Hans Erich Bödeker, born in Bielefeld, Germany, in 1944. Ph.D. from the Ruhr-Universität Bochum. Senior Research Fellow at the The Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity , Göttingen.
Fellow (1 September 1994 – 30 June 1995)
During my stay at NIAS I wrote a first draft of a study on the use of the concept république, républicanisme in France from 1680 to 1820. During the period studied the concept was mainly determined by the theoretical traditions of civic humanism and of modern natural jurisprudence. In particular the essay traces the historical form of and arguments for a republic in early modern France in order to show how these were shaped by the socio-political circumstances of the time. Thus republicanism is treated not only in terms of certain constitutional and institutional forms but also as `republican ferment’ (F. Venturi). In terms of methods the essay focuses especially on the interrelations between the history of concepts on the one hand and the history of political languages on the other.
My co-Fellows Professor Martin van Gelderen, Professor Iain Hampsher-Monk and me – in co-operation with Professor Catherine Larrère (University of Bordeaux III), Professor Ivo Comparato (University of Perugia), and Professor Quentin Skinner (University of Cambridge) – succeeded in setting up a three year network `Republicanism: a shared European Heritage’ with the European Science Foundation.