Temporalities of Bremen

Bremens 'local time zone': perception, experience and handling of and with time in Bremen, 1400–1600

For humans, time is something embodied, but how it is actually perceived and experienced is also related to cultural conditions. As time also takes on culturally specific forms, it becomes something local, plural and historical. The aim of the project is to explore the multiple forms of 'human time' (temporalities) within the city of Bremen between 1400 and 1600. The main thesis is that Bremen, and pre-modern cities in general, can be usefully conceptualized for this purpose as 'local time zones' within which time took on locally specific forms for people and was thus experienced and perceived in unical ways. Thus, the urban actors, social groups, practices, materialities, and historical developments of different kinds involved in this process also move into the center of research. Bremen is particularly exciting for the research interest, since the difficult relations between the city and the archbishop, the changeable relations with the Hanseatic League, Reformation movements, and finally the Renaissance had a profound effect on local temporalities, pluralizing them locally, hybridizing them, and making them the object of social negotiation processes. The project is structured around five focal points that focus on multiple temporalities in their development and in relation to their local and trans-regional historical contexts: (1) story(s) in competition, (2) materialized temporalities, (3) urban rhythms (4) hybrid temporalities, and (5) multiple pasts, presents, and futures.