Tyranny, despotism, violence

We would like to cordially invite you once again to the lectures that Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger will give as part of her International Visiting Lectureship at the Jakob Fugger Centre.

Her lectures in Augsburg are dedicated to the overarching theme of tyranny, despotism, violence. In her lectures, she will take us into her latest book project.
Trump, Bolsonaro, even more so Putin - the terms tyrant and despot are booming again. Current autocrats are thus placed in a millennia-old discourse. The question is: Are there structural commonalities across epochs, from antiquity to today? Or is this a mere question of perspective? Is one man's tyrant another man's hero? And what role does the use and threat of physical violence play in this context? This will first be addressed using the example of the Prussian "soldier king" Frederick William I, who described himself as a tyrant and was posthumously transformed by historians into the "educator of the German people to Prussianism", and then placed in a larger context.

On May 25, 2023, at 6:30 p.m., there will be a guest professorship inauguration with the lecture "Friedrich Wilhelm I and the Prussian Myth in the Rococo Hall of the Government of Swabia."

On June 29, 2023, at 6:30 p.m., Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger will speak at the S-Forum of the City Library on "Rituals of Violence - The King as an Outsider."

On May 26, at 10 a.m., there will be a workshop for master's and doctoral students on the topic of "Tyranny and Despotism: Theories from Antiquity to the Present."

On June 30, at 10 a.m., there will be a workshop on the topic of "Theories on the Social Logic of Violence" both taking place in Room D 4956.

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Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger served as a professor of Early Modern History at the University of Münster from 1997 to 2021. During her tenure, she directed projects such as the Collaborative Research Center on "Symbolic Communication and Social Value Systems" and the Excellence Cluster on "Religion and Politics." Since September 2018, she has held the position of Rector at the Wissenschaftskolleg in Berlin. She is a member of various academies and a Fellow of the British Academy. Her research focuses on the constitutional, political, and cultural history of Europe from the 16th to the 18th century, with a particular emphasis on rituals, procedures, ceremonies, metaphors, and symbols.

Her recent book publications include "Rituale" (Frankfurt/Main, 2013), "Maria Theresia: Die Kaiserin in ihrer Zeit. Eine Biographie" (Munich, 2017; 5th edition, 2018; English translation, 2021), and "Tyrannen: Eine Geschichte von Caligula bis Putin" (co-edited with André Krischer, Munich, 2022).

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Tyranny, despotism, violence

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