The Spanish-German network Humanistenwissen und Lebenspraxis in der frühen Neuzeit, set up in 2010, was the brainchild of Pedro Cátedra and Christoph Strosetzki. Its aims include the analysis of the relationship between knowledge, experience and cultural practices in the early modern age; the study of the influence of textuality and fiction on the construction of the subject; the examination of the limits of and dialectics between legitimate and illegitimate, expert and subaltern, institutional and marginal knowledge, and the investigation of forbidden and hidden knowledge.
It also proposes to critically describe the knowledge technologies and discursive tools and techniques that generated knowledge and authority in pre-Enlightenment Europe. It understands humanistic knowledge, therefore, not as a legacy or as a repository of the texts and knowledge of the ancients, and even less as a source, but rather as a space of use, of conflict and constant reinterpretation. In short, the network aims to open up new perspectives in the critical history of a crucial period in European history that included the recovery and reinvention of the classical past, the expansion of printing, the discovery of America, the consolidation of the Reformation and the shaping of the modern episteme. The network holds annual meetings in several German and Spanish cities, and maintains a fruitful collaboration in the exchange of professors, doctoral students and young researchers, and in the production of collective books.
Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen; Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München; Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn; Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg; Universität Trier; Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster; Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona; Universidad Complutense de Madrid; Universidad de Salamanca; Universidad de Zaragoza.
