Detail

Events - 11.10.2016 - 00:00 

Anniversaries and commemorative days as occasions for looking back and ahead

From Wednesday, 19 October onwards, the Historical Association of the Canton of St.Gallen will use its public lecture series at the University as a platform for the presentation of anniversaries and commemorative days from the 50th anniversary of the Cantonal Archaeological Office to research work on St.Gallen settlement names and the 200th and 140th anniversaries of Arnold Aepli and Martha Cunz.
Source: HSG Newsroom

12 October 2016. The Historical Association of the Canton of St.Gallen turns history into an experience – and has also done so in many years of cooperation with the University of St.Gallen. In this year's Autumn Semester, the Historical Association will focus on anniversaries and commemorative days.

Cantonal Archaeological Office, settlement names, enslavement
The lecture series will be started by the Cantonal Archaeological Office, which on the one hand will look back on its own 50-year history (19 October) and, on the other hand, present its current work in the depiction of the Rapperswil mithraeum – a temple of the Mithras cult (26 October). After many years of research work, the Historical Association is now able to celebrate the completion of the "St.Galler Namenbuch: Die Siedlungsnamen", a project concerning settlement names in the canton. The project team will provide an insight into the linguistic, historical and cultural relationships of place names in the canton (16 November). A critical view of the Christian occident, which for a long time represented itself as free of slavery, will be provided by an examination of the many-faceted enslavement practices between 1400 and 1600 (7 December).

Commemorative days and the Sykes-Picot Agreement
Commemorative events provide the Historical Association with an opportunity to look for historical answers to present-day issues. The 140th anniversary of the birth of Martha Cunz, a St.Gallen art deco artist, will provide an occasion for studying the influence of Japanese art on European art deco around 1900 (2 November). The bicentenary of Arnold Otto Aepli, one of the most important Swiss statesmen from St.Gallen, outlines Switzerland's modernisation process after 1848, which still continues to shape our social system today (23 November). In the light of the current refugee crisis, a lecture will focus on the Sykes-Picot Agreement concluded 100 years ago, which marked the emergence of the Middle East as we know it today (30 November).

Dates
19 October 50 years of St.Gallen’s Cantonal Archaeology: retrospective and outlook
Dr. Martin Schindler, Head of the St.Gallen Archaeological Office
26 October
INVICTO MITRE – the newly discovered mithraeum in Kempraten, Rapperswil-Jona
Dr. Hannes Flück, excavation director, and archaeologist Sarah Lo Russo
2 November
Martha Cunz (1876–1961) – mistress of the coloured woodcut. The St.Gallen art deco artist in a European context
Dr. Daniel Studer, Director, St.Gallen Historical and Ethnological Museum
16 November
What do Gampiun and Langenagger have in common? Place names as witnesses to the language, history and culture of the Canton of St.Gallen
Dr. Elvira Glaser, Professor of German Philology, University of Zurich, and project leader of the St.Galler Namenbuch, and her members of staff Kevin Müller, Stephan Würth and Dr. Linda Steiner
23 November
Liberal networks and the Swiss success story after 1848. On the bicentenary of Arno Otto Aepli (1816-1897)
Prof. Dr. Joseph Jung, associate professor, University of Fribourg
30 November
The Syria conflict: the 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement and the Middle East
Dr. Henning Sievert, Institute of Asian and Oriental Studies, University of Zurich
7. December
Venice’s slaves. The long shadow of the Italian Renaissance
Dr. Juliane Schiel, Historical Seminar of the University of Zurich
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