MARIS. Dangerous Elements. Strategies of Mastering Maritime Risks in Antiquity and the Early Modern Ages
Project coordination (Trier): Ulrike Gehring, Simon Karstens, Christian Rollinger
The MARIS-project focuses on pictorial and written representations of maritime risks and strategies for their control in antiquity and the early modern period. The aim of the interdisciplinary study is, on the one hand, to trace interactions between ideas of risk and strategies for risk control across epochs and, on the other hand, to work out their continuities or changes in a historical perspective. In contrast to previous research, not only empirically verifiable, supposedly objective risks such as storms are dealt with, but also subjectively imagined risks rooted in contemporary cultural and religious ideas. Accordingly, the focus of the project goes beyond the investigation of nautical or economic measures of risk management and lies on cultural strategies that serve to describe, categorise and avoid potential risks.
Contact: gehring@uni-trier.de