Meister Eckhart Research Centre

Meister Eckhart

The Meister Eckhart Research Centre at the Max Weber Centre for Advanced Cultural and Social Studies focusses on the writings, the reception and the impact of Meister Eckhart, especially those with references to Thuringia (i.e. the writings which presumably were composed in Thuringia, the Dominican Convent in Erfurt, the Beguin movement, etc.), the relations between Erfurt and the University of Paris at the end of the 13th and the beginning of the 14th centuries, and the literary reception of Eckhart, both contemporary and modern, including his inter-religious dimensions.

In collaboration with research centres on Meister Eckhart at universities including: Augsburg, Freiburg, Eichstätt, Lecce, King’s College London, the Angelicum in Rome, and Metz-Strasbourg.

In association with: DFG, KFG „Religiöse Individualisierung in historischer Perspektive“ of the Max Weber Kolleg, Arbeitskreis Religiöse Frauenforschung im Mittelalter (Sabine Schmolinski), Meister Eckhart Gesellschaft, The Eckhart Society, Meister Eckhart Initiative in Erfurt at the Predigergemeinde, Kulturdirektion Erfurt, Thüringer Institut für Lehrfortbildung (ThiLLm); Catholic Academies in Bayern, Mainz, Freiburg, Hamburg (conferences).

Aims: The Meister Eckhart Research Centre emerged in 2009 from the ‘Medieval Studies’ research focus within the ‘Religiöse Individualisierung in historischer Perspektive’ research group at the Max Weber Kolleg. This research centred on Meister Eckhart as a leading figure in a philosophical-theological endeavour to achieve individual knowledge of God and to lead a spiritual life. These endeavours were increasingly viewed within the context of an interactive exchange with religious movements in the Middle Ages, particularly in the Late Middle Ages, notably with the Beguine movement, the discourses surrounding the book, and the trial of Marguerite Porete. The question of religious freedom was central to this. The continuation of this research gives rise to various objectives:

  1. Editorial work accompanying the scholarly editions of Eckhart and beyond.
  2. Editorial and interpretative work on Eckhart’s contemporaries (Thomas of Erfurt, Johannes of Lichtenberg, Jacobus de Aescoli, and others).
  3. Works on the history of the reception of Meister Eckhart (particularly within idealism, but also extending to the present day).
  4. Works on the history of the Beguines and the Dominicans in Erfurt.
  5. Works on the relationship between Jews and Christians in Erfurt, with a focus on biblical interpretation.
  6. Expansion of interactive research into religious ways of life beyond the mendicants and Beguines (recluses, independent religious communities).