The material culture of burial and its microgeography: A Luxembourg cemetery as a methodological example of an object-centred approach to quantitative material culture studies

in Journal of Material Culture (2019), 24(2), 1-26

This article uses a novel quantitative methodology to examine sepulchral material culture. Drawing on the theoretical frameworks of social spatialization and art as agency, the authors contend that ... [more ▼]

This article uses a novel quantitative methodology to examine sepulchral material culture. Drawing on the theoretical frameworks of social spatialization and art as agency, the authors contend that variations in grave designs and materiality cannot simply be explained in terms of changes in fashion and mentality. Other factors also need to be taken into account. Using a digital data collection tool, the Cemetery Surveyor Application (CSA) developed at the University of Luxembourg, they compile a set of data encompassing all the material aspects of each grave in a cemetery in Luxembourg (Western Europe), the setting of their case study. The graves are dated from the 1850s to 2015. |The authors compare the chronological evolution of the most recurrent material features with a GIS-based spatial analysis of the same features. The results of the spatial analysis not only largely confirm the chronological study, but also allow them to be more precise (dating is often problematic) and include undated graves (a third of the sample). The digital data collection tool also allows them to compare cemeteries and to highlight variations in these that cannot merely be imputed to chronology, but also to spatial proximity and material agency. [less ▲]

Friedhof, Heldenhain oder Totenburg? Der Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge und die Soldatenfriedhöfe Sandweiler und Clausen im Großherzogtum Luxemburg.

in Philippart, Robert L.; Reuter, Antoinette; Kmec, Sonja (Eds.) Ewige Ruhe? Concession à perpétuité? - Grabkulturen in Luxemburg und den Nachbarregionen - Cultures funéraires au Luxembourg et dans les régions voisines (2019)

Eine andere Migrationsgeschichte - tote Soldaten der Grande Guerre im Luxemburger Erzbecken

in Mutations. Mémoires et Perspectives du Bassin Minier (2018), 10

Dieser Kurzartikel behandelt die ephemeren Grabstätten deutscher und französischer Kriegsgefallener während des Ersten Weltkrieges und deren Umbettung in den 1920er-Jahren

Zwischen Mensch und Ding

in Hahn, Hans Peter; Neumann, Friedemann (Eds.) Dinge als Herausforderung: Kontexte, Umgangsweisen und Umwertungen von Objekten (2018)

Cemeteries and urban form: a historico-geographcial approach

in Journal of Urban Morphology (2018), 22(2), 119-139

Research in urban morphology rarely takes account of the specific forms of burial grounds. This paper offers a synthesis of how Christian cities of the dead mirror the cities of the living, and provides ... [more ▼]

Research in urban morphology rarely takes account of the specific forms of burial grounds. This paper offers a synthesis of how Christian cities of the dead mirror the cities of the living, and provides an overview of different Western European 'funeral epochs'. The shifting location of burial grounds realtes to major changes in town planning and building. Adopting a historico-geographical approach, micro-morphological transformatins of grave-plot forms and their cardinal orientations and accessibility are explored in the context of changing religious beliefs, rules of hygiene, and practical and aesthetic consideration. The role of cemeteries in fringe-belt development is presented, using Vienna as a historical case study. [less ▲]

Eine Militärgeschichte Luxemburgs? Auch das noch!

Article for general public (2017)

(Untertitel) Überlegungen über Sinn und Möglichkeiten einer "neuen" Militärgeschichtsschreibung zum Großherzogtum

Funerary Culture and Modernisation in the State of Luxembourg (1800-2000)

in Revue Belge de Philologie et d'Histoire (2017), 95

This article discusses funerary politics in relationship to the political culture of the small state of Luxembourg in northwest Europe during the age of modernisation. During the long nineteenth century ... [more ▼]

This article discusses funerary politics in relationship to the political culture of the small state of Luxembourg in northwest Europe during the age of modernisation. During the long nineteenth century, the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg experienced several political changes which affected sepulcral culture, but this did not lead to a 'Kulturkampf' over cemeteries between the Church and the State as is occurred in neighbouring countries. Disputes were resolved at the local level. We apply small power theory to explain the relatively harmonious co-existenc of State power with the Catholic clergy, and hightlight the iportant role of local government. For the top-down introduction of cremation, we need ot change scale and focus on an urban elite setting the national agenda. Luxembourg was one of the last member states of the European Union to place body/earth burial andd cremation on an equal legal footing and its own 'national' crematorium only opened in the 1990s. [less ▲]

Ausweisungspraxis und Moraldiskurs in Luxemburg. Das Beispiel der Prostitution als Gefährdung öffentlicher Ordnung und Sicherheit in den Akten der großherzoglichen Behörden (1880-1940)

in Hemecht : Zeitschrift für Luxemburger Geschichte = Revue d'Histoire Luxembourgeoise (2017), 69(1), 29-49

Disciplinary and regulatory governmental proceedings intersect, for instance when disciplinary rules and judiciary norms operate on the basis of suspicion and there-fore just happen to disenfranchise ... [more ▼]

Disciplinary and regulatory governmental proceedings intersect, for instance when disciplinary rules and judiciary norms operate on the basis of suspicion and there-fore just happen to disenfranchise certain groups of people. The case study of Luxembourg’s practice of expulsion before the Second World War offers insights into the administration of ‘undesirable foreigners’ which was based on identifying women who supposedly infringed bourgeois moral gender order. Women from abroad of dubious reputation could become a double threat to bourgeois norms and values. Based on extensive research on archival funds, this article seeks to shed light on the intersecting quality of gendering foreigners and ethnicizing prostitutes in a self-reinforcing bureaucratic procedure leading to deportation. [less ▲]

Fighting for a Living. A Comparative History of Military Labour 1500-2000 (ed. by Erik-Jan Zürcher)

in International Review of Social History (2016), 61

Phnom Penh

in Hiery, Hermann (Ed.) Lexikon zur Überseegeschichte (2015)