At the beginning of July 2019, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) accepted the continuation of financial support for the interdisciplinary Trier Research Group “Resilience. Phases of Societal Upheaval in Dialogue between Medieval Studies and Sociology” with a funding amount of two million euros.
The Research Group “Resilience” aims to develop and refine a concept of resilience in interdisciplinary dialogue between historical sciences and sociology. In particular, it is interested in the analysis of non-linear and multi-level socio-historical processes, which are characterised by a close connection between phenomena of continuity and discontinuity, as it is for example postulated for historical processes of the 13th-17th century.

In the second funding period, Prof. Dr. Martin Endreß, Professor of Sociology at the University of Trier, will be the Research Group’s spokesperson.

Six Projects

The research group consists of six projects – three historical, one jurisprudential and two sociological projects: 

• „Project 1 “Ashkenazi Jewry in the later Middle Ages. Potentials of Regional Networks towards Coping, Adaptation, and Transformation” (Prof. Dr. Lukas Clemens/Dr. Christoph Cluse)
• Project 2 “Resilience in Southern Italy under the Early Angevin Rulers (1266–1309)” (Prof. Dr. Lukas Clemens)
• Project 3 “Theory of Resilience” (Prof. Dr. Martin Endreß/Dr. Benjamin Rampp)
• Project 4 “Resilience Processes in the Face of Disruptive Phenomena. On the Societal Perception of Security Policies and Terrorist Threats” (Prof. Dr. Martin Endreß)
• Project 5 “Legal Transplants and Resilience. Lay Courts in 15th and 16th Century Germany” (Prof. Dr. Thomas Rüfner)
• Project 6 “Criminal justice in Western Territories of the Old Reich (15th–17th c.). Resilience Processes and the persecution of witchcraft and fornication” (PD Dr. Rita Voltmer)