1-3 June 2024, Bad Staffelstein, Oberfranken
FANE in collaboration with Prof. Uwe Voigt and the support of the educational center Vierzehnheiligen in Bad Staffelstein, an institution attached to a Franciscan monastery and basilica on the slopes of the Upper Main Valley in Oberfranken, held this public colloquium on the future of these traditional Cistecrian farmlands. The meetings brought community leaders together with international specialists in environmental philosophy and ecologists to think about the future of this beautiful but rapidly changing landscape.
Prof Voigt has summarised the proceedings as follows.
“The landscapes we live in are the heritage of many past generations. In our disruptive times, we are facing the question if and how we can preserve and pass on that heritage. The director of the Bildungshaus Vierzehnheiligen, Prof. Dr. Elmar Koziel, greeted our group. In the morning, Prof. Dr. Ryosuke Ohashi (Kyoto) spoke about wind as a concept of the cultured landscape in Japan, and Prof. Dr Tanehisa Otabe (Tokyo) dealt with landscape as inter-being. In the afternoon, Prof. Dr. Barry Stephenson (St. John’s) raised the topic of monastic landscapes and their development across the ages. Subsequently, Prof. Dr. Christian Illies (Bamberg) raised the question “How free are we to change our relation to nature?”
In the evening, we braved a rainstorm to get to the nearby village of Klosterlangheim, former site of a large Cistercian monastery which has shaped the landscape of the region to a great extent. At a local inn, a roundtable was held with local people in order to discuss their concerns about the landscape they live in and love. Prof. Dr. Thomas Gunzelmann (Bamberg), an expert in the historical cultured landscapes of Franconia, showed how recreation, reflection, and representations of this environment have varied in history. After supper and an excursion to the local museum, the promise and threat of tourism to the area was discussed.