Current Projects

Research Data Infracstructure for Historical Sources (Tinghui Duan, M.A.)

The HisQu project is dedicated to developing a digital research data infrastructure for historical sources. Its focus is on the methodological advancement of digital analysis processes, which are increasingly being used in the historical sciences and humanities. The aim is to establish tools and standards that provide digital support for the entire research process – from the preparation of sources to evaluation and documentation – and make it reproducible. The project is jointly supported by Friedrich Schiller University, the MEPHisto working group – Models, Explanations and Processes in the Historical Sciences (Prof. Dr. Clemens Beckstein, Apl. Prof. Dr Robert Gramsch-Stehfest), the Lower Saxony Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Germania Sacra (Prof. Dr Hedwig Röckelein), the German Historical Institute in Rome, Repertorium Germanicum (Prof. Dr Martin Baumeister) and the Gotha Research Centre of the University of Erfurt, FactGrid (Prof. Dr Martin Mulsow). The project is funded by the DFG.

About the project

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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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 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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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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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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