Lifeworld reconsidered: Approaches and Concepts to the Reconstruction of Ancient Lifeworlds from Augustus to Late Antiquity

International conference under the scientific direction of JProf. Dr. Veronika Egetenmeyr (Koblenz) and private lecturer Dr. Susanne Froehlich (Greifswald)

In the social sciences, the concept of the lifeworld, developed in particular by Edmund Husserl and further elaborated by phenomenologists such as Alfred Schütz and Jürgen Habermas, continues to be the subject of intense debate. While Rudolph Vierhaus attempted to define the term for the historical sciences in his 1995 essay "Die Rekonstruktion historischer Lebenswelten" (The Reconstruction of Historical Lifeworlds), no such attempts have been made in the field of Ancient Studies. Nevertheless, "lifeworld" is a term that we encounter frequently in the study of antiquity. However, the term "lifeworld" has a variety of different semantics and functions. On the one hand, lifeworld is used as a synonym for everyday life, tradition or patterns of behaviour; on the other hand, it is used to describe life in antiquity itself.

The international conference on the reconstruction of ancient lifeworlds from the Augustan period to Late Antiquity will bring together scholars of antiquity from different disciplines to rethink the concept of lifeworld for Roman antiquity and thus open up new perspectives on the Roman period.