Patterns of Knowledge Circulation is the Emmy Noether Junior Research Group, founded by the German Research Foundation (DFG), based at the Department of Cultural and Historical Studies. It aims to explore how Jewish esoteric knowledge circulated throughout history in multiple moves of transmission and reception that took place in various social, cultural, and material contexts in early modern East-Central Europe.

The project contributes to the recently expanding field of the history of knowledge, both practical and theoretical, as well as the processes of knowledge formation and transformation in a variety of cultural and social milieus.

The project will provide a systematic digital catalogue and quantitative analysis of Jewish texts commonly deemed esoteric produced and in circulation in East-Central Europe from 1500 to 1750. The catalogue will provide grounds for further analysis of transmission, reception, and movement of these texts in early modern East-Central Europe. It is designed to facilitate further qualitative studies of patterns of knowledge transmission based on quantitative analysis of relevant sources.

In the processes of circulation of kabbalistic knowledge, East-Central Europe played a crucial yet still understudied role. The prevalent scholarly claim that Jewish mystical or kabbalistic thought in early modern East-Central Europe was peripheral to the study of the history of kabbalah goes counter to a large corpus of extant Ashkenazi kabbalistic texts in print and in manuscript form. The project aims to explore this corpus and understand the role of kabbalistic texts and their producers in early modern East-Central European transfer of both practical and theoretical forms of knowledge.