Solicitous Life

Spokesperson: Stefan Schreiber

One of the most formative challenges in the present and the past is the preservation and appropriate shaping of life. Life has always been risky and vulnerable. It is constantly exposed to hazards, restrictions, injuries and uncertainties. These range from the risks of birth, growing up, work, illness, violence and ageing to the risk of dying. At the same time, life is fragile not only in its biological, psychological and corporeal dimensions. Hazards also occur at a social, cultural, imagined and political level.

TA1 brings together archaeological, cultural studies, social science and medical approaches. The projects focus on solicitude for fragile lives. ‘Solicitude’ is understood as a broad term for the affirmative ways of dealing with life that are meant to protect, nurture and secure it. Solicitude can mean both concern for oneself and for others. Solicitous practices frames life, often begin before birth and do not necessarily end with death. It is precisely the concern for the deceased and the associated notions of afterlife, transcendence and transformation that represent coping and conceptualization practices. At the same time, solicitude not only confronts challenges of life’s fragility, but in turn creates challenges, be it through limited resources, ethical issues or practical constraints that can produce new precarious forms of living. The aim of the TA 1 is to examine the commonalities and differences between practices and strategies of worrying and caring. Can temporal and cultural particularities be identified and how are they characterized? Which of life’s risks are given special solicitude and how is care organized and carried out? Are there similarities in care practices for different risks of life?

After the scope of the approach was tested and its content further developed in the first funding phase based on a selection of a few aspects (resilience, illness, death), the second phase will focus on the bundling of existing and new projects. To this end, external projects have already been integrated or newly developed, which significantly expand the spectrum of challenges. In addition, a third-party funding application was submitted for a Leibniz Junior Research Group Becoming Old.

Projects

T1.1	Archaeology of Death Revisited	Dr. Kerstin P. Hofmann
T1.2	Breaking with tradition and (processes of) standardization. Strategies of crisis management on Lipari	Dr. Anne Sieverling
T1.3	Metamorphoses of subject: transcorporality in Iron Age archaeology	Dr. Stefan Schreiber
T1.4	Concepts and practices of ideal dying in Byzantium (4th-12th c.)	Sibel Ousta M.A.
T1.5	Memoria in the Byzantine World, ca. 500-1500	Dr. Zachary Chitwood
T1.6	Resilience factors in diachronic and intercultural perspective - What makes people resilient?	Prof. Dr. Alexandra W. Busch, Prof. Dr. Klaus Lieb, Prof. Dr. Rolf van Dick, Prof. Dr. Heide Frielinghaus, Prof. Dr. Sabine Gaudzinski-Windheuser, Prof. Dr. Detlef Gronenborn, Dr. Kerstin P. Hofmann, Prof. Dr. Roland Imhoff, Prof. Dr. Fleur Kemmers, Prof. Dr. Franziska Lang, Nataliia Chub, Carin Molenaar, Dr. Louise Rohkohl, Dr. Stefan Schreiber, Manpreet Blessin M.Sc., Luise Erfurth M.A., Sophie Lehmann
T1.7	Stress Management and Resilience	Dr. Klaus Lieb, Prof. Dr. Rolf van Dick, Prof. Dr. Roland Imhoff
T1.8	Solicitious life in mining using the example of Hallstatt	Dr. Kerstin Kowarik, Dr. Hans Reschreiter, Dr. Kerstin P. Hofmann, Miriam Zeug
T1.9	Itinerary of the Human Body	Dr. Alexander Gramsch
T1.10	Concepts of Care in Ancient Egyptian Funerary Culture	Dr. Monika Zöller-Engelhardt
T1.11	Dealing with the Dead Body: Burial Forms and Death Ceremonies in Pre-Islamic Persia	Maral Schumann M.A.