Call for Submissions
We invite scholars of any discipline to contribute to an upcoming volume of Intersections (Leiden: Brill) that will be devoted to “Early Modern Disputations and Dissertations in an Interdisciplinary and European Context.” Proposals along with a short biographical note and an abstract (about 2,000 characters) should be sent to the volume editors, Hanspeter Marti (marti-weissenbach@forschungen-engi.ch) and Robert Seidel (robertcseidel@lingua.uni-frankfurt.de) before June 30, 2017. The manuscripts should not exceed 60,000 characters and should be submitted by March 31, 2018.
Disputations were held in Classical Antiquity in the framework of loosely or tightly structured forms of communication that addressed specific subjects or interests. During the Middle Ages, the disputation (disputatio) was institutionalized as part of the academic curriculum, and, as of the sixteenth century, it became customary to print a series of theses (dissertation) in advance as a basis for the disputation proceedings. With the advent of printing, it became possible to study disputations outside of their original curricular contexts and to use them as a basis for further debate. Consequently, the printed theses gradually gained greater significance than the oral disputation. A second decisive shift occurred in the eighteenth century when monographs composed by degree candidates largely supplanted the disputation altogether. This gave rise to the process that more or less reflects contemporary university requirements for earning the doctorate. The volume of essays that we are planning will investigate the early modern disputation and the development of the printed thesis during the period between these two shifts (1500–1800). The individual essays will include studies of a wide range of academic disciplines and theological perspectives throughout Europe.
The technical terms that were used in the context of disputations (disputatio pro gradu, pro cathedra/loco, or exercitii causa) identify the circumstances of the origin and the function of the writings. Dissertatio does not designate “dissertation” in the modern meaning of the word as an independent research project completed for academic advancement. Rather, it designates the imprint of the theses defended at a disputation. The author of a dissertatio was usually the professor who supervised the project and presided at the disputation as praeses. The student was required, as the respondent (respondens), to defend the theses by answering all the objections raised by the opponents (opponentes).
The imprints use a variety of formats, ranging from a single-sheet folio (sometimes with an illustration) to a pamphlet of several signatures. In addition to the theses, which can appear either without commentary (nudae) or in the form of discursive treatises supported by extensive documentation, the imprints frequently contain additional theses, sometimes drawn from other academic disciplines (corollaria), and a number of paratexts, such as dedications (dedicatio), commendatory letters and poems.
As polyvalent media, dissertations offer highly significant documentation for academic instruction and are therefore valuable sources for the historical study of European culture and scholarship during the early modern era. Frequently modest in appearance and nearly always written in Latin, these imprints have garnered only limited attention from scholars. Nonetheless, the historiographic relevance of the imprints is exceedingly broad. They contain a wealth of information as they document the appeal and innovativeness of individual universities, the development of academic affiliations among professors, typical career paths, personal relationships or the reputation of specific professors, and, of course, the ascendance of certain disciplinary discourses. It is often possible to draw conclusions about pedagogical principles and the relationship to specific schools of thought among the people involved. The argumentation used in the dissertations as well as the authorities cited also make it possible to connect a disputation to specific methodologies or to key figures of the time. The contents of the dissertations offer precise historical data on the state of research in various disciplines, including routinely taught skills, but also bitterly contested intellectual controversies as well as successful and failed attempts at innovation. Moreover, the printed theses were adapted into instructional material for the curriculum, and, in general, they offered interested contemporaries privileged information about current disciplinary discourses. They were also useful in the careers and lives of the educated elite and even reached people without an academic education through translations, reviews, and other forms of knowledge transfer.
Current State of Research and Areas for Future Research
Following earlier studies of authorship (usually conducted from a bibliographic perspective), approaches addressing the history of scholarship and academic discourse have increasingly dominated research on disputation over the past three decades. To mention only the most significant aspects, scholars have focused on the institutional foundations of the disputation proceedings that inform the thesis imprint or on the paratextual supplements to the actual theses. Of course, the complex relationship of tradition and innovation, which always plays a significant role in early-modern academic discourse, has also been investigated in analyses of dissertations.
Although scholarship has certainly addressed various individual disciplines within all four university faculties, there are only a few studies that have looked at the entire disciplinary spectrum or have investigated the intellectual dynamic of an entire university or historic region on the basis of the surviving dissertation imprints. In addition to interdisciplinary approaches, there is a need for comparative examination and evaluation of the material from universities throughout Europe. Even if the Lutheran universities of the central German area probably did generate a disproportionately large percentage of the surviving dissertations, a German-centric perspective nonetheless threatens to hinder productive collaboration with research on Netherlandic, Danish, Swedish, British, Polish, Hungarian, or French universities as well as those universities that belong to the non-German territories of the Holy Roman Empire. Moreover, the contributions of Catholic universities to the production of dissertations have often been underestimated. Similarities and differences between confessionally conditioned practices of dissertation composition and publication have not been adequately researched.
Therefore, at the present time it is appropriate to undertake an examination and evaluation – with a pan-European and multi-confessional scope – of the surviving imprints as well as the overall tendencies and accomplishments of scholarship at early modern universities. This will ensure that future research on disputations and dissertations will no longer be encumbered by biases and false assumptions, and that productive collaboration among all scholars in the field will be promoted. We suggest that the following issues should be considered in comparative analyses of the material: 1) the time and place of the disputation and published dissertation; 2) the theology or confessional identity of the parties involved (Lutheran, Calvinist, Catholic, etc.); 3) the academic discipline to which the dissertation pertains; 4) the occasion, type, and method of the disputation; 5) the institutional elements of the disputation proceedings; 6) transmission and reception of the dissertation (manuscript versus printed; publication in collections of dissertations; and library collections); 7) the place of the disputation and dissertation in the genres of early-modern learned literature.
In light of the wealth of surviving material and the current state of research, we especially welcome approaches that propose far-reaching hypotheses or, conversely, that entail focused analyses. The volume of essays will expand the corpus of source material and will also provide stimulus for future research on disputations and dissertations. We therefore welcome contributions that undertake comparative interventions for divergent material or that offer exemplary case studies that also widen the scope of scholarship.
Selected Bibliography
- Ahsmann, Margreet J. A. M.: Collegium und Kolleg. Der juristische Unterricht an der Universität Leiden 1575-1630 unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Disputationen. Frankfurt am Main 2000
- Appold, Kenneth G.: Orthodoxie als Konsensbildung. Das theologische Disputationswesen an der Universität Wittenberg zwischen 1570 und 1710. Tübingen 2004
- Appuhn-Radtke, Sibylle: Das Thesenblatt im Hochbarock. Studien zu einer graphischen Gattung am Beispiel der Werke Bartholomäus Kilians. Weißenhorn 1988
- Beck, Andreas: Gisbertus Voetius (1589–1676). Sein Theologieverständnis und seine Gotteslehre. Göttingen 2007
- Chang, Ku-ming (Kevin): From Oral Disputation to Written Text. The Transformation of the Dissertation in Early Modern Europe. In: History of Universities 19/2 (2004), S. 129–187
- Felipe, Donald: The post-medieval ars disputandi. Diss. Austin/Texas 1991
- Freedman, Joseph S.: Philosophy and the Arts in Central Europe, 1500–1700. Teaching and Texts at Schools and Universities. Aldershot u.a. 1999
- Gindhart, Marion und Ursula Kundert (Hg.): Disputatio 1200–1800. Form, Funktion und Wirkung eines Leitmediums universitärer Wissenskultur. Berlin/New York 2010
- Gindhart, Marion, Hanspeter Marti und Robert Seidel (Hg.): Frühneuzeitliche Disputationen – polyvalente Produktionsapparate gelehrten Wissens. Wien u.a. 2016
- Hellekamps, Stephanie / Hans-Ulrich Musolff (Hg.): Zwischen Schulhumanismus und Frühaufklärung. Zum Unterricht an westfälischen Gymnasien 1600–1750. Münster 2009
- Hellekamps, Stephanie / Hans-Ulrich Musolff (Hg.): Lehrer an westfälischen Gymnasien in der frühen Neuzeit. Neue Studien zu Schule und Unterricht 1600–1750. Münster 2014
- Horn, Ewald: Die Disputationen und Promotionen an den Deutschen Universitäten vornehmlich seit dem 16. Jahrhundert. Leipzig 1893
- Komorowski, Manfred: Die Hochschulschriften des 17. Jahrhunderts und ihre bibliographische Erfassung. In: Wolfenbütteler Barocknachrichten 24/1 (1997), S. 19‒42
- Korhonen, Tua: The dissertations in Greek supervised by Henrik Ausius in Uppsala in the middle of the seventeenth century. In: Classical tradition from the 16th century to Nietzsche. Hg. von Janika Päll. Tartu 2010, S. 89–113
- Kundert, Werner: Juristische Dissertationen katholischer Universitäten – eine terra quasi incognita. In: Tijdschrift voor rechtsgeschiedenis 62 (1994), S. 165‒173
- Leinsle, Ulrich G.: Dilinganae Disputationes. Der Lehrinhalt der gedruckten Disputationen an der Philosophischen Fakultät der Universität Dillingen 1555–1648. Regensburg 2006
- Marti, Hanspeter: Philosophische Dissertationen deutscher Universitäten 1660–1750. Eine Auswahlbibliographie, unter Mitarbeit von Karin Marti. München u.a. 1982
- Marti, Hanspeter: Disputatio. In: Historisches Wörterbuch der Rhetorik. Hg. von Gert Ueding. Bd. 1. Tübingen 1994, Sp. 866–880; Dissertatio. In: ebd., Sp. 880–884
- Marti, Hanspeter: Dissertationen. In: Quellen zur frühneuzeitlichen Universitätsgeschichte. Typen, Bestände, Forschungsperspektiven. Hg. von Ulrich Rasche. Wiesbaden 2011, S. 293–312
- Marti, Hanspeter, Reimund B. Sdzuj, Robert Seidel (Hg.): Rhetorik, Poetik und Ästhetik im Bildungssystem des Alten Reiches. Wissenschaftshistorische Erschließung ausgewählter Dissertationen von Universitäten und Gymnasien 1500–1800. Wien u.a. 2016
- Meyer, Véronique: L’illustration des thèses dans la seconde moitié du XVII° siècle. Peintres, Graveurs, Editeurs. Paris 2002
- Müller, Rainer A. (Hg.): Promotionen und Promotionswesen an deutschen Hochschulen der Frühmoderne. Köln 2001
- Müller, Rainer A. (Hg.): Bilder – Daten – Promotionen. Studien zum Promotionswesen an deutschen Universitäten der frühen Neuzeit. Stuttgart 2007
- Novikoff, Alex J.: The Medieval Culture of Disputation. Pedagogy, Practice, and Performance. Berlin / Boston 2014
- Omodeo, Pietro Daniel: Institutionalised Metaphysics of Astronomy at Early Modern Melanchthonian Universities. In: Wissen in Bewegung. Institution – Iteration – Transfer. Hg. von Eva Cancik-Kirschbaum und Anita Traninger. Wiesbaden 2015, S. 65–91
- Reid, Steven J.: Humanism and Calvinism. Andrew Melville and the Universities of Scotland. 1560–1625. Farnham 2011
- Schulze, Renate: Justus Henning Böhmer und die Dissertationen seiner Schüler. Bausteine des Ius Ecclesiasticum Protestantium. Tübingen 2009
- Sdzuj, Reimund B., Robert Seidel und Bernd Zegowitz (Hg.): Dichtung – Gelehrsamkeit – Disputationskultur. Festschrift für Hanspeter Marti zum 65. Geburtstag. Wien u.a. 2012
- Seidel, Robert: Johann Andreas Michael Nagels Disputationen an der Universität Altdorf – Werkstattbericht aus einem wissenschaftshistorischen Erschließungsprojekt. In: Nürnbergs Hochschule in Altdorf. Beiträge zur frühneuzeitlichen Bildungs- und Wissenschaftsgeschichte. Hg. von Hanspeter Marti und Karin Marti-Weissenbach. Wien u.a. 2014, S. 286–314
- Sjökvist, Peter: The Music Theory of Harald Vallerius. Three Dissertations from 17th-century Sweden. Uppsala 2012
- Traninger, Anita: Deklamation – Disputation – Dialog. Medien und Gattungen europäischer Wissensverhandlungen zwischen Scholastik und Humanismus. Stuttgart 2012
- Triebs, Michaela: Die Medizinische Fakultät der Universität Helmstedt (1576–1810). Eine Studie zu ihrer Geschichte unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Promotions- und Übungsdisputationen. Wiesbaden 1995
- Universitätsbibliothek Leiden (Hg.): Hora est! On dissertations. Leiden 2005
- Weijers, Olga: In Search of the Truth. A History of Disputation Techniques from Antiquity to Early Modern Times. Turnhout 2013
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