Johann Christian Senckenbergs Observationes

The project examines the diaries of the Frankfurt physician and founder Johann Christian Senckenberg (1707-1772), which exhibit characteristics of both the religious diary and the epistemic genre of the observatio, with regard to their functions and cognitive potential in the dual context of the radical pietistic practice of faith and the empiricist practice of science. The question of the sources that could have provided Senckenberg with impulses for his recording practice is central. Finally, Senckenberg's radical pietistic medico-theology will be placed in relation to the medical, theological and epistemological debates of the Enlightenment period. The project understands Senckenberg's records equally as a medium of self-knowledge, knowledge of nature and knowledge of God and opens up new interdisciplinary perspectives for diaristic research in both thematic and genre-orientated terms.