B01 (Baumbach / Bochum)
Narrating Inventions – Inventing Narrations: The Poiesis of ‘First Inventors’ (prótoi heuretaí) in Ancient Literature
B01 investigates how ancient Greek and Latin literature constructs narratives about “first inventors” (prótoi heuretaí) and uses them for self-reflexive explorations of poetic creation. It argues that ancient stories of invention serve not only to trace the origins of cultural achievements but also to articulate new literary forms, styles, and claims to innovation. This project offers a transcultural perspective on how authors position themselves within, and in competition with, the literary tradition. Special attention is given to texts that programmatically challenge or hybridize existing genres, as well as to comparisons with aetiological and genealogical accounts and inventor lists.
B02 (Bezner / Freiburg)
Narrating Ideas: A Poetics of Integumental Narrative in 12th-Century Latin Literature
The project examines Latin integumental poetry composed in the Twelfth Century (Bernard Silvester, Alan of Lille, John of Hauvilla, etc.) from a narratological perspective for the first time. Crucial is the question of how philosophical concepts (Natura, Prudentia, etc.) are narrativized as acting characters in these integumental texts. The aim is to develop a poetics of these speculative narrative forms between ancient models and vernacular literature, considering the specific knowledge milieus of Northern French cathedral schools.
B03 (Gunsenheimer / Bonn)
The Transcultural Adoption of the European Concept of ‘Nation’ as Expression of Alterity and Strategic Complementarity in Indigenous Narrative Historiographies in Colonial Spanish Latin America (16th and 18th Centuries)
B03 focuses on the question of how indigenous authors of the Americas implemented the European concept of the ‘nation’ as an idea of belonging and identity into their historiographic works on the pre-colonial past. Colonial rule in the 16th and 17th centuries provided a fruitful context for indigenous historiography. The primary sources, written in Amerindian languages, are known for their intensive engagement with Spanish genres and topics. Until now, they have tended to be viewed as examples of colonial dominance. However, the present study focuses on the analysis of independent narrative rationalities.
B04 (Müller / Bonn)
Narrating Conversation – Narrating in Conversation: Narrative Strategies and Their Functions in Ancient Philosophic Dialogue
Narratological studies of Greco-Roman antiquity have hardly treated philosophic dialogues because the representation of speeches seems at odds with narrative. Yet, dialogues are often narrated and narrative within characters’ speeches is a key discursive strategy. Thus, B04 theorizes narrative as a central feature of ancient philosophic dialogue for the first time, in its first phase by analysis of the dialogue corpora of Plato and Cicero. In particular, narrative reveals cross-cultural aspects of self-presentation and epistemology like autobiography and the quest for self-knowledge.
B05 (Rüggemeier / Bonn)
Mark’s Narrative Pneumatology: Reassessing the Character of the “Holy Spirit” (τὸ πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον) from the Perspective of Ancient Drama, Ancient Jewish-Literature, and Today’s Cognitive Science
B05 re-examines Mark’s Gospel by focusing on its neglected pneumatology. Against views of Mark as a rough storyteller with a thin theology of the Spirit, it argues that the ‘Holy Spirit’ (τὸ πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον) functions as an “off-stage” character built from sparse but strategic attentional cues in the narrative. Using cognitive narratology, ancient drama and rhetoric, and close philological and comparative analysis, the study reconstructs how ancient readers inferred the Spirit’s role in Jesus‘ mission and in Mark’s theological vision.
B06 (Schwermann / Bochum)
Narrating Order: Allegories and Exempla of Governance in Ancient Chinese Literature
This subproject examines how allegories and exempla are used as arguments in Han Feizi and Lüshi chunqiu, two classical Chinese treatises on questions of monarchical order composed shortly before the founding of the empire in 221 BC. Based on the first systematic digital analysis of the production of narrative evidence in ancient Chinese literature, the aim is to show the consequences that the conceptualization and use of narratives as arguments had for narrative art and narrative techniques in China and how these can be evaluated in transcultural perspective.