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You are here: FRIAS Fellows Fellows 2021/22 Dr. Balázs J. Nemes

Dr. Balázs J. Nemes

© Jörg Blum
University of Freiburg
Medieval German Literature
Junior Fellow
October 2019 - July 2020

Room 02 009
Phone +49 (0) 761-203 97387
Fax +49 (0) 761-203 97451

CV

I was born in 1977. I studied German Literature and Catholic Theology at the universities of Cluj (Romania) und Berlin (Freie Universität), Old Hungarian Literature under the ERASMUS Programme at the university of Budapest (2001/02). Graduation in 2003 (Magister Artium). My PhD thesis was submitted in 2009. Since 2004, I have been working at Prof. Schiewer’s and Prof. Hasebrink’s chair of Medieval Literature at Freiburg University, 2016 I was appointed Senior Lecturer (akademischer Rat). I went to Oxford twice, once as Academic Visitor sponsored by the Landesgraduiertenförderung Baden-Württemberg (2007) and once as a Feodor Lynen Postdoctoral Fellow sponsored by the Humboldt Foundation (2009/10). Since 2018, I lead the DFG-project “Making Mysticism. Mystical Books in the Library of the Erfurt Charterhouse” with Dr. Antje Kellersohn (University Library Freiburg), I am an academic member of the Centre for the Middle Ages (Freiburg University) and a member of the Centre for the History of the Book and Texts (CODEX) at the university of Cluj (Romania). Together with Martina Backes, I am responsible for the conception of the mediaeval exhibition project " buochmeisterinne - Handschriften und Frühdrucke aus dem Freiburger Dominikanerinnenkloster Adelhausen ". The exhibition will be shown between November 2020 and February 2021 as part of the celebrations of the 900th anniversary of the city of Freiburg. More information can be found here

Selected Publications

  • Mechthild von Magdeburg: „Lux divinitatis“ – „Das liecht der gotheit“. Der lateinisch-frühneuhochdeutsche Überlieferungszweig des ‚Fließenden Lichts der Gottheit'. Synoptische Ausgabe, hg. von B. J. N und Elke Senne unter Leitung von Ernst Hellgardt, Berlin 2019. Link.

  • Mechthild und das „Fließende Licht der Gottheit“ im Kontext. Eine Spurensuche in religiösen Netzwerken und literarischen Diskursen im mitteldeutschen Raum des 13.–15. Jahrhunderts, hg. von Caroline Emmelius und Balázs J. Nemes, Berlin: Erich Schmidt 2019 (ZfdPh, Beiheft 17). Link.

  • Trampelpfade historischer Textdeutung. Die mittelalterliche Überlieferung und ihre spatialen Ordnungen, in: De l'(id)entité textuelle au cours du Moyen Âge tardif (XIIIe-XVe siècle), s.d. Barbara Fleith, Réjane Gay-Canton et Géraldine Veysseyre, en coll. avec Aude Mairey, Paris: Classiques Garnier 2017 (Coll. Rencontres Nr. 304, Ser. Civilisation médiévale Nr. 27), 295–322.
  • Das lyrische Œuvre von Heinrich Laufenberg in der Überlieferung des 15. Jahrhunderts. Untersuchungen und Editionen, Stuttgart: Hirzel 2015 (ZfdA, Beiheft 22).
  • Der involvierte Leser. Immersive Lektürepraktiken in der spätmittelalterlichen Mystik-Rezeption, in: Immersion im Mittelalter. Unter Mitarbeit von Susanne Kaplan hg. von Hartmut Bleumer, Stuttgart, Weimar: Metzler 2012 (LiLi 42/167, 2012), 38–62.
  • Von der Schrift zum Buch – vom Ich zum Autor. Zur Text- und Autorkonstitution in Überlieferung und Rezeption des ›Fließenden Lichts der Gottheit‹ Mechthilds von Magdeburg, Tübingen: Narr/Francke/Attempto 2010 (Bibliotheca Germanica 55).
     

FRIAS Research Project

The theologia mystica as “Literature of Experts”. The experti and Their Works in the Reading and Compilation Practice of the Erfurt Carthusian frater N.

What is mysticism? The standard dictionary definition is cognitio Dei experimentalis: the cognition of God grounded in personal experience. Just as in the medieval discussion concerning the weighting of experience and cognition in the vision of God – the goal of so-called mystical theology (theologia mystica) – so too the modern-day, interdisciplinary debate around the concept of mysticism concerns the definition of that relationship between direct experience and subsequent reflection upon it. The judgement reached by an Erfurt Carthusian known as Brother N. (frater N.) in the 1480s upon Jean Gerson (d. 1429), one of the leading theologians of the fifteenth century, is thus all the more interesting: for him Gerson was unqualified (inexpertus) with regard to mystical theology. That judgement is supported with evidence drawn from the style and content of Gerson’s writings on theologia mystica, marshalled to allege that Gerson had no knowledge from personal experience of what he wrote. He reproached Gerson by drawing upon Latin and German (!) works whose authors Brother N. claimed were experienced (experti) in the vision of God. In my project I want not just to edit the relevant textual material, but also to investigate the semantics, the status, and the function of experience in Brother N.’s works regarding the ‘expert literature’, and to provide a contribution to the historicization of the concept of mysticism centered around an illustrative case-study.