Introduction to the Workshop Material
Dear Colleagues,
From 14th to 17th June 2007 we will meet in Copenhagen for the international conference ‘Transformation of Discourse’. This conference is organised and arranged by the Danish National Research Foundation: Centre for the Study of the Cultural Heritage of Medieval Rituals. Founded in 2002, the Centre is dedicated to the study of the endurance, transformations and revivals of medieval rituals and artefacts in artistic and cultural practices up to the present time. The research fellows come from the fields of musicology, art history, literature, archaeology, history and theology.
The main ambition of the Centre’s interdisciplinary work is to formulate narratives about retentions of medieval liturgical topoi in the cultural history of Western Europe. These narratives are based on concepts such as re-contextualisation, transformation and innovation, and challenge ideas of continuity, constancy, identity and tradition – but also ideas of rupture, discontinuity and fragmentation.
It is within this framework that the conference theme, ‘Transformations of Discourse’, has been conceived. One of the central features of the conference are the two workshops in the afternoons of 14th and 16th June. The theme of these workshops is ‘The Passion of Christ’, and they are intended to incite exchanges about the writing of cultural history centring around theoretical issues, case studies and methodologies.
In particular, we would like to focus our attention on the construction and transmission of motifs and meaning across discourses. We are concerned both with synchronic transformations – interactions and exchanges between different institutions, genres, ideas and symbolic systems – and with diachronic transformations: long-term changes in practices and traditions from the Middle Ages until the present.
We use the term ‘discourse’ without any specific modification, but as commonly understood in the humanities: as the heterogeneous assemblage of linguistic texts and non-verbal, non-conceptual elements which forms the historical a priori that grounds knowledge and understanding. We also use ‘motif’ loosely to refer to clusters of material which within a certain discourse is recognized as a coherent unit, such as, e.g., the crucifix or the passion narrative.
Some of the general topics implied by the conference title which are central to the Centre’s work, and which we should like to address in the workshops, are:
- The qualities of a motif for it to be recognized in its various transformations
- The circumstances under which we as historians can maintain claims of continuity
- The possibility and/or necessity to separate diachronic and synchronic transformations
- The consequences for motif to be transposed from one discourse to another
- The possibility to perceive something as a motif outside of the discourse of the perceiver
Related thematically to the Centre’s research, the heading ‘Passion of Christ’ provides an overall thematic framework for individual materialisations by way of which the theoretical questions may be approached. For each workshop two sets of collections of material are provided which in various ways and through various media illustrate transformations of motifs pertaining to the Passion of Christ theme. These are:
14th June:
- Il volto santo – Changing the Sacred Face
- In the Embrace of Christ
16th June:
- Passion Representations in Liturgical and Religious Drama
- Aesthetic Transformations – Rore/Pärt: St John’s Passions
These materials represent thematic complexes that have arisen from the work of the centre, and are intended to form the basis for the workshops. It is the intention to use the materials as actual cases in the workshops so as to have concrete examples and illustrations of the relevant topics and questions, rather than have a purely theoretical and abstract discussion. We would thus invite every participant to read, look at and listen to these materials, which can be accessed by clicking on the relevant theme. Each theme and its material is briefly introduced and contextualised, and participants are welcome to relate these materials and themes to their own field of expertise at the workshop. For now we would like to share some of the questions that have arisen from internal discussions of the Passion of Christ theme and offer them as possible ways into the workshops:
- In a diachronic narrative tracing the transformations of a motif over time – such as motifs connected to the Passion of Christ – can the motif be separated from the narrative?
- In a synchronic comparison of different uses of the ‘same’ motif, can this motif be separated from the comparison?
- In specific narratives or comparisons of transformations of a motif involving ritual as well as aesthetic discourses, the following oppositions may play a role: religious/secular, continuity/rupture, tradition/innovation, transcendence/immanence. Do these oppositions have a parallel function? What is the relation between them with regard to the specific materials brought up in the workshops?
We look very much forward to welcoming you all to Copenhagen in June!