members of the RTG in order to exchange insights, viewpoints and approaches of their ongoing research into concepts of humans and nature.

Conference leaflet.

The conference was devoted to the central question of cross-cultural universals vs. culture-specifics in the domains of the body and cosmos, which were discussed in three conference panels. One of the leading questions we aimed to address was to which extent concrete and abstract concepts about the human body and the cosmos are based on elementary physically grounded experiences and actions. On the other hand, we aimed at looking into the roles that natural phenomena, human understanding of these phenomena and creative imagination play in the formation of concepts of the human body and nature.

Welcome and introduction by the Vice President for Research and Early Career Academics of the JGU Stefan Müller-Stach and the speaker of the RTG 1876 Tanja Pommerening. (Photo: Mari Yamasaki)

Group photo of the organizers and speakers. (Photo: Mari Yamasaki)

Zones, parts, and functions: The relationship between body experience and body concepts 

Sonja Speck (above) and Nadine Gräßler (under) introducing Panel 1. (Photo: Mari Yamasaki)

Panel 1 of the conference lead us through a rich bouquet of intriguing papers spanning from Ancient Egypt to Prehispanic Central America, from Rabbinic traditions to Medieval Frisian law texts. Although the presented topics and contexts were quite diverse, at least three themes of cross-cultural relevance emerged:

a) Body parts are often perceived through the functions they perform in daily life; and this link between parts and functions is used to express or develop more abstract concepts (such as notions of personal honour) and theories (e.g. about mental faculties and their localization), as was shown in the papers by Han Nijdam, Aleksandar Milenkovic and Shahrzad Irannejad. Simone Gerhards and Nadine Gräßler illustrated a related case study on the cross-culturally common metaphor Death is (like) Sleep, illustrating how experiences of bodily states (such as sleep) can shape more abstract concepts (such as death).

b) Body and natural environment are regularly seen as standing in a close relation of mutual signification. Yudit Greenberg’s paper illustrated the importance of images or metaphors drawn from the natural environment in order to express embodied experiences (as seen in poetic descriptions of erotic encounters from differing cultures). In a comparable vein, Reuven Kiperwasser showed how in Rabbinic discussions, notions of the body and nature/world are both linked to an abstract concept of “order” established through divine creation.

c) Rosemary Joyce and Rune Nyord discussed how visual images (especially anthropomorphic figurines) become imbued with personal identity and function as substitute bodies and “beings” in their own right rather than mere representations, through their physical characteristics and through the discursive practices of production and use into which these images are embedded.

Conceptualizing sky and heaven: Human interactions with meteorological and cosmic phenomena 

 

Katharina Zartner (above) and Sandra Hofert (under) introducing Panel 2. (Photo: Mari Yamasaki)

Although stemming from different disciplinary backgrounds (ancient Mesopotamia, Biblical, Jewish, Greco-Roman, Byzantine and Medieval European cultures were represented) and reflecting different viewpoints on premodern cosmologies, the papers presented in Panel 2 offered significant key observations on pre-modern concepts of the celestial realm:

a) Notions derived from daily life experiences and interactions with cultural objects and natural phenomena are regularly applied to conceptualise the heavenly realm, as was observed, for example, in the papers by Tom Davies, Daniel Graham and Feray Coskun.

b) Body and world as well as different domains of the cosmos are often seen as standing in a relationship of correspondence (microcosm – macrocosm) or complementarity, which was described by Marvin Schreiber’s paper on Mesopotamian cosmological models and their growing complexities.

c) The recurrence of attributing divine status to heavenly bodies shows that the categories of (living) persons and (inanimate) objects can be intertwined or blurred, as notions of agency are attributed to heavenly phenomena because of their perceived movement and impact on human life – an insight that could be gleaned from the comparative presentation by Laura Borghetti, Sandra Hofert, Mirna Kjorveziroska, Marie Charlotte von Lehsten and Katharina Zartner, but found its echo in other papers delivered in the panel.

The talks and lively discussions in Panel 2 generally underlined that concepts of the celestial realm (as part of culture-specific cosmologies) underwent quite far-reaching developments and diachronic changes in the pre-modern world due to advances in the natural sciences, inner-cultural debates and intercultural exchanges, and the impact of all these factors could be gleaned especially from the talks given by Edward Wright, Tom Davies and Daniel Graham. However, it is striking that at the same time scientific discourses did not entirely replace other (mythological, religious) discourses and ideas.

Investigating concepts of the dead body 

Rebekka Pabst (above) and Oxana Polozhentseva (under) introducing Panel 3. (Photo: Mari Yamasaki)

The presentations delivered in Panel 3 confirmed the cross-cultural variability in concepts of the dead body and their relations to varying cultural treatments of the corpse.

The papers pointed out how concepts of the corpse are linked in complex ways to broader notions concerning life, death, components of the human person (including body, soul(s) or spirit components) and their continuity or transformation in life and afterlife. Several aspects emerged from the presented papers:

a) Rebekka Pabst and Oxana Polozhentseva introduced the analytical differentiation between the “natural body” prone to natural decay processes and dissolution (which is something that humans as individuals and societies need to cope with, even by denying “natural death”, as Annette Kehnel’s talk implied), and the “artificial body”, an ideal, eternal body which is culturally produced through funerary rituals, practices of bodily preservation and representation.

b) A second important contrast, between “normal” and “abnormal” death or corpse, emerged from Fabian Neuwahl’s paper on the “dangerous corpses” of plague victims in ancient Rome, which are a source of pollution and personal agency, but also entail a loss of individual identity, due to the impossibility of a proper burial.

c) As Alondra Domínguez Ángeles and Adriana Gómez Aiza showed in their talk on nahualism in Mesoamerican cultures, the dead body can also serve as a symbol standing for the transformation of a person’s ego components, which temporarily leave the body to inhabit an alter-ego (animal) body through shamanistic ritual performances.

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This year’s International Conference has deeply broadened our knowledge and horizon with regard to understanding cross-cultural universals and culture-specifics in the realms of body and cosmological concepts. To a certain extent, such concepts reflect shared human dispositions and potentials as well as social needs, being based on fundamental characteristics of being human (corporeality, embodied ways of living and being in the world, pan-human aspects of cognition). This was underlined in particular by the speaker of the keynote lecture, renowned cognitive scientist Barbara Tversky, who brought to the fore one fundamental characteristic of human beings: “putting their mind into the world” – using the body to create objects and forms of representation in order to communicate and visualise ideas, experiences and knowledge of the world (ranging from gestures to maps, charts or numbers). At the same time, however, the evidence drawn from multiple historical and cultural contexts elucidated by the speakers has made us deeply aware that concepts of body and cosmos are always fundamentally shaped and mediated by culture, socio-historical settings and diachronic changes. 

Keynote speaker Barbara Tversky. (Photo: Sina Lehnig)

We thank all participants of the conference as well as organizers and helpers, all of whom contributed to making this event so successful, lively and enlightening. We are currently preparing a thematic volume uniting the multiple perspectives of the presentations, which we envisage to publish in 2021. 

Discussions and poster session. (Photo: Sina Lehnig)