Literary discourse is frequently faced with the challenge to position itself explicitly or implicitly vis-à-vis its own discursive procedures, especially so when called upon to conceptualise historical events and to furnish suitable methods for a reflection of the past. Hence rival constructions of 'antiquity' – e.g. 'medieval' vs. 'early humanist' versions – are not the result of a Renaissance desire for an objective reconstruction of history. First and foremost, they stem from an Early Modern interest in a strategic alignment of 'new' literary treatments of 'old' themes with diachronically distinct points of reference, a process which attempts to mark each individual author's referential framework as productive in terms of innovation, independent of linear 'old'-'new' patterns (Subproject 02 Johnston/Keller). Similar issues surface in Early Modern art theory, where notions involving linear 'old'-'new' relations are contested by anti-teleological approaches: from the mid-16th century onwards, there is a complex scholarly debate concerning the question of whether teleological patterns provide adequate explanatory narratives in art history. The opponents of teleology seek to install non-diachronic and thematical-cum-'topical' approaches as conceptual alternatives. Significantly, the participants in this debate frequently deploy the literary form of the dialogue in order to negotiate the hybrid relations that characterise the works of art themselves. These hybrid relations resist any attempt to subject the work of art to a linear narrative of progress (Subproject 04 von Rosen).