Dr. Thomas Foerster

Bild von Thomas Foerster

Internationales Kolleg für Geisteswissenschaftliche Forschung "Schicksal, Freiheit und Prognose. Bewältigungsstrategien in Ostasien und Europa"




Postdoctoral Fellow - The Norwegian Institute in Rome

Home Institution: University of Oslo


IKGF Visiting Fellow January 2015 - April 2015

(Last change of profile by end of stay)

IKGF Research Project:

Prophecy, Myth and Political Culture in High Medieval Europe.


Curriculum Vitae

Thomas Foerster obtained his PhD in 2008 from Heidelberg University, Germany, with a thesis entitled "Vergleich und Identität: Selbst-und Fremddeutung im Norden des hochmittelalterlichen Europa". His PhD project was admitted by the German Research Foundation for the Priority Programme 1173 "Integration and Disintegration of Civilizations in the European Middle Ages" and surveyed historical writing in high medieval Scandinavia, with particular emphasis on the construction of cultural and political identities. Afterwards, he received a postdoctoral fellowship at the Centre for Medieval Studies at the University of Bergen, Norway. Later, he added a research focus on political culture and power structures. His postdoctoral research project compared the Hohenstaufen conquest of the Norman kingdom of Sicily in 1194 with the Capetian conquest of Normandy in 1204, with a particular focus on changes in political culture. The resulting book is nearing completion, and has already led to a series of articles, and a co-edited volume on "Tradition and Heritage in the Kingdom of Sicily and the Norman Peripheries", to be published by Ashgate later this year. A second edited collection, on "Figures of History", is currently in preparation for publication. In addition, he has worked on other aspects of political culture, political myths and practices and the purpose of historical writing in early and high medieval Latin Europe. As a result, he has worked and published on materials from Denmark, Norway, Iceland, Germany, Italy, England, France, Poland and Hungary.

Selected Publications

Books and Editions

  • Vergleich und Identität. Selbst- und Fremddeutung im Norden des hochmittelalterlichen Europa, (Europa im Mittelalter, 14), Berlin 2009.

Proceedings

  • Figures of History: The Exemplary Past in Nordic, Norman, and German Historiography, c. 1050-1200, ed. Thomas Foerster and Sigbjørn Sønnesyn, forthcoming Durham 2013.
  • Norman Tradition and Transcultural Heritage: Exchange of Cultures in the Norman Peripheries of Medieval Europe, ed. Stefan Burkhardt and Thomas Foerster, forthcoming Farnham 2013.

Articles

  • ′Die Eroberung der Burg Hohengeroldseck 1486′, in: Zeitschrift für die Geschichte des Oberrheins 152 (2004), 165-87.
  • ′Die historische Verkehrslage Heidelbergs im unteren Neckartal′, in: Heidelberg: Jahrbuch zur Geschichte der Stadt 9 (2004/05), 103-20.
  • [with Wiebke Deimann, Stamatios Gerogiorgakis, Heiko Hiltmann, Kay Peter Jankrift, Christa Jochum-Godglück, Daniel König, Şevket Kü ç ükhüseyin, Jan Rüdiger, Andreas Schorr, Henrik Wels]: ′Arbeitsforum C: Gewalt im Kontext der Kulturen′, in: Mittelalter im Labor: Die Mediävistik testet Wege zu einer transkulturellen Europawissenschaft, ed. Michael Borgolte, Juliane Schiel, Bernd Schneidmüller and Annette Seitz, (Europa im Mittelalter 10), Berlin 2008, 305-555.
  • ′Romanorum et regni Sicilie imperator: Zum Anspruch Kaiser Heinrichs VI. auf das normannische Königreich Sizilien′, in: Archiv für Diplomatik 54 (2008), 37-46.
  • ′Poppo′s Ordeal and the Conversion of the Danes: The Transition of a Myth in Latin and Old Norse Historiography′, in: Zeitschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Linguistik 39/156 (2009), 28-45.
  • ′Der Prophet und der Kaiser: Staufische Herrschaftsvorstellungen am Ende des 12. Jahrhunderts′, in: Staufisches Kaisertum im 12 Jahrhundert: Konzepte - Netzwerke - Politische Praxis, ed. Stefan Burkhardt, Thomas Metz, Bernd Schneidmüller and Stefan Weinfurter, Regensburg 2010, 253-76.
  • ′Political Myths and Political Culture in Twelfth Century Europe′, in: Erfahren, Erzählen, Erinnern: Narrative Konstruktionen von Gedächtnis und Generation in Antike und Mittelalter, ed. Hartwin Brandt, Benjamin Pohl, W. Maurice Sprague and Lina K. Hörl (Bamberger Historische Studien 9), Bamberg 2012, 83-115.
  • [with Jan Rüdiger]: ′Aemulatio - Recusatio: Strategien der Akkulturation im europäischen Norden′, in: Akkulturation im Mittelalter, ed. Reinhard Härtel (Vorträge und Forschungen), forthcoming Ostfildern 2013.
  • [with Stefan Burkhardt]: ′Tradition and Heritage: The Normans in the Transcultural Middle Ages&prime,, in: Norman Identity and Cultural Exchange - Tradition and Heritage in the Kingdom of Sicily and the Norman Peripheries, ed. Stefan Burkhardt and Thomas Foerster, forthcoming Farnham 2013.
  • ′Imperial Tradition and Norman Heritage: Cultures of Violence and Cruelty′, in: Norman Identity and Cultural Exchange - Tradition and Heritage in the Kingdom of Sicily and the Norman Peripheries, ed. Stefan Burkhardt and Thomas Foerster, forthcoming Farnham 2013.
  • ′"...um in der Gerechtigkeit nicht weniger stark wie in der Schlacht zu erscheinen": Königtum und Recht in den Gesta Danorum des Saxo Grammaticus′, in: Macht und Spiegel der Macht, ed. Norbert Kersken and Grischa Vercamer (Quellen und Studien), forthcoming Warsaw 2013.
  • ′Neue Herrschaft in neuen Reichen: normannische Königtümer in England und Sizilien′, in: Idoneität - Genealogie - Legitimation, ed. Cristina Andenna and Gert Melville, forthcoming Dresden 2013.