The Hole Story: Voids and their Constitutive Role in European (Early) Modernity

European cultures tend to overlook voids, or, at best, see them as unpleasant phenomena. Yet voids are not only unavoidable, but actually constitutive in the emergence of European-Western modernity over the last four hundred years—which might now be coming to an end, possibly due to the excessive production of voids. Although the meaning of emptiness was certainly not first conceived in the seventeenth century, empty spaces took on a new role in this early modern period. There were of course the well-known vacuum experiments, but other voids were gaining in importance too: white spots in cartography, the concept of ‘terra nullius’, speculative bubbles, and the technical-military possibilities of extensive destruction, for instance. Voids are thus not only disturbing phenomena or regrettable losses, but crucial constitutive elements in European modernity. Achim Landwehr is Professor of Early Modern History at the University of Konstanz. In his research, he has investigated questions of early modern statehood and aspects of time and the present in the seventeenth century, but has also repeatedly worked on questions of historical theory.