Current Projects

Bücherregal der Forschungsbibliothek in Gotha

Digital Edition: The correspondence between Hereditary Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach and her mother, Empress Dowager Maria Fedorovna of Russia, 1818-1819

The project idea consists of the digital edition of the personal correspondence between Hereditary Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna (1786-1859) and her mother, Empress Dowager Maria Fedorovna. This correspondence, which is kept in the Weimar Main State Archives, provides unique insights into Weimar relations during Goethe's time and the international significance of the Weimar court after the reorganisation of Europe following the Congress of Vienna.

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La Belle Anglaise. The book collector Luise Dorothea of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg as a mediator of English culture (Dr Gabriele Ball)

The aim of the proposed research project is to systematically reconstruct and analyse the "Bibliotheca Anglicana" within the entire collection for the first time and to make its contextual relevance visible. Particular attention will be paid to the materiality of the "English" books. 

At the end of the funding period, the results will not only be presented in a monograph (printed), but the "Bibliotheca Anglicana" will also be prepared for the public (digitally, using the library reconstruction tool LibReTo). Both results offer valuable opportunities for follow-up projects in the early modern period.

The project, led by Gabriele Ball, is funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) for three years (1 November 2023-30 October 2026).

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The birth of rights universalism from reformed international law. The natural law of Heinrich and Samuel Cocceji and its controversial reception in the European Enlightenment (Dr Stefanie Ertz)

The aim of the project is to catalogue the natural law teachings of Heinrich Cocceji (1644-1719) and his son, editor and continuator Samuel (1679-1755).

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Network texts: Technologies of writing, reading and publishing in 17th and 18th century botany (Dr Bettina Dietz)

This project examines the intertwined practices of producing and publishing botanical knowledge that characterised the networked knowledge culture of early modern botany. The focus is on text-based practices, which have long received little attention in research due to a persistent fascination with scientific objects. Specific forms of production and circulation of botanical texts created a publication system that was used by the botanical community and at the same time constituted it.

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Ownership and Habit. On the political anthropology of property in Western modernity (Dr Dirk Schuck)

The FZG is involved in the Collaborative Research Centre/Transregio CRC TRR 294 "Structural Change of Property", which was established in 2021, with a subproject on "Property and Habit. On the Political Anthropology of Property in Western Modernity".

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To the completed projects