EXC 2060 C3-14 - Literary iconoclasm in the Middle Ages

The project is examining iconoclasms in the literature of the Middle Ages (12th-14th centuries). Iconoclasms are a proven means of weakening foreign religions and strengthening one’s own religious position, but they can also be directed against one’s own religious traditions. The overthrow of images is often accompanied, more or less unintentionally, by the production of new images, with the old appearing in a new form. In many cases, iconoclasms are an expression of a strategy to determine in the medium of the image the relationship between religion and politics in a specific way. The project aims to record and categorize the diversity of iconoclastic practices, both internally and externally, and to dissect their underlying religious-cultural logics.