Prof Dr. Werner Mezger
Professor of Cultural Anthropology and European Ethnology (formerly Volkskunde) with a focus on southwest German regional culture in a European context
Director of the Institute of Folklore of the Germans of Eastern Europe (IVDE)
Prof. Mezger is retired since 1.10.2019.
Email private: wernermezger@t-online.de
Research interests
- Traditional and festive traditions in European comparison (history of ideas and performance)
- Homeland and identity in the globalization process
- Southwest German regional culture
- European cultural policy between de-nationalization and renationalization
- Migration and Integration - Dealing with Cultural Difference
- Border regime, cultural contacts and cultural conflicts using the example of the Greater Alps region
- Religiosity in modernity between secularization and fundamentalism
- Populist instrumentalizations of the concept of culture
- Tradition and progress in discourses from 1968 to today
- Transformation processes of advanced modernity
- Time perception, time classification, time budgeting
- Social media and visual anthropology
- The Internet as a research instrument and research topic
Project
- Folklore Europaea - Multimedia database documenting festivals, customs and traditions in Europe as a research base for comparative European ethnology
Biographical
- Born in Rottweil in 1951
- 1970 - 1975 Studies of German Studies, History and Empirical Cultural Studies / Folklore at the University of Tübingen
- 1975 state examination and doctorate
- 1976 - 1977 legal traineeship
- 1977 - 1995 High school teaching
- 1989 Habilitation at the University of Freiburg i. Br.
- 1990/91 professorship at the University of Freiburg i. Br.
- 1991-1995 guest lecturer at the Universities of Zurich, Augsburg and Bamberg
- until 1995 study director as specialist consultant for German at the Tübingen secondary school
- since 1996 Professor of Folklore, today Cultural Anthropology and European Ethnology at the University of Freiburg i. Br.
- since 1996 director of the Johannes Künzig Institute for East German Folklore (JKI), today Institute for Folklore of the Germans of Eastern Europe (IVDE) in Freiburg i. Br.
- 2001 Refusal of a call to the Department of Folklore at the University of Bonn
Prizes and awards
- 1990 Culture Award of the German Carnival
- 2001 Medal of Merit of the State of Baden-Württemberg
- 2002 Bodensee Literature Prize
- 2006 Media Prize of the University of Freiburg
- 2014 Federal Cross of Merit
Memberships
- Chairman of the DGV Commission for German and Eastern European Folklore
- German Society for Folklore e. V.
- Scientific Advisory Board of the Danube Swabian Central Museum Ulm
- Scientific Advisory Board of the open-air museum Neuhausen ob Eck
- Scientific Advisory Board of the Deutscher Tagebucharchiv in Emmendingen
- Scientific Advisory Board of the Museum of Bread Culture Ulm
- Commission Scientifique of the Écomusée d'Alsace
- The jury of the Danube Swabian Culture Prize of the State of Baden-Württemberg
- Jury of the German Federal Cultural Award of the State of Baden-Württemberg
- State Jury Baden-Württemberg for the Intangible Cultural Heritage of UNESCO
Monographs (selection):
- Swabian-Alemannic carnival. Heritage and Living Tradition, Darmstadt 2015
- The big book of the Rottweiler carnival. History, forms, and functions of an urban custom, Vöhrenbach 2004
- The big book of the Swabian-Alemannic Fasnet. Origins, developments and manifestations of organized fooling around in southwestern Germany, Stuttgart 1999
- St. Nicholas between cult and Klamauk. On the origin, development, and change of the forms of usage around a popular saint, Stuttgart / Ostfildern 1993
- The customs of the high school graduates: from card greeting to supergravity. A contribution to student folklore (= cultural-historical sketches, edited by Werner Mezger and Werner Wunderlich, Vol. 1), Konstanz 1993
- Fool idea and carnival custom. Studies on the survival of the Middle Ages in European festive culture (Konstanz Library, edited by Peter Böger et al., Vol. 15), Konstanz 1991
- Foolishness and tradition. The Rottweilers Fasnet, Stuttgart 1984
- The vault in the south nave of the Rottweiler Minster (= publications of the city archives Rottweil, Vol. 7), Rottweil 1982
- Jesters in the Middle Ages. From the deeper meaning of a strange office, Konstanz 1981
- Disco culture. The adolescent super scene, Heidelberg 1980
- Bat. Attempt to an overall representation with special consideration of the music market of the Federal Republic of Germany (= examinations of the Ludwig Uhland Institute of the University of Tübingen, hg.v. Hermann Bausinger u.a., Bd. 39), Tübingen 1975
Essays (selection):
- Regional awareness between the local horizon and global dissolution of boundaries, in: Speeches on Upper Swabia, Ravensburg (forthcoming)
- Stagings of Heimat on the Sudeten German day. The festive culture between no more and not yet, in: Proceedings of the IVDE, Münster (forthcoming)
- Medial insights. What can be experienced as a researcher in dealing with press, radio and television, in: Maximilianstraße 15. 50 years Institute of Folklore in Freiburg - an introduction, hg. v. Jörg Giray, Markus Tauschek, Sabine Zinn-Thomas (= Freiburg Studies on Cultural Anthropology, edited by the Institute for Cultural Anthropology and European Ethnology, 1), Münster / New York 2017, 270 - 281.
- The Institute of Folklore of the Germans of Eastern Europe (IVDE). From side by side to togetherness, in: Maximilianstraße 15. 50 years Institute of Folklore in Freiburg - an introduction, hg. v. Jörg Giray, Markus Tauschek, Sabine Zinn-Thomas (= Freiburg Studies on Cultural Anthropology, edited by the Institute for Cultural Anthropology and European Ethnology, 1), Münster / New York 2017, 141 - 150.
- The donkey between dignity and humor. On the ambivalence of his interpretation from antiquity to the liturgy of Palm Sunday, in: Animal interpretations and animal allegories from the Middle Ages to the present, hg. v. Michael Brunner, Petersberg 2017, 52 - 79
- From the language islands to the expellees. The folklorist Johannes Künzig and after 1945, in: Freiburg in the National Socialism, ed. v. Peter Kalchthaler u. Tilmann von Stockhausen (= publication series of the Baden homeland), Freiburg 2017, 101 - 119 age questions - side views into the temporal depth dimension, in: Learn - Call - Understand. Taking everyday life under the microscope (Festschrift for Michael Simon's 60th birthday), ed. v. Christina Niem, Thomas Schneider, Mirko Uhlig (= Mainz Contributions to Cultural Anthropology / Folklore, Vol. Münster / New York 2016, 249 - 257Trials around Sankt Martin. Cultural capital for a Christian Europe, in: Martin von Tours. A leading figure for a humane Europe and the future of Christianity in Europe, ed. v. Gebhard Fürst, Ostfildern 2016, 185 - 228
- Hermann Bausinger 90, in: Yearbook for German and Eastern European Folklore 57/2016, 150 - 153
- Le personnage du Fou dans la tradition carnevalesque au nord des Alpes, in: Le Monde à l 'envers. Carnavals et mascarades d'Europe et de Méditerranée, ed. v. Marie-Pascal Mallé, Paris 2014, 126 - 129
- Homeland in change and home care of the future, in: Home NRW. Yesterday - Today - Tomorrow, hg. v. the NRW Foundation, Essen 2012, 127 - 148
- Native language Swabian - living with the dialect. Attempt at a personal balance, in: Swabian. Dialect with tradition and future (= Festschrift on the 10th anniversary of the Förderverein Schwäbischer Dialekt eV), ed. v. Hubert Wicker, Tübingen 2011, 79 - 90
- Obyczaje karnawałowe i filozofia błazeństwa (przeł Wojciech Dudzik), in: Karnawał. Studia historyczno-antropologiczne, Warsaw 2011, 151 - 174
- Festivals in the church year, in: places of remembrance of Christianity, ed. v. Christoph Markschies u. Hubert Wolf, Munich 2010, 477 - 491
- Foolish societies and their quasi-empires in the urban carnival of the 15th and 16th centuries, in: The Kingdom of the Fools. Carnival in the Middle Ages, ed. v. Johannes Grabmayer (= series of publications of the Academy Friesach, Neue Folge 1, Friesach / Klagenfurt 2009, 145 - 212
- (together with Michael Prosser): European Festival Research, European Ethnology and the online database "Folklore Europaea" - a project outline, in: Festival, Custom, Identity - Ünnep, szokás, identitás. Hungarian-German contact fields, ed. v. Csilla Schell u. Michael Prosser, Freiburg 2008, 183 - 200
- On the interpretation of the carnival, in: Masquera. The historic Villinger Fasnet, ed. v. Dieter Wacker, Villingen 2007, 16 - 31
- The Hus house in Konstanz. Stations of Czech-German memorial culture, in: The memory of the places. Meaningfulness and Remembrance (= series of publications of the Johannes-Künzig-Institut, Vol. 8), ed. v. Elisabeth Fendl, Freiburg 2006, 307 - 336
- The fool - key figure of a turn of epoch, in: Myths of Europe. Key Figures of the Imagination, Vol. 4, Renaissance, ed. v. Christine Strobel u. Michael Neumann, Regensburg 2006, 196 - 219
- Documentation and research under the framework of § 96 BVFG. The Freiburg Johannes Künzig Institute for East German Folklore, in: Large-scale folklore projects. Your story and future, ed. v. Christoph Schmitt, Münster / New York / Munich / Berlin 2005, 85 - 98
- Carnival and carnival museums in Germany and Europe, in: Cologne Carnival Museum. Tradition, fascination, diversity, ed. v. Michael Euler-Schmidt, Cologne 2005, 110-125
- Relic, in: Encyclopedia of the fairy tale, buried v. Kurt Ranke, ed. v. Rolf Wilhelm Brednich u. a., Vol. 11, Berlin / New York 2004, 554 - 562
- "Baden folk life in the 19th century". The folkloristic survey of 1894/95 in Baden and its utilization by Elard Hugo Meyer, in: Volksleben in the 19th century. Studies on the Bavarian physics reports and related sources, ed. v. Peter Fassl and Rolf Kießling (= Publications of the Swabian Research Community, Series 10: Sources of Historical and Regional Geography, Vol. 2), Augsburg 2003, 143 - 168
- Popular cultures in transition. Eastern and Eastern Central Europe, in: Regional Folk Cultures in East Central Europe. Demarcation - Neighborhood - Interethnik (= Materials of the Institute for Danube Swabian History and Geography Tübingen, 13), hg. v. Hans Gehl, Tübingen 2002, 15 - 33
- "It was in the Bohemian Forest ..." On the technique and topic of cinematic memory, in: On the Iconography of Homesickness. Culture of remembrance of expellees, ed. v. Elisabeth Fendl (= Publications of the Johannes Künzig Institute for East German Folklore, Vol. 4), Freiburg 2002, 195 - 222
- From Kirchenmann to box office hit: St. Nicholas in the cultural transformation process, in: The fascination of Nicholas. Cult, custom and commerce, ed. v. Alois Döring (= Publications of the Landschaftsverband Rheinland), Essen 2001, 11 - 41
- Fool, in: Encyclopedia of the fairy tale, buried v. Kurt Ranke, ed. v. Rolf Wilhelm Brednich u. a., Vol. 9, Berlin / New York 2001, 1194 - 1202
- Carnival, in: Religion in History and the Present, 4th ed. v. Hans Dieter Betz, Don S. Browning, Bernd Janowski u. Eberhard Jüngel, Vol. 4, Tübingen 2001, ..... - ......
- Masks at carnival, carnival and Carnival. On the history and function of disguise and disguise during the foolish days, in: masks and masks (= border crossings, 3), hg. v. Alfred Schäfer u. Michael Wimmer, Opladen 2000, 109-136
- Folklore and television. Interim results of a cooperation attempt, in: Swiss Archives of Folklore 96/2000, 201 - 227
- From organic to organized custom. Fasnet in southwestern Germany and the union of Swabian-Alemannic fool guilds, in: The history of organized carnival, ed. v. d. Association of Swabian-Alemannic Narrenzünfte, Vöhrenbach 1999, 7 - 42
- The front Austrian Carnival: Traditions and Nachklänge, in: Front Austria - only the tail feather of the imperial eagle? The Habsburgs in the German southwest (= exhibition catalog), ed. v. Württemberg State Museum Stuttgart, Stuttgart / Ostfildern 1999, 314 - 321
- "Backwards into the future" - Metamorphoses of the Swabian-Alemannic carnival, in: carnival / Carnival in the European comparison (= Mainz lectures, 3), ed. v. Michael Matheus, Stuttgart 1999, 121 - 173
- With the turnaround not over: The Freiburg Institute for East German Folklore between old tasks and new goals, in: Yearbook of German and Eastern European ethnology 42/1999, 1 - 19
- Narrenidee, in: Encyclopedia of Theology and Church, from v. Walter Buchberger, 3rd completely reworked. Ed. Hg. v. Walter Kasper, Vol. 7, Freiburg i. Br. / Basel / Rome / Vienna 1998, 643 - 644
- Nikolaus v. Myra, in: Encyclopedia of Theology and Church, buried v. Walter Buchberger, 3rd completely reworked. Ed. Hg. v. Walter Kasper, Vol. 7, Freiburg i. Br. / Basel / Rome / Vienna 1998, 859 - 860
- Music and custom. Forms and functions of the sound culture in the festivities of the annual run, in: folk music care in Baden-Wuerttemberg (conference volume of the folk music symposium at the Landesakademie for the music-making youth in Ochsenhausen 12. 7. - 14. 7. 1996), hg. v. Wulf Wager, Karlsruhe 1997, 4 - 56
- "Burn on my light ..." On the development, function and meaning of the forms of the martial day, in: Martin von Tours. A saint of Europe, ed. v. Werner Groß and Wolfgang Urban, Ostfildern 1997, 273 - 350
- Nicholas of Myra. A saint in the cultural process, in: ruler, heroes, saints (= medieval myths, vol. 1), ed. v. Ulrich Müller u. Werner Wunderlich, St. Gallen 1996, 607-628
- Mask in piety and custom, in: Encyclopedia of Theology and Church, buried v. Walter Buchberger, 3rd completely reworked. Ed. Hg. v. Walter Kasper, Vol. 6, Freiburg i. Br. / Basel / Rome / Vienna 1996
- The managed cheerfulness. Carnival and Carnival between spontaneity and organization. Lecture on the 50th anniversary of the Community of Interest in the Middle Rhine Carnival in Mainz, in: Folklore in Rhineland-Palatinate, Issue 2/1996, 34 - 48
- Fool idea and carnival custom. Aspects of the genesis, function and meaning of an annually recurring recreational date in the European late Middle Ages, in: Il tempo libero. Economia e società (Loisirs, Leisure, Tiempo libre, Leisure) Secc. XIII - XVIII (= Istituto Internazionale di Storia economica "F.Datini" Prato Series II - Atti delle "Settimane di Studi" e altri Convegni 26), ed. v. Simonetta Cavaciocchi, Prato 1995, 271-281
- Local festivities as a screen event - to the folklore film on television of the 90s, in: Swabian homeland 4/1995, 334 - 346
- "Quem quaeritis - who are you looking for?" On the dynamics of popular culture in the Middle Ages using the example of the liturgical drama, in: Modern Middle Ages. New pictures of a popular epoch, ed. v. Joachim Heinzle, Frankfurt / M 1994, 209 - 243
- Masks, Mask circulations (before 1500), in: Encyclopedia of the Middle Ages, ed. v. Robert-Henri Bautier u. a., Vol. VI, Munich / Zurich 1993, 363-364
- Fool, in: Encyclopedia of the Middle Ages, ed. v. Robert-Henri Bautier u. a., Bd.VI, Munich / Zurich 1993, 1023-1026
- Fool literature, in: Encyclopedia of the Middle Ages, ed. v. Robert-Henri Bautier u. a., Vol. VI, Munich / Zurich 1993, 1027-1028
- Ancient motifs and elements in the carnival of the late Middle Ages? On continuity and discontinuity of the traditions of classical antiquity, in: Carnival phenomena in ancient and post-antique cultures and literatures. Places and forms of communication I, ed. v. Siegmar Döpp (= Bochumer antiquity scientific Colloquium, Bd. 13), Trier, 1993, 239-264
- (together with Günter Schenk) Sladami karnawalu w Niemczech i w Swajcarii, in: Maska w Obrzedzie. Materialy z sesji popularno-naukowej (= Theses of the ZDF-film "How Eva got into carnival", Polish by Lucyna Zaplotny), Krakow 1993, 37 - 44
- Folklore and education. Opportunities for cooperation on the example of a study of the student culture, in: logic of pedagogy. Pedagogy as interdisciplinary task area, ed. v. Bernhard Möller, 4 vols., Oldenburg 1992, vol. 2 (= The contribution of the humanities to pedagogy, part 2), 279 - 294
- Karl Meuli and the exploration of the mask system from today's perspective, in: Classical antiquity and new ways of cultural studies. Symposium Karl Meuli (Basel, September 11-13, 1991), ed. v. Fritz Graf, Basel 1992, 63 - 91
- St. Nicholas between catechesis, slapstick and commerce. On the metamorphoses of a popular custom complex, in: Swiss Archives of Folklore 1/2, 1990, 62 - 92 (part I) and 3/4, 1990, 178 - 201 (part II)
- Carnival - vital custom or care case? On the problem of the organized handling of the tradition, in: Wild masks. Another view of the carnival (= accompanying volume to an exhibition in the reel tower of the Tübingen castle, 25.1 - 5.3.1989), ed. v. Gottfried Korff u. a., Tuebingen 1989, 27 - 31
- Practical phenomena between orality, writing and imagery. Observations based on a Dutch Carnival book of the 16th century, in: Folk poetry between Orality and written form, ed. v. Lutz Röhrich u. Erika Lindig (= ScriptOralia, Vol. Tübingen 1989, 189 - 327
- St. Martin's Day. Customs in the field of tension between economics and catechesis, in: God's people. Bible and liturgy in the life of the church, ed. v. Hubert Ritt, Year of Reading B, Issue 8, Stuttgart 1988, 116 - 128
- Funkenmariechen and old witch mother - women in carnival, in: Swabian homeland 1/1987, 9 - 13
- Foolery and catechesis. To the Christian frame of reference of carnival, carnival and Carnival, in: God's people. Bible and liturgy in the life of the church, ed. v. Hubert Ritt, Year A, Issue 2, Stuttgart 1986, 88 - 99
- Carnaval tussen gisteren en morgen, in: Volkscultuur. Tijdschrift over tradities en tijdsverschijnselen 1/1986, 38 - 44
- Discotheque and Walkman, in: Music Psychology. A handbook in key terms, ed. v. Herbert Bruhn u. a., Munich / Vienna / Baltimore 1985, 390 - 394
- Carnival in the late Middle Ages. On the development and meaning of a folk festival, in: Waldshut carnival. Alemannic customs on the High Rhine (= series of publications of the Association of Swabian-Alemannic Narrenzünfte, cited by Wilhelm Kutter, Vol. 3), Konstanz 1985, 31 - 50
- Carnival in the understanding of the late Middle Ages. On custom development, interpretation of meaning and the oldest Horber sources, in: Horber Fasnet once and today, ed. v. Franz Gessler (= publications of the culture and museum association Horb a.N., consequence 4), Horb 1985, 7 - 22
- Youth in Trance - discotheque as a communication center, in: ShowTech '84. Proceedings, hg.v. AMK Berlin, Berlin 1984, 143 - 144
- Communication partner at the kiosk. Business with the commercial youth magazines, in: Media + Education. Bi-monthly magazine for audiovisual communication 2/1984, 66 - 78
- The fool in front of the church. Sword Dance in Überlingen, in: Schwäbische Heimat 1/1984, 8 - 13
- Fools, bells and quirks. Main features of a history of ideas of folly, in: Werner Mezger u. a .: Fools, bells and quirks. Eleven Contributions to the Narren Idea (= Cultural-Historical Researches, Vol. 3, ed. By Dietz-Rüdiger Moser), Remscheid 1984, 1 - 35
- An image program for the fool idea. The Ambraser ornamental plate from 1528, in: Fas (t) night in history, art and literature, ed. v. Horst Sund, Constance 1984, 81 - 113
- Food for thought for meaning research. The fool's figure in carnival, in: Yearbook of Folklore 6/1983, 78 - 84
- Hobbyhorse - hobbyhorse - quirk. From iconography to semantics, in: Zeitschrift fur Volkskunde 79/1983, 245 - 250
- Our dialect. A lesson in folklore, in: politics and education. Journal of Political Education, ed. v. the national center for political education Baden-Wuerttemberg 4/1982, 57 - 60 u. 64 - 68
-
The Ambraser fool's plate and a fresco on the Churburg. Immortal folly, in: The window. Tyrolean cultural magazine 29/1981, 2917 - 2926
-
On the problem of the day discotheques for pupils, in: ajs information (= announcements of the action youth protection, state workplace Baden-Wuerttemberg) 4/1981, 4 - 7
-
Remarks on the medieval fool idea, in: Fool freedom. Contributions to carnival research (= Studies by the Ludwig-Uhland-Institute of the University of Tübingen, edited by Hermann Bausinger et al., Vol. 51), Tübingen 1980, 43 - 87
-
Carnival, carnival and carnival as a social role-eeperiment, in: Narrenfreiheit. Contributions to carnival research (= Studies by the Ludwig-Uhland-Institute of the University of Tübigen, edited by Hermann Bausinger et al., Vol. 51), Tübingen 1980, 203 - 226
-
The Ambraser fool's plate from 1528. A contribution to the iconography of the late medieval fool's idea, in: Zeitschrift fur Volkskunde 2/1979, 161 - 180
-
Star and hit in the lives of teenagers. Significance, problems, possibilities and approaches of educational work in youth work and school, in: Children and adolescents in the field of tension of the mass media, ed. v. Martin Furian, Stuttgart 1977, 140-154
C. Editorships - Co-publisher of publications of the Institute of Folklore of the Germans of Eastern Europe (IVDE)
- Co-editor of the Yearbook for German and Eastern European Folklore
- Co-editor of the publication series of the Commission for German and Eastern European Folklore
- Media practice in radio and television
- Since 1976 numerous radio broadcasts predominantly for the Südwestrundfunk (formerly SDR and SWF)
- Since 1992 scientific consulting, commenting and moderation in more than 350 TV broadcasts of Südwestrundfunk (formerly SDR and SWF)
Supervised dissertations
Completed:
- Baumgarten, Katrin: Hagestolz and Alte Jungfer. Development, instrumentalization and survival of clichés and stereotypes about the unmarried, 1996
- Wilczek, Gabriele Valeska: Folk culture from a foreign source. Indian and western hobby in Germany between Americanization, "anti-imperialism" and popularized ethnology, 1997
- Hutter, Gabriele: One does not talk about money ... Speeches and silence, showing and hiding in dealing with money from a cultural scientific point of view, 2001
- Schicht, Jochen: "A real Rottweiler cries when stroke eight of the fools jump begins". Construction and presentation practice of a "native symbol" - On the influence of urban festive culture on local identity, illustrated by the example of carnival in Rottweil, 2003
- Hartig, Nana: Man in the garden. Garden Experiences of the Present as a Mirror of Mythical Thinking, 2003
- Noack, Julia: Objectivations of the commons dilemma in areas of European ethnology. Trends in the sharing of publicly available goods, 2003
- Fischer, Kathrin: The witches of postmodernity. Folklore research on
- Wiccatum in German-speaking countries, 2007
- Lörcher, Andreas: Anti-Semitism in everyday life and public debate in the late fifties. Microhistorical study and discourse analysis of the case Zind, 2008
- Shumska, Veronika: "God loves strangers." On the role of piety mediation among immigrants from the Soviet Union and successor states using the example of two religious communities in Freiburg, 2012
- Barongo, Solomey: Black and white images: a study on the cultural perception of European white people, 2013
- Hausser, Bernd: Theater, Tennis, Pottery Courses: Cultural mediation through municipal children's holiday programs, 2013
- Dietzig-Schicht, Sabine: Organic farmers today. Agriculture in the Black Forest between tradition and modernity, 2016
- Descas, Dorina: Transformation processes of customs at the foot of the Carpathians in post-socialism: On the influence of the medium of television on Romanian traditions, 2017
In progress:
- Kiedaisch, Franziska: The Sorbs on the Screen: On the Social Imagination of a National Minority on the Basis of Public Broadcasting (Expected in 2017)