The 14th Berlin Colloquium
of the Gottlieb Daimler and Karl Benz Foundation
Conference
Why Do We Need Rituals?
Culture-Scientific and Neurobiological Perspectives
Moderation: Prof. Axel Michaels
South Asia Institute at the Heidelberg University
Evening Lecture
Ritual and Freedom
Prof. Wolf Singer
Director of the Neurophysiology Division of the Max Planck-Institute for Brain Research in Frankfurt am Main
May 20th 2010
Langenbeck Virchow House
Luisenstr. 58/59, Berlin
Subject
Homo ritualis?
Which psychological benefits rituals provide is still largely unknown. It is controversial whether people need rituals at all. To many, they seem to be a superfluous or even an obstructive rudiment of evolution; others think that the repetition of rituals is indispensable for learning or other - including cultural - mnemonic functions. Rituals can help keep emotions under control. But they also have the reputation of impeding creativity and change. Is there a ritualized compulsion to ritual? Or which freedoms do rituals leave? A colloquium in Berlin will address these questions.
In the Gottlieb Daimler and Karl Benz Foundation's 14th Berlin Colloquium, Heidelberg's Collaborative Research Center"Ritual Dynamics" blazes new trails in ritual research. In cooperation with external experts, it examines the dialectic between ritual and habit from the perspectives of psychology, economics, neuro-, and cognitive-, as well as cultural science.
Ritual - The Social Drama
There is certainly no lack of ritual studies and -theories. The enormous number of theoretical perspectives relevant to research is overwhelming. But nonetheless, one must still ask, just what the nature of the social drama (Victor Turner) called "ritual" is, which is still repeatedly performed in many places in the world. The answers are diverse. Some understand rituals to be media of behavioral control, which restrain emotions and limit or cause anxieties, or as symbolic procedures of crisis management, often with debatable results. Others emphasize the solidarity, control, hierarchic, stabilizing, rebellious, healing, propagandistic, playful, or theatrical aspects. Still others see in rituals nothing but magical practices or even a manifestation of holiness - not to mention those who think that rituals are meaningless, or trace them back to dispositions inherited through evolution.
Annoying Inheritance versus Wealth of Experience?
These new and varied approaches are impressive, especially when one considers the very short history of the term "ritual". The word is listed neither in the Grimms' Dictionary (1893) nor in the pertinent early religion-scientific lexica.
The expression was too negatively connoted in (post-)Protestant societies characterized by internalizing individualization; preoccupation with ritual was felt to be a burden. Rituals were disparaged as "superficial", and were devaluated in comparison with the "inner act" and bearing, faith, or meditative prayer. Rituals were something for "the others", for the "savages" or "primitives", who knew cults, but no religion. Rituals were held to be conservative, traditionalistic, and backward. This opinion changed only as late as the mid-1970s - not least, stimulated by the annual conference of the American Academy of Religion in 1977, when the creative and experiential potentials of rituals were recognized and acknowledged.
With the more positive view, one's own action complexes were increasingly recognized to be, and interpreted as, rituals, in Western industrial nations as well. Rituals were perceived more and more as cultural (sub-)systems, and ever more numerous action contexts were studied with regard to the aspect of their ritualization.
People
The Colloquium's Scientific Director:
Prof. Dr. Axel Michaels ...
... born 1949 in Hamburg, studied Indology, Philosophy, and Jurisprudence in Munich, Hamburg, and Benares. Doctorate from the University of Hamburg, habilitation at the University of Kiel. 1981-1983, director of the Nepal Research Centre in Katmandu, Nepal; 1986, Spalding Visiting Fellow at Wolfson College in Oxford; 1992-1996, Professor for Religious Studies at the University of Berne; since 1996, Professor for Classical Indology at the South Asia Institute of the Heidelberg University. Since 2002, speaker of the DFG's (German Research Foundation) SFB 619 (Collaborative Research Center) "Ritual Dynamics" at Heidelberg University. Since 2006, member of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences. Since 2007, one of the three directors of Cluster of Excellence "Asia and Europe".
The Evening Lecture
Prof. Dr. h. c. mult. Wolf Singer ...
... studied Medicine in Munich and Paris, doctorate 1968 from the Ludwig Maximilian- University in Munich, habilitated 1975 at the TU Munich, and is, since 1981, director of the Max Planck-Institute for Brain Research in Frankfurt/Main. In 2004, he founded the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies (FIAS), and in 2008, in cooperation with the Struengmann brothers and the Max Planck-Society, the Ernst Struengmann Institute in Frankfurt/Main. His research is dedicated to elucidation of the neuronal basis of cognitive functions. At first, his work concentrated on brain development, whereby maturation processes which are independent of experience stood in the foreground. Today, most of the projects are concerned with the so-called "binding problem": Cognitive functions are based on the simultaneous processing of a multitude of various sensory signals in widely distributed regions of the brain cortex. How these sub-processes are bound together to make coherent perception possible, is one of the central subjects of research.
8:30 Registration
9:30 Conference
Inauguration
Prof. Rainer Dietrich
Executive Board of the Gottlieb Daimler and Karl Benz-Foundation
Wilfried Porth
Member of the Board of Management of Daimler AG:
Human Resources and Director of Labor Relations
Introduction: the formal and emotional structure of rituals
Prof. Axel Michaels
Classical Indology, Speaker of the Collaborative Research Center "Ritual Dynamics", Heidelberg University
Mnemonic traces: unique or repeated experience
Prof. Hannah Monyer
Clinical Neurobiology, Heidelberg University
11:00 - 11:30 Coffee Break
Ritual and emotion as a bio-cultural process
Prof. Birgit Röttger-Rössler
Cultural Anthropology, Free University Berlin
Management between routine and creativity
Dr. Juergen Haeusler
Management consultant for brand development
Interbrand Zintzmeyer & Co. Zurich
13:00 - 14:30 Lunch Break
On the evolutionary biology of rituals
Prof. Volker Sommer
Evolutionary Anthropology, University College London
Ritual: its causes and consequences (lecture in English)
Prof. Harvey Whitehouse
Social Anthropology, Oxford University
16:00 - 16:30 Coffee Break
Panel Discussion
Prof. Gregor Ahn
Prof. Henrik Jungaberle
Prof. William S. Sax
all Heidelberg University
Moderation: Prof. Christoph Wulf
Free University Berlin
18:00 - 19:00 Poster Session
with young scientists from the SFB 619 (Collaborative Research Center) "Ritual Dynamics"
19:00 Evening Lecture
Welcoming Address
Prof. Eckard Minx
President of the Executive Board of the Gottlieb Daimler and Karl Benz Foundation
Introduction
Prof. Axel Michaels
Speaker of the SFB 619 (Collaborative Research Center) "Ritual Dynamics", Heidelberg University
Ritual and Freedom
Prof. Wolf Singer
Director of the Neurophysiology Division at the Max Planck-Institute for Brain Research in Frankfurt am Main
Reception
Partner
The SFB 619 (Collaborative Research Center) "Ritual Dynamics"
The questions, how rituals arise, decline, or suddenly disappear, how and why they spread, are passed on, and change, remained long unanswered. The Heidelberg SFB's new approach becomes apparent in these questions, and in the attempt to ascertain and to understand rituals within the framework of their total contextual realization.
In the scientific perspective, a tendency to inertia has, in general, been attributed to rituals. According to whether perseverance in faith or in rite was sought, one argued for or against ritual. Underestimating their dynamics, one therefore often perceived rituals erroneously as inflexible, rigid, stereotyped, or immutable.
The Heidelberg research center is attempting to reconstruct the variations, modifications, and transformations of collective ritual practices by taking the cultural contexts into consideration. It already turns out that the change of rituals and the change of culture and society they brought about are just as clear as the permanence which can be observed in the case of many ritual practices.
You can find more information in the German-language pages. You can also register there. See ...
SFB 619 (Collaborative Research Center) "Ritual Dynamics"
http://www.ritualdynamik.de/ritualdynamik_en/index.php
Website Prof. Dr. h. c. mult. Wolf Singer
http://www.mpih-frankfurt.mpg.de/global/np/Staff/singer.htm
Program
Dr. Alexandra Heidle
Universität Heidelberg
Südasien-Institut (SAI)
Im Neuenheimer Feld 330
69120 Heidelberg
Tel: 06221-54-8847
heidle@uni-heidelberg.de
Administration
Susanne Hallenberger
Gottlieb Daimler- und Karl Benz-Stiftung
Dr. Carl-Benz-Platz 2
68526 Ladenburg
Tel.: 06203-1092-0
Fax: 06203-1092-5
hallenberger@daimler-benz-stiftung.de
Media
Thomas Schmitt
Gottlieb Daimler- und Karl Benz-Stiftung
Dr.-Carl-Benz-Platz 2
68526 Ladenburg
Tel. +49-6203-1092-13
Fax: +49-6203-1092-5
schmitt@daimler-benz-stiftung.de