Strangers in Imperial Cities
Mühlhausen|Thüringen, 3rd – 5th March 2025
Twelfth academic conference of the Mühlhausen-based Working Group “History of the Free Imperial Cities” in conjunction with the Friedrich Christian Lesser Foundation and the Historical Society of Mühlhausen (Mühlhäuser Geschichts- und Denkmalpflegeverein e. V.).
Conception
Today, the terms “foreignness” and “strangeness” are frequently deployed as political slogans that are often misused to claim the prerogative of interpretation in discourses of belonging and identity. In the pre-modern period, however, the “foreign” or the “alien” was by no means used only for the political appropriation of idealised identities or perceived external threats. The “foreign” often had a positive connotation, being seen as a stimulus and an exotic enrichment, which, at best, enhanced one’s own reputation.
Imperial Cities, with their legally and economically privileged position had a special relationship with “the other”.
The rules of the game were different here, which was particularly evident in times of external threat. At the same time, the city walls that separated the inside from the outside, were permeable, allowing a dynamic, if selective, circulation of people, ideas, and objects. But the urban space was also fragmented internally, because here, “foreign” areas of different laws were all part of the city as a living an interpretative space. Negotiation processes also shaped events, festivals, fairs or Imperial Assemblies. Party formations and struggles that made use of the communicative strategies and symbols of a thoroughly modern “othering” were also part of the political culture.
The conference will focus on questions of a unique approach to “foreignness” and “otherness” in Imperial Cities. It also looks at individual actors and the dynamic practices of inclusion and exclusion they developed, which helped to shape the urban “identity” of the pre-modern period. This is presented in six sections, based on case studies and new concepts, which also allow comparison with the context of non-Imperial urbanities. The traditional excursion on Wednesday will build a bridge to the current nation-state discourse and its highly politicised treatment of “foreigners” and “foreignness”.