Vigilance refers to the combination of personal attention with goals that extend beyond the individual. This occurs on a daily basis in the fields of security, the law, healthcare and even religion: wherever we are expected to pay attention to something, and where necessary, to take action or report it. The CRC 1369 investigates the history, cultural variations and current forms of this phenomenon. The publication series makes research findings available to the public.
A scientific advisory board oversees the publication of the series.
Brendecke, Arndt / Reichlin, Susanne (Hrsg.): Zeiten der Wachsamkeit. Berlin/Boston 2022.
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110765137
Vigilance is practised on a daily basis, for example in the fields of security, the law, religion and public health: wherever we are required to pay attention to something, and where necessary to take action or report it. The Munich-based SFB 1369, within which this volume was produced, examines the history, cultural variations and current forms of this phenomenon of non-institutional, yet highly functional, vigilance.
The first volume of the ‘Cultures of Vigilance’ series is devoted to the temporal dimension of vigilance. Just as human attention is subject to considerable fluctuations, vigilance is also temporally unstable. The high physiological and cognitive intensity of vigilance is difficult to sustain over the long term. When uneventful or unstructured occurrences are observed over a prolonged period, attention wanes or shifts to other matters. Cultural guidelines for vigilance therefore generally operate within temporal structures themselves: through rhythmic patterns, habitualisation or dramatisation. They dictate the sequence in which vigilance should be heightened or reduced, or they vary the perceived risks. They draw on natural temporal cycles (such as day and night, light and darkness), which they make usable by reshaping them culturally. Furthermore, techniques and media can also help to sustain vigilance.
This volume examines this temporal structuring of vigilance through the lens of historically specific contexts. It brings together contributions from various disciplines, such as history, ethnography, art history, literary studies and media studies, to explore the periods of vigilance.
Bockmann, Jörn / Martin, Alena / Michel, Hannah / Struwe-Rohr, Carolin / Waltenberger, Michael (Hrsg.): Diabolische Vigilanz. Studien zur Inszenierung von Wachsamkeit in Teufelserzählungen des Spätmittelalters und der Frühen Neuzeit. Berlin/Boston 2022.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110774382
Whilst God as inspector cordium looks directly into souls, the relationship of observation between humans and the devil appears to be immanent-mediated, lateral and potentially reciprocal. The ceaseless diabolical ‘activism of seduction’ (Luhmann) generates constellations of attention whose functions cannot be reduced to the disciplining instigation of fear. In narratives of devils and demons, mechanisms of social control are frequently explored whilst forms of vigilant self-observation are highlighted. The contributions in this volume primarily reconstruct narrative, and to a lesser extent dramatic and theological, models of diabolical observational relationships from the Old Testament through to Luther and the Faust myth; their focus lies on late medieval and early modern narrative texts—both legendary and farcical—in which the devil, as an actor, keeps the sinner aware of dangers in a wide variety of ways. At the same time, it becomes apparent how vigilance against the Devil drives the development of practices of self-examination and thus contributes to the genesis of moral subjectivity.
Fingerle, Maddalena: Lascivia mascherata. Allegoria e travestimento in Torquato Tasso e Giovan Battista Marino. Berlin/Boston 2022.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110794113
Come reagiscono Torquato Tasso e Giovan Battista Marino al contesto vigilante e normativo tra Cinque- e Seicento? A partire dal rapporto che i due autori nutrono nei confronti delle norme e delle regole si prendono in considerazione due tattiche evasive pensate per salvaguardare lascivie e incanti nei poemi: da un lato l’allegoria, dall’altro il travestimento. Il percorso di Tasso è evolutivo e la sua opinione cambia in base all’interiorizzazione di leggi e valori che portano a una rivalutazione delle opinioni iniziali, mentre Marino trasgredisce le regole e utilizza elementi tipicamente difensivi – quali l’allegoria – rovesciandoli e inventandone un uso celatamente offensivo. In questo contesto vengono così rivalutate le allegorie paratestuali dell’Adone di Marino, finora mal considerate dalla critica, e viene ripensato il percorso tassiano in un’ottica che vede i due autori non come vittime di un sistema censorio, ma come partecipanti attivi.
Whittaker, Catherine / Dürr, Eveline / Alderman, Jonathan /Luiprecht, Carolin Luiprecht: Watchful Lives in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands. Berlin/Boston 2023.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110985573
Watchfulness shapes many Chicanxs’ and other People of Color’s everyday lives in San Diego. Experiencing racist discrimination can lead to becoming vigilant, which frames their subjectivity. Focusing particularly on Chicanxs, we show how they seek to intervene against structural inequalities and threats in their lives, such as by re-claiming space, consciousness raising, participating in protests, and healing practices. We argue that contestations surrounding belonging create particularly watchful selves and that this is a significant aspect of borderland lifeworlds more broadly.
The book advances the Anthropology of borders, coloniality, subjectivity, and race, as well as contributing to Chicano and Latino Studies, and Urban Studies. Pushing the boundaries of conventional approaches, this book is methodologically innovative by including team fieldwork, digital ethnography, and illustrative work by a local artist. It fills a gap in Security Studies by examining peer-to-peer vigilance beyond top-down surveillance and bottom-up "sousveillance," and expanding previous understandings of watchfulness as an ambivalent practice that can also express care and contribute to community building, as well as representing a "way of life."
Butz, Magdalena / Grollmann, Felix / Mehltretter, Florian (Hrsg.):Sprachen der Wachsamkeit. Berlin/Boston 2023.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111026480
This volume explores the linguistic and general semiotic dimensions of vigilance, understood as the establishment of duties of vigilance within the individual and the linking of individual attention, on the one hand, to culturally mediated, supra-individual objectives and, on the other, to concrete options for action and communication. The starting point is the observation that, by performing social functions, sign systems play a decisive role in processes and cultures of vigilance. As the contributions in this volume demonstrate, languages of vigilance can alter the relationships between actors, perform normative functions and exert regulative effects, serve to signal dangers and direct attention, but also modulate the intensity of such attention. It becomes evident here that ‘languages of vigilance’ refer not only to languages in the linguistic sense, but also to symbolic languages, sound, visual and body languages, narrative patterns, rhetorics and mythologies, right through to gestures, facial expressions and their combinations, experiments and extensions, for example in film and theatre. In this context, these diverse sign systems can be both the object of vigilance and function as instruments of vigilance, ultimately becoming a medium for reflecting on vigilance themselves. This volume brings together contributions from the fields of literary studies, law, history and theatre studies, as well as from theology and the history of theology, which explore phenomena relating to the ‘languages of vigilance’ across different contexts, eras and discourses in innovative ways.
Demichel, Sébastien / Hengerer, Mark Sven (eds.): Vigilance and the Plague. France Confronted with the Epidemic Scourge during the 17th and 18th centuries. Berlin/Boston 2023.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111026169
This book focuses on the connection between vigilance and the plague in France throughout the 17th and 18th centuries. For more than three centuries, between the middle of the 14th century up until circa 1670, the prevalence of the plague in France was said to be endemic, before it then vanished from French territory. The Great Plague of Marseille (1720–1722, which also impacted the rest of Provence, the County of Venaissin and Languedoc) proved to be an exception. During that period, the fight against the plague was deemed a top-priority along the French coast, and health institutions, called bureaux de la santé, were developed. Contributions to this book primarily focus on health vigilance from the standpoint of how to prevent an epidemic and how to respond to a declared epidemic. Among the salient themes addressed are: communications between health and different state actors, prevailing religious and political norms, and the popular participation in the fight against the plague. The use of the concept of vigilance enables the mobilisation of often rather distant branches of history, namely institutional. social, religious history, the history of communication and the history of public health.
Fingerle, Maddalena / Mehltretter, Florian (Hrsg.): Kreativität im Schnittpunkt der Observanzen/Creatività e osservanza.
Italienische Literatur um 1600 zwischen Gegenreformation und Regelpoetik/Letteratura italiana del Seicento tra Controriforma e normatività poetica. Berlin/Boston 2023.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111167169
Italian literature emerged around 1600 at the intersection of poetological and religious efforts to establish norms, and under the watchful eye of both a literary community engaged in critical debate and the Counter-Reformation’s censorship and the Inquisition. Church authorities exercised external control over literature, whilst writers were engaged in a dialogue characterised by the negotiation of norms and by vigilant mutual counsel and criticism. The title of this volume captures this with the term ‘Observance’, in its dual meaning of ‘observation’ and ‘adherence to rules’. To view this situation merely as an external constraint on artistic creation would, of course, be reductive. Drawing
on texts of various media and poetic genres, ranging from the epic to the opera, the book demonstrates how, between 1550 and 1650, poetic creativity, under the specific conditions of this dual observance, arrived at solutions, evasions or immunisations; how authors paid attention to the textual and medial form of their works and to the shaping or even concealment of their authorship; and how, on the other hand, the attention of the audience could be focused on or diverted from problematic issues.
Butz, Magdalena / Kellner, Beate / Reichlin, Susanne / Rugel, Agnes (Hrsg.): Aufmerksamkeit und Wachsamkeit. Praktiken und Semantiken in der mittelalterlichen Literatur und Frömmigkeit. Berlin/Boston 2024.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111320137
This volume explores the concepts, practices and semantics of attention and vigilance in the Christian Middle Ages, as well as in preceding and neighbouring cultures of piety. The starting point is the observation that, since the early Church, Christian authors have exhorted the faithful to maintain unceasing, absolute attention towards God and themselves, whilst at the same time acknowledging the impossibility of pure and sustained attention and warning against the dangers of distraction and dissipation. The contributions in this volume examine how spiritual texts, liturgical practices and images address these tensions whilst simultaneously seeking to train the believer’s attention. The focus is on the continuities and discontinuities of various practices and semantics of attention in the monastic context as well as in the sphere of private, lay piety. The volume brings together contributions from the fields of medieval German studies, American studies, theology, history, law and literary studies, as well as Indology, in which the question of the practices and semantics of attention and vigilance across different spaces, eras and discourses is explored in innovative ways.
Demichel, Sébastien: Risque et vigilance sanitaire. La côte méditerranéenne française face à la peste, 1700–1750. Berlin/Boston 2023.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111175898
Cet ouvrage s’intéresse au risque et à la vigilance face à la peste sur la côte méditerranéenne française dans la première moitié du 18e siècle. Entre 1720 et 1722, une terrible épidémie de peste frappe Marseille, la Provence, le Comtat-Venaissin et une partie du Languedoc, causant environ 100'000 décès. Aussi dramatique soit-elle, cette épidémie constitue une exception durant la première moitié du 18e siècle. La première partie de ce travail analyse les rapports entre vigilance, espace et communication et met en évidence une prévention qui s’exerce tant de manière transméditerranéenne que de manière interne au royaume de France. Une véritable «bureaucratie sanitaire» se met en place. La deuxième partie étudie les normes et les pratiques de la vigilance sanitaire, tant sur un plan politico-sanitaire (quarantaines des navires, des passagers et des marchandises) que sur un plan religieux (processions et prières pour endiguer la maladie). Enfin, la dernière partie se limite à la peste de 1720-1722 et illustre le passage d’une vigilance préventive à une vigilance réactive en s’intéressant aux «acteurs de la peste» et aux attitudes et tactiques développées face au fléau épidémique.
Tushingham, Poppy: Creating an Empire of Informers. Vigilance in the Assyrian Empire and King Esarhaddon’s adê-Covenant of 672 BC. Berlin/Boston 2024.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111323435
Throughout history, many states have attempted to harness the attention of their populations for their own ends. This study argues that the Assyrian Empire in the year 672 BC is such a case.
In 672 BC, Esarhaddon, King of Assyria, imposed a succession covenant (adê) on his subjects, the inhabitants of the Assyrian Empire. This covenant required the empire’s population to monitor one another, and themselves, for signs of disloyalty to the monarch and his chosen successor, Ashurbanipal. This study examines the aims and outcomes, desired and undesired, of imposing this duty of vigilance across the Assyrian Empire.
To consider the presentation and implementation of this duty of vigilance, the study draws largely on evidence supplied by the covenant and other royally-commissioned texts. To examine the outcomes of the covenant’s enactment, meanwhile, it explores cuneiform sources, such as letters to the crown, private legal documents, and literary compositions, as well as the Aramaic Story of Ahiqar and the biblical Book of Deuteronomy.
By providing a sustained analysis of the real-world implications and outcomes of the covenant, this book sheds new light on a text that fundamentally altered the political makeup of the Assyrian Empire.
Martin-Ruland, Alena:Zwischen Gott, Mensch und Teufel. Beobachtungskonstellationen in der deutschen Flugpublizistik der frühen Neuzeit. Berlin/Boston 2024.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111323152
Amidst the vast majority of early modern depictions of the Devil as a terrifying monstrosity, there are narrative and graphic representations that take a noticeably different approach. These include the portrayal of the diabolical enemy as a latent threat in aviation journalism. The ontological status of the Devil as a lurking observer often oscillates between that of a personal, external enemy and the imagined threat of inner self-endangerment. This study examines the functioning of image-text combinations that seek to enhance their effectiveness precisely through such a specific design. The problem of perception within the image is thereby transferred, as a moment of aesthetic irritation in reception, to the overarching level of observation of the viewer. The study focuses on constellations of observation between God, humankind and the Devil, as well as visual and narrative strategies and effects of directing attention. Vigilance towards the Devil, in the sense of moral self-observation and social observation of others, is tested and practised particularly effectively through the media-specific habitus of visualisation. The book demonstrates that the illustrated leaflet can thus be regarded as the quintessential medium of vigilance.
Filip, Loredana: Self-Help in the Digital Age. TED Talks, Speculative Fiction, and the Role of Reading. Berlin/Boston 2024.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111389929
In an age where science and technology hold sway and the humanities face a crisis, this book explores the evolving role of literature. It delves into how American self-help culture shapes contemporary ideals of success, mindfulness, and happiness, with a particular focus on its influence in science communication, notably in TED talks. Moreover, it underscores the enduring relevance of literature in the digital era by analyzing speculative novels that challenge established norms, including those propagated by TED. These novels include Richard Powers’ Generosity: An Enhancement, Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam trilogy and Gary Shteyngart’s Super Sad True Love Story. They question the Western preference for visual perception, which perpetuates a human-centric worldview. By focusing on literary synesthesia in the readings, this book emphasizes sensory experiences and human-nonhuman interactions. It adopts the concept of research as assemblage and uses a diverse range of theories and approaches, while it foregrounds critical posthumanism and new materialism. Ultimately, it advocates for a less anthropocentric approach to reading and presents literature as a "transdisciplinary life science" capable of fostering a "kinship of posthumanity."
Heberling, Carolina: Zwischen Alleinherrschaft und kollektiver Leitung. Der Intendantenberuf in der Weimarer Republik am Beispiel der Bayerischen Staatstheater. Berlin/Boston 2026.
A strict hierarchy with a powerful figure at the helm: German theatres are still very much centred on the centuries-old role of the artistic director. The role took on some of its current characteristics in the 1920s, when many court theatres passed into state hands and the ‘knight-intendant’ – aristocratic courtiers with limited expertise – were replaced by professional theatre practitioners. Using the Bavarian State Theatres as a case study, the book explores how the role of the artistic director developed during the Weimar Republic and how the establishment of an artists’ council as a form of collective leadership provided an early alternative to the model of the ‘autocrat’. It examines which individuals were drawn to the post, how they established their legitimacy at the helm of the theatre, and what idealised visions of the theatre were projected onto them. Clemens von Franckenstein, Victor Schwanneke and Karl Zeiß are highlighted as representative examples. A central thesis of the book is that their tenures reveal a structural overload that has accompanied the profession ever since and which, even back then, made consistent leadership impossible. Viewed from a historical perspective, the question of collective forms of leadership in today’s theatres becomes all the more pressing.
Kanthak, Sabrina: Skandale um die Zensur. Theater und Öffentlichkeit in München (1919–1929). Berlin/Boston 2025.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111458946
On 11 August 1919, the Weimar Constitution abolished theatre censorship, which had hitherto been an integral part of theatre. Freedom of the arts was guaranteed. This study examines the transformations surrounding the abolition of theatre censorship under the term ‘de-censorship’ and explores the extent to which control over the theatre nevertheless persisted. This is particularly evident in the theatre scandals of the 1920s, which often had an effect as restrictive as that of censorship.
Theatre scandals in the Weimar Republic are unprecedented in theatre history in terms of their intensity and frequency, yet have scarcely been researched to date. Verbal attacks in the newspapers, disturbances in the auditorium and police intervention were the order of the day. Drawing on exemplary case studies of theatre scandals in Munich, this thesis examines how control shifted from the state to the public and demonstrates that, through control and scandal, new forms of public sphere can be identified in the theatre of the Weimar Republic.
Chizzolini, Benedetta: Between Cure and Control. Doctors, Convicts and Slaves in Tuscan and Papal Galleys (16th–18th Centuries). Berlin/Boston 2025.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111654133
Since antiquity, doctors have always been required to be "vigilant" (i.e., extremely attentive), particularly when it comes to any symptoms exhibited and/or complained of by the patient. As outlined in the Hippocratic Oath since antiquity, a doctor’s primary mission is to ensure the patient’s well-being and recovery, irrespective of their social status. However, loyalty to the patient was explicitly subordinated whenever the patient performed an action deemed suspicious or even detrimental to society’s best interests. The goal of this book is, therefore, to delve deeper into the multivalent role and attitude of physicians and surgeons as "experts" in how to interpret symptoms, and how this, in turn, influenced their relationship with their patients, especially when the latter were considered to be "dangerous individuals". This analysis does not seek to further explore Foucault’s concept of the "disciplinary" nature of medicine, but rather uses it as a starting point for analyzing the complex and, so to speak, "ambiguous" nature of the doctor-patient relationship in the early modern period, one which oscillated between cooperation and conflict. To deepen these aspects, this analysis will consider the role and tasks of a figure often neglected by historiography: the galley doctor.
Casadevall Ferrer, Agnes:Die Wächterstimme im Hohenfurter Liederbuch. Berlin/Boston 2026.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783112215708
With its unique collection of songs, each with its melody notated, the Hohenfurt Songbook represents a special case within Late Middle High German songbook poetry, one which has so far received only marginal attention. This study examines the compilation of the songs and attempts a new interpretation of the figure of the watchman in the sacred songs. The first part describes the structure, presentation and background of the anonymously transmitted manuscript. The heterogeneity of the song section of the Hohenfurt Songbook – which, in addition to sacred daily songs, also contains Christmas and Easter songs as well as a herb garden song – is contrasted with the recurring theme of the ‘great sinner’ found in the headings. In a second step, the study interprets five songs, focusing on the conversion narrative centred on the ‘great sinner’. Central to this is a semantics of vigilance and awakening, which draws, amongst other things, on contexts from the secular daily song tradition and the Christian hymn tradition. The interpretations of the songs gradually reveal the various dimensions of this semantics. Overall, the study provides crucial insights into the cultivation of vigilance, as evidenced by the songbook at the centre of this study for the late Middle Ages.