Professor Dr. Johann Anselm Steiger

Alfried Krupp Senior Fellow
(October 2021 - September 2022) 

  • Study of Protestant Theology at the University of Heidelberg
  • substitute professorships at the universities of Saarbrücken, Hamburg and Oldenburg
  • since 2001 Professor for Church History and the History of Dogma at Hamburg University, since 2014 spokesperson of the Research Training Group “Interconfessionality in the Early Modern Period” (funded by the German Research Foundation), since 2018 spokesperson of the Emerging Field “The Early Modern World” at Hamburg University

Fellow project: Ars baltico-emblematica On the Multiformity of Spiritual Emblematics in the Early Modern Baltic Region

The project will make a fundamental contribution to the research of the so-called book-external (i. e. applied) spiritual emblematics, which manifested itself in heterogeneous forms in the Baltic region of the 17th and 18th centuries. In this way, a generally recognized desideratum in interdisciplinary early modern research is taken up and will be exemplarily remedied. For this purpose, outstanding emblematic programs in church interiors in Mecklenburg, Western Pomerania, Schleswig-Holstein, Denmark, northern Poland, and the Kaliningrad Oblast will be meticulously examined and historically contextualized. In addition to emblem-historical and iconographical aspects, special attention will be paid to the relevant contexts (history of Bible exegesis, piety and preaching). Furthermore, it will be explored in which way the combinations of images and inscriptions structure the respective church spaces and intermedially supported the liturgical processes common in the early modern period. The goal of the project is to produce a comprehensive book publication.