It is with great joy and pride that we find Matthias Roick among the winners of the First Call of the PASIFIC Postdoctoral Fellowship Programme*, announced on November 16, 2021. Roick, an intellectual historian and expert on the history of ethics, will join us for two years to work on his project FRIENDS4EVER, “Virtue and Sociability. Teaching Friendship in Early Modern Schools and Universities, 1518-1648”.

Together with his Research Partner Prof. Danilo Facca, he will provide a first in-depth study of academic philosophical discussions on friendship in Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries with a focus on the German lands and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth from the Reformation to the Thirty Years’ War. The chosen period raises the question how notions of friendship changed in an age of religious conflict and confessionalization, with the selected regions offering two alternative models of how to shape post-Reformation society and its discontents. The objective of the project is to bring to light the complex historical dynamics that resulted from the tension between traditional approaches to friendship, represented in the works of Aristotle’s treatment in ‘Nicomachean Ethics’ VIII-IX and Cicero’s dialogue ‘Laelius sive De amicitia’, and the drastic transformations that subverted established ways of life in early modern society.

We are delighted to welcome Matthias Roick to our team! He is no stranger to us and has repeatedly collaborated with professors Valentina Lepri, Danilo Facca, and others. His fellowship will greatly contribute to the Centre’s research activities and to its thriving community.

Sincere congratulations!