Project acronym AlchemEast
Project Alchemy in the Making: From ancient Babylonia via Graeco-Roman Egypt into the Byzantine, Syriac and Arabic traditions (1500 BCE - 1000 AD)
Researcher (PI) Matteo MARTELLI
Host Institution (HI) ALMA MATER STUDIORUM - UNIVERSITA DI BOLOGNA
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH5, ERC-2016-COG
Summary The AlchemEast project is devoted to the study of alchemical theory and practice as it appeared and developed in distinct, albeit contiguous (both chronologically and geographically) areas: Graeco-Roman Egypt, Byzantium, and the Near East, from Ancient Babylonian times to the early Islamic Period. This project combines innovative textual investigations with experimental replications of ancient alchemical procedures. It uses sets of historically and philologically informed laboratory replications in order to reconstruct the actual practice of ancient alchemists, and it studies the texts and literary forms in which this practice was conceptualized and transmitted. It proposes new models for textual criticism in order to capture the fluidity of the transmission of ancient alchemical writings. AlchemEast is designed to carry out a comparative investigation of cuneiform tablets as well as a vast corpus of Greek, Syriac and Arabic writings. It will overcome the old, pejorative paradigm that dismissed ancient alchemy as a "pseudo-science", by proposing a new theoretical framework for comprehending the entirety of ancient alchemical practices and theories. Alongside established forms of scholarly output, such as critical editions of key texts, AlchemEast will provide an integrative, longue durée perspective on the many different phases of ancient alchemy. It will thus offer a radically new vision of this discipline as a dynamic and diversified art that developed across different technical and scholastic traditions. This new representation will allow us to connect ancient alchemy with medieval and early modern alchemy and thus fully reintegrate ancient alchemy in the history of pre-modern alchemy as well as in the history of ancient science more broadly.
Summary
The AlchemEast project is devoted to the study of alchemical theory and practice as it appeared and developed in distinct, albeit contiguous (both chronologically and geographically) areas: Graeco-Roman Egypt, Byzantium, and the Near East, from Ancient Babylonian times to the early Islamic Period. This project combines innovative textual investigations with experimental replications of ancient alchemical procedures. It uses sets of historically and philologically informed laboratory replications in order to reconstruct the actual practice of ancient alchemists, and it studies the texts and literary forms in which this practice was conceptualized and transmitted. It proposes new models for textual criticism in order to capture the fluidity of the transmission of ancient alchemical writings. AlchemEast is designed to carry out a comparative investigation of cuneiform tablets as well as a vast corpus of Greek, Syriac and Arabic writings. It will overcome the old, pejorative paradigm that dismissed ancient alchemy as a "pseudo-science", by proposing a new theoretical framework for comprehending the entirety of ancient alchemical practices and theories. Alongside established forms of scholarly output, such as critical editions of key texts, AlchemEast will provide an integrative, longue durée perspective on the many different phases of ancient alchemy. It will thus offer a radically new vision of this discipline as a dynamic and diversified art that developed across different technical and scholastic traditions. This new representation will allow us to connect ancient alchemy with medieval and early modern alchemy and thus fully reintegrate ancient alchemy in the history of pre-modern alchemy as well as in the history of ancient science more broadly.
Max ERC Funding
1 997 000 €
Duration
Start date: 2017-12-01, End date: 2022-11-30
Project acronym AN-ICON
Project An-Iconology: History, Theory, and Practices of Environmental Images
Researcher (PI) Andrea PINOTTI
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI MILANO
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), SH5, ERC-2018-ADG
Summary "Recent developments in image-making techniques have resulted in a drastic blurring of the threshold between the world of the image and the real world. Immersive and interactive virtual environments have enabled the production of pictures that elicit in the perceiver a strong feeling of being incorporated in a quasi-real world. In doing so such pictures conceal their mediateness (their being based on a material support), their referentiality (their pointing to an extra-iconic dimension), and their separateness (normally assured by framing devices), paradoxically challenging their status as images, as icons: they are veritable “an-icons”.
This kind of pictures undermines the mainstream paradigm of Western image theories, shared by major models such as the doctrine of mimesis, the phenomenological account of image-consciousness, the analytic theories of depiction, the semiotic and iconological methods. These approaches miss the key counter-properties regarding an-icons as ""environmental"" images: their immediateness, unframedness, and presentness. Subjects relating to an-icons are no longer visual observers of images; they are experiencers living in a quasi-real environment that allows multisensory affordances and embodied agencies.
AN-ICON aims to develop “an-iconology” as a new methodological approach able to address this challenging iconoscape. Such an approach needs to be articulated in a transdisciplinary and transmedial way: 1) HISTORY – a media-archaeological reconstruction will provide a taxonomy of the manifold an-iconic strategies (e.g. illusionistic painting, pre-cinematic dispositifs, 3D films, video games, head mounted displays); 2) THEORY – an experiential account (drawing on phenomenology, visual culture and media studies) will identify the an-iconic key concepts; 3) PRACTICES – a socio-cultural section will explore the multifaceted impact of an-iconic images, environments and technologies on contemporary professional domains as well as on everyday life.
"
Summary
"Recent developments in image-making techniques have resulted in a drastic blurring of the threshold between the world of the image and the real world. Immersive and interactive virtual environments have enabled the production of pictures that elicit in the perceiver a strong feeling of being incorporated in a quasi-real world. In doing so such pictures conceal their mediateness (their being based on a material support), their referentiality (their pointing to an extra-iconic dimension), and their separateness (normally assured by framing devices), paradoxically challenging their status as images, as icons: they are veritable “an-icons”.
This kind of pictures undermines the mainstream paradigm of Western image theories, shared by major models such as the doctrine of mimesis, the phenomenological account of image-consciousness, the analytic theories of depiction, the semiotic and iconological methods. These approaches miss the key counter-properties regarding an-icons as ""environmental"" images: their immediateness, unframedness, and presentness. Subjects relating to an-icons are no longer visual observers of images; they are experiencers living in a quasi-real environment that allows multisensory affordances and embodied agencies.
AN-ICON aims to develop “an-iconology” as a new methodological approach able to address this challenging iconoscape. Such an approach needs to be articulated in a transdisciplinary and transmedial way: 1) HISTORY – a media-archaeological reconstruction will provide a taxonomy of the manifold an-iconic strategies (e.g. illusionistic painting, pre-cinematic dispositifs, 3D films, video games, head mounted displays); 2) THEORY – an experiential account (drawing on phenomenology, visual culture and media studies) will identify the an-iconic key concepts; 3) PRACTICES – a socio-cultural section will explore the multifaceted impact of an-iconic images, environments and technologies on contemporary professional domains as well as on everyday life.
"
Max ERC Funding
2 328 736 €
Duration
Start date: 2019-09-01, End date: 2024-08-31
Project acronym ARISTOTLE
Project Aristotle in the Italian Vernacular: Rethinking Renaissance and Early-Modern Intellectual History (c. 1400–c. 1650)
Researcher (PI) Marco Sgarbi
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITA CA' FOSCARI VENEZIA
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH5, ERC-2013-StG
Summary From the twelfth to the seventeenth century, Aristotle’s writings lay at the foundation of Western culture, providing a body of knowledge and a set of analytical tools applicable to all areas of human investigation. Scholars of the Renaissance have emphasized the remarkable longevity and versatility of Aristotelianism, but their attention has remained firmly, and almost exclusively, fixed on the transmission of Aristotle’s works in Latin. Scarce attention has gone to works in the vernacular. Nonetheless, several important Renaissance figures wished to make Aristotle’s works accessible and available outside the narrow circle of professional philosophers and university professors. They believed that his works could provide essential knowledge to a broad set of readers, and embarked on an intense programme of translation and commentary to see this happen. It is the argument of this project that vernacular Aristotelianism made fundamental contributions to the thought of the period, anticipating many of the features of early modern philosophy and contributing to a new encyclopaedia of knowledge. Our project aims to offer the first detailed and comprehensive study of the vernacular diffusion of Aristotle through a series of analyses of its main texts. We will thus study works that fall within the two main Renaissance divisions of speculative philosophy (metaphysics, natural philosophy, mathematics, and logic) and civil philosophy (ethics, politics, rhetoric, and poetics). We will give strong attention to the contextualization of the texts they examine, as is standard practice in the best kind of intellectual history, focusing on institutional contexts, reading publics, the value of the vernacular, new visions of knowledge and eclecticism. With the work of the PI, two professors, 5 post-docs and two PhD students we aim to make considerable advances in the understanding of both speculative and civil philosophy within vernacular Aristotelianism.
Summary
From the twelfth to the seventeenth century, Aristotle’s writings lay at the foundation of Western culture, providing a body of knowledge and a set of analytical tools applicable to all areas of human investigation. Scholars of the Renaissance have emphasized the remarkable longevity and versatility of Aristotelianism, but their attention has remained firmly, and almost exclusively, fixed on the transmission of Aristotle’s works in Latin. Scarce attention has gone to works in the vernacular. Nonetheless, several important Renaissance figures wished to make Aristotle’s works accessible and available outside the narrow circle of professional philosophers and university professors. They believed that his works could provide essential knowledge to a broad set of readers, and embarked on an intense programme of translation and commentary to see this happen. It is the argument of this project that vernacular Aristotelianism made fundamental contributions to the thought of the period, anticipating many of the features of early modern philosophy and contributing to a new encyclopaedia of knowledge. Our project aims to offer the first detailed and comprehensive study of the vernacular diffusion of Aristotle through a series of analyses of its main texts. We will thus study works that fall within the two main Renaissance divisions of speculative philosophy (metaphysics, natural philosophy, mathematics, and logic) and civil philosophy (ethics, politics, rhetoric, and poetics). We will give strong attention to the contextualization of the texts they examine, as is standard practice in the best kind of intellectual history, focusing on institutional contexts, reading publics, the value of the vernacular, new visions of knowledge and eclecticism. With the work of the PI, two professors, 5 post-docs and two PhD students we aim to make considerable advances in the understanding of both speculative and civil philosophy within vernacular Aristotelianism.
Max ERC Funding
1 483 180 €
Duration
Start date: 2014-05-01, End date: 2019-04-30
Project acronym ArsNova
Project European Ars Nova: Multilingual Poetry and Polyphonic Song in the Late Middle Ages
Researcher (PI) Maria Sofia LANNUTTI
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI FIRENZE
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), SH5, ERC-2017-ADG
Summary Dante Alighieri at the dawn of the 1300s, as well as Eustache Deschamps almost a century later, conceived poetry as music in itself. But what happens with poetry when it is involved in the complex architecture of polyphony? The aim of this project is to study for the first time the corpus of 14th- and early 15th-century poetry set to music by Ars Nova polyphonists (more than 1200 texts). This repertoire gathers different poetic and musical traditions, as shown by the multilingual anthologies copied during the last years of the Schism. The choice of this corpus is motivated by two primary goals: a) to offer a new interpretation of its meaning and function in the cultural and historical context, one that may be then applied to the rest of coeval European lyric poetry; b) to overcome current disciplinary divisions in order to generate a new methodological balance between the project’s two main fields of interest (Comparative Literature / Musicology). Most Ars Nova polyphonists were directly associated with religious institutions. In many texts, the language of courtly love expresses the values of caritas, the theological virtue that guides wise rulers and leads them to desire the common good. Thus, the poetic figure of the lover becomes a metaphor for the political man, and love poetry can be used as a device for diplomacy, as well as for personal and institutional propaganda. From this unprecedented point of view, the project will develop three research lines in response to the following questions: 1) How is the relationship between poetry and music, and how is the dialogue between the different poetic and musical traditions viewed in relation to each context of production? 2) To what extent does Ars Nova poetry take part in the ‘soft power’ strategies exercised by the entire European political class of the time? 3) Is there a connection between the multilingualism of the manuscript tradition and the perception of the Ars Nova as a European, intercultural repertoire?
Summary
Dante Alighieri at the dawn of the 1300s, as well as Eustache Deschamps almost a century later, conceived poetry as music in itself. But what happens with poetry when it is involved in the complex architecture of polyphony? The aim of this project is to study for the first time the corpus of 14th- and early 15th-century poetry set to music by Ars Nova polyphonists (more than 1200 texts). This repertoire gathers different poetic and musical traditions, as shown by the multilingual anthologies copied during the last years of the Schism. The choice of this corpus is motivated by two primary goals: a) to offer a new interpretation of its meaning and function in the cultural and historical context, one that may be then applied to the rest of coeval European lyric poetry; b) to overcome current disciplinary divisions in order to generate a new methodological balance between the project’s two main fields of interest (Comparative Literature / Musicology). Most Ars Nova polyphonists were directly associated with religious institutions. In many texts, the language of courtly love expresses the values of caritas, the theological virtue that guides wise rulers and leads them to desire the common good. Thus, the poetic figure of the lover becomes a metaphor for the political man, and love poetry can be used as a device for diplomacy, as well as for personal and institutional propaganda. From this unprecedented point of view, the project will develop three research lines in response to the following questions: 1) How is the relationship between poetry and music, and how is the dialogue between the different poetic and musical traditions viewed in relation to each context of production? 2) To what extent does Ars Nova poetry take part in the ‘soft power’ strategies exercised by the entire European political class of the time? 3) Is there a connection between the multilingualism of the manuscript tradition and the perception of the Ars Nova as a European, intercultural repertoire?
Max ERC Funding
2 193 375 €
Duration
Start date: 2019-01-01, End date: 2023-12-31
Project acronym ARTECHNE
Project Technique in the Arts. Concepts, Practices, Expertise (1500-1950)
Researcher (PI) Sven Georges Mathieu Dupré
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITEIT UTRECHT
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH5, ERC-2014-CoG
Summary The transmission of ‘technique’ in art has been a conspicuous ‘black box’ resisting analysis. The tools of the humanities used to study the transmission of ideas and concepts are insufficient when it comes to understanding the transmission of something as non-propositional and non-verbal as ‘technique’. The insights of the neurosciences in, for example, the acquisition and transmission of drawing skills are not yet sufficiently advanced to be historically restrictive. However, only in the most recent years, the history of science and technology has turned to how-to instructions as given in recipes. This project proposes to undertake the experimental reconstruction of historical recipes to finally open the black box of the transmission of technique in the visual and decorative arts. Considering ‘technique’ as a textual, material and social practice, this project will write a long-term history of the theory and practice of the study of ‘technique’ in the visual and decorative arts between 1500 and 1950. The three central research questions here are: (1) what is technique in the visual and decorative arts, (2) how is technique transmitted and studied, and (3) who is considered expert in technique, and why? This project will make a breakthrough in our understanding of the transmission of technique in the arts by integrating methodologies typical for the humanities and historical disciplines with laboratory work. Also, by providing a history of technique in the arts, this project lays the historical foundations of the epistemologies of conservation, restoration and technical art history precisely at a moment of greatest urgency. The connection between the history of science and technology and the expertise in conservation, restoration and technical art history (in the Ateliergebouw in Amsterdam) this project envisions builds the intellectual infrastructure of a new field of interdisciplinary research, unique in Europe.
Summary
The transmission of ‘technique’ in art has been a conspicuous ‘black box’ resisting analysis. The tools of the humanities used to study the transmission of ideas and concepts are insufficient when it comes to understanding the transmission of something as non-propositional and non-verbal as ‘technique’. The insights of the neurosciences in, for example, the acquisition and transmission of drawing skills are not yet sufficiently advanced to be historically restrictive. However, only in the most recent years, the history of science and technology has turned to how-to instructions as given in recipes. This project proposes to undertake the experimental reconstruction of historical recipes to finally open the black box of the transmission of technique in the visual and decorative arts. Considering ‘technique’ as a textual, material and social practice, this project will write a long-term history of the theory and practice of the study of ‘technique’ in the visual and decorative arts between 1500 and 1950. The three central research questions here are: (1) what is technique in the visual and decorative arts, (2) how is technique transmitted and studied, and (3) who is considered expert in technique, and why? This project will make a breakthrough in our understanding of the transmission of technique in the arts by integrating methodologies typical for the humanities and historical disciplines with laboratory work. Also, by providing a history of technique in the arts, this project lays the historical foundations of the epistemologies of conservation, restoration and technical art history precisely at a moment of greatest urgency. The connection between the history of science and technology and the expertise in conservation, restoration and technical art history (in the Ateliergebouw in Amsterdam) this project envisions builds the intellectual infrastructure of a new field of interdisciplinary research, unique in Europe.
Max ERC Funding
1 907 944 €
Duration
Start date: 2015-09-01, End date: 2020-08-31
Project acronym BIFLOW
Project Bilingualism in Florentine and Tuscan Works (ca. 1260 - ca. 1416)
Researcher (PI) Antonio Montefusco
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITA CA' FOSCARI VENEZIA
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH5, ERC-2014-STG
Summary This project will undertake the first systematic investigation of the various literary documents that circulated simultaneously in more than one language in Tuscany, and especially Florence, between the mid-13th Century and the beginning of 15th Century.
During that period, Florence was both a prominent literary centre in the vernacular, and home to a renewal of classical Latin eloquence. While both fields are well studied, their interaction remains largely unexplored. This research, at the convergence of several disciplines (literature, philology, linguistics and medieval history), has a strong pioneering character. It aims at changing the perception of medieval Italian culture and interpretation of the break between medieval Culture and Humanism.
For this reason, the project will develop research in varying degrees of depth. First, it will provide the first catalogue of bilingual texts and manuscripts of medieval Tuscany. Organized as a database, this tool of analysis will stir innovative research in this field, some of which will be immediately promoted during the project.
Secondly, two case studies, considered as important and methodologically exemplary, will be researched in detail, through the publication of two important set of texts, of secular and religious nature : 1. The vernacular translation of the Latin Epistles of Dante Alighieri; 2. A collection of polemical, historiographical, devotional and prophetical documents produced by the Tuscan dissident Franciscans in last decades of the 14th Century.
Finally, the entire team, led by the PI, will be involved in the preparation of a synthesis volume on Tuscan culture in the fourteenth century viewed through bilingualism, entitled Cartography of bilingual culture in Fourteenth-Century Tuscany. From this general map of the Italian culture of the time, no literary genre nor field (be it religious or lay) shall be excluded.
Summary
This project will undertake the first systematic investigation of the various literary documents that circulated simultaneously in more than one language in Tuscany, and especially Florence, between the mid-13th Century and the beginning of 15th Century.
During that period, Florence was both a prominent literary centre in the vernacular, and home to a renewal of classical Latin eloquence. While both fields are well studied, their interaction remains largely unexplored. This research, at the convergence of several disciplines (literature, philology, linguistics and medieval history), has a strong pioneering character. It aims at changing the perception of medieval Italian culture and interpretation of the break between medieval Culture and Humanism.
For this reason, the project will develop research in varying degrees of depth. First, it will provide the first catalogue of bilingual texts and manuscripts of medieval Tuscany. Organized as a database, this tool of analysis will stir innovative research in this field, some of which will be immediately promoted during the project.
Secondly, two case studies, considered as important and methodologically exemplary, will be researched in detail, through the publication of two important set of texts, of secular and religious nature : 1. The vernacular translation of the Latin Epistles of Dante Alighieri; 2. A collection of polemical, historiographical, devotional and prophetical documents produced by the Tuscan dissident Franciscans in last decades of the 14th Century.
Finally, the entire team, led by the PI, will be involved in the preparation of a synthesis volume on Tuscan culture in the fourteenth century viewed through bilingualism, entitled Cartography of bilingual culture in Fourteenth-Century Tuscany. From this general map of the Italian culture of the time, no literary genre nor field (be it religious or lay) shall be excluded.
Max ERC Funding
1 480 625 €
Duration
Start date: 2015-10-01, End date: 2020-09-30
Project acronym ChinaCreative
Project From Made in China to Created in China - A Comparative Study of Creative Practice and Production in Contemporary China
Researcher (PI) Bastiaan Jeroen De Kloet
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITEIT VAN AMSTERDAM
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH5, ERC-2013-CoG
Summary With its emergence as a global power, China aspires to move from a “made in China” towards a “created in China” country. Creativity and culture have become a crucial source for innovation and financial growth, but are also mobilised to promote a new and open China to both the citizenry as well as the outside world. They are part of what is termed China’s “soft power.”
What does creativity mean in the context of China, and what does it do? When both the state and profoundly globalised creative industries are so deeply implicated in the promotion of creativity, what are the possibilities of criticality, if any? Whereas creativity has been extensively researched in the fields of psychology, law and neurosciences, scholarship in the humanities has by and large side-tracked the thorny issue of creativity. Yet, the worldwide resurgence of the term under the banner of creative industries makes it all the more urgent to develop a theory of creativity. This project understands creativity as a textual, a social as well as a heritage practice. It aims to analyse claims of creativity in different cultural practices, and to analyse how emerging creativities in China are part of tactics of governmentality and disable or enable possibilities of criticality.
Using a comparative, multi-disciplinary, multi-method and multi-sited research design, five subprojects analyse (1) contemporary art, (2) calligraphy, (3) independent documentary cinema, (4) television from Hunan Satellite TV and (5) “fake” (shanzhai) art. By including both popular and high arts, by including both more Westernized as well as more specifically Chinese art forms, by including both the “real” as well as the “fake,” by studying different localities, and by mobilising methods from both the social sciences and the humanities, this project is pushing the notion of comparative research to a new level.
Summary
With its emergence as a global power, China aspires to move from a “made in China” towards a “created in China” country. Creativity and culture have become a crucial source for innovation and financial growth, but are also mobilised to promote a new and open China to both the citizenry as well as the outside world. They are part of what is termed China’s “soft power.”
What does creativity mean in the context of China, and what does it do? When both the state and profoundly globalised creative industries are so deeply implicated in the promotion of creativity, what are the possibilities of criticality, if any? Whereas creativity has been extensively researched in the fields of psychology, law and neurosciences, scholarship in the humanities has by and large side-tracked the thorny issue of creativity. Yet, the worldwide resurgence of the term under the banner of creative industries makes it all the more urgent to develop a theory of creativity. This project understands creativity as a textual, a social as well as a heritage practice. It aims to analyse claims of creativity in different cultural practices, and to analyse how emerging creativities in China are part of tactics of governmentality and disable or enable possibilities of criticality.
Using a comparative, multi-disciplinary, multi-method and multi-sited research design, five subprojects analyse (1) contemporary art, (2) calligraphy, (3) independent documentary cinema, (4) television from Hunan Satellite TV and (5) “fake” (shanzhai) art. By including both popular and high arts, by including both more Westernized as well as more specifically Chinese art forms, by including both the “real” as well as the “fake,” by studying different localities, and by mobilising methods from both the social sciences and the humanities, this project is pushing the notion of comparative research to a new level.
Max ERC Funding
1 947 448 €
Duration
Start date: 2014-09-01, End date: 2019-08-31
Project acronym CONNECTINGEUROPE
Project Digital Crossings in Europe: Gender, Diaspora and Belonging
Researcher (PI) Sandra Ponzanesi
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITEIT UTRECHT
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH5, ERC-2014-CoG
Summary Many immigrants enter Europe both legally and illegally every year. This creates multiple challenges for the Union, including the gender and ethnic segregation of migrant groups, especially women. While it strives for an inclusive and integrated society as envisioned by the EU motto ‘Unity in Diversity’, it is still often perceived more as ‘Fortress Europe.’ This project focuses on the ‘connected migrant’, studying how virtual communities of migrants, or digital diasporas, convey issues of technology, migration, globalisation, alienation and belonging capturing the lives of migrants in their interaction with multiple worlds and media.
More specifically, it will investigate whether digital technologies enhance European integration or foster gender and ethnic segregation, and, if so, how. Using a multi-layered and cutting-edge approach that draws from the humanities, social science and new media studies (i.e. internet studies and mobile media), this research considers: 1. How migration and digital technologies enable digital diasporas (Somali, Turkish, Romanian) and the impact these have on identity, gender and belonging in European urban centres; 2. How these entanglements are connected to and perceived from outside Europe by focusing on transnational ties; and 3. How digital connections create new possibilities for cosmopolitan outlooks, rearticulating Europe’s motto of ‘Unity in Diversity.’
The outcomes of this work will be innovative at three levels. a) Empirically, the project gathers, maps and critically grounds online behaviour by migrant women from a European comparative perspective. b) Methodologically, it breaks new ground by developing new methods of analysis for digital diasporas contributing to the development of ‘postcolonial’ digital humanities. c) Conceptually, it integrates colonial and migrant relations into the idea of Europe, elaborating on the notion of cosmopolitan belonging through virtual connectivity.
Summary
Many immigrants enter Europe both legally and illegally every year. This creates multiple challenges for the Union, including the gender and ethnic segregation of migrant groups, especially women. While it strives for an inclusive and integrated society as envisioned by the EU motto ‘Unity in Diversity’, it is still often perceived more as ‘Fortress Europe.’ This project focuses on the ‘connected migrant’, studying how virtual communities of migrants, or digital diasporas, convey issues of technology, migration, globalisation, alienation and belonging capturing the lives of migrants in their interaction with multiple worlds and media.
More specifically, it will investigate whether digital technologies enhance European integration or foster gender and ethnic segregation, and, if so, how. Using a multi-layered and cutting-edge approach that draws from the humanities, social science and new media studies (i.e. internet studies and mobile media), this research considers: 1. How migration and digital technologies enable digital diasporas (Somali, Turkish, Romanian) and the impact these have on identity, gender and belonging in European urban centres; 2. How these entanglements are connected to and perceived from outside Europe by focusing on transnational ties; and 3. How digital connections create new possibilities for cosmopolitan outlooks, rearticulating Europe’s motto of ‘Unity in Diversity.’
The outcomes of this work will be innovative at three levels. a) Empirically, the project gathers, maps and critically grounds online behaviour by migrant women from a European comparative perspective. b) Methodologically, it breaks new ground by developing new methods of analysis for digital diasporas contributing to the development of ‘postcolonial’ digital humanities. c) Conceptually, it integrates colonial and migrant relations into the idea of Europe, elaborating on the notion of cosmopolitan belonging through virtual connectivity.
Max ERC Funding
1 992 809 €
Duration
Start date: 2016-01-01, End date: 2020-12-31
Project acronym CONTACTS
Project Traces of contact: Language contact studies and historical linguistics
Researcher (PI) Pieter Muysken
Host Institution (HI) STICHTING KATHOLIEKE UNIVERSITEIT
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), SH5, ERC-2008-AdG
Summary This project aims to establish criteria by which results from language contact studies can be used to strengthen the field of historical linguistics. It does so by applying the scenario model for language contact studies to a number of concrete settings, which differ widely in their level of aggregation and dime depth: the languages of the Amazonian fringe in South America, the complex multilingual setting of the Republic of Suriname, the multilingual interaction of immigrant groups in the Netherlands, and two groups of multilingual individuals. New methods from structural phylogenetics are employed, and the same linguistic variables (TMA and evidentiality marking, argument realization) will be studied in the various projects. In the various projects, use will be made from a shared questionnaire, so that comparable data can be gathered. By applying the scenaio model at various levels of aggregation, a more principled link between language contact studies and historical linguistics can be established.
Summary
This project aims to establish criteria by which results from language contact studies can be used to strengthen the field of historical linguistics. It does so by applying the scenario model for language contact studies to a number of concrete settings, which differ widely in their level of aggregation and dime depth: the languages of the Amazonian fringe in South America, the complex multilingual setting of the Republic of Suriname, the multilingual interaction of immigrant groups in the Netherlands, and two groups of multilingual individuals. New methods from structural phylogenetics are employed, and the same linguistic variables (TMA and evidentiality marking, argument realization) will be studied in the various projects. In the various projects, use will be made from a shared questionnaire, so that comparable data can be gathered. By applying the scenaio model at various levels of aggregation, a more principled link between language contact studies and historical linguistics can be established.
Max ERC Funding
2 499 950 €
Duration
Start date: 2009-01-01, End date: 2013-12-31
Project acronym COSMED
Project FROM STEREOTOMY TO ANTISEISMIC CRITERIA: CROSSROADS OF EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN. SICILY AND MEDITERRANEAN (XII-XVIII CENTURY)
Researcher (PI) Rosario Marco Nobile
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI PALERMO
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), SH5, ERC-2011-ADG_20110406
Summary Over the centuries, Sicily has known an unequalled variety of building experiences. Strategically located, the largest Mediterranean island has served as a centre for the dissemination of innovative solutions, as well as a collector of ideas from multiple sources. This intellectual interchange is clearly evident in the long history of stereotomy or stone construction. A rich tradition of advanced stone cutting (domes, cross vaults and complex stair solutions), evolved through experimentation and importation. Initially solutions from the Byzantine world and North Africa were influential. A wider experimentation occurred during the Renaissance. In this era new technologies often related to seismic concerns and involving the use of lighter structures stimulated innovation. The multiple earthquakes that struck the island initiated a fascinating and, in some ways, effective series of experiments in the field of anti-seismic construction technology.
This project aims to investigate building criteria applied between the Middle Ages and the Modern era in the Mediterranean basin, with a particular attention to Sicily and other big islands, southern Italy, eastern Spain, North Africa and near East. Measurements, surveys, and the material knowledge of the building techniques will be intertwined with the tools of the historical investigation. Research will study geometric, constructive and formal models and chart their origins and routes of development. A most challenging aspect of the project is the verification of the flow of ideas in the Mediterranean, in order to show a less simplistic image of the history and of the civilizations that here faced. It is expected to have a relevant scientific and social impact, modifying scholars' attitude on the investigated topics and laying the foundations for a new strategy of conservation and management of the Mediterranean cultural heritage, thought as a whole, stimulating the rising of new study interests and fruition circuits.
Summary
Over the centuries, Sicily has known an unequalled variety of building experiences. Strategically located, the largest Mediterranean island has served as a centre for the dissemination of innovative solutions, as well as a collector of ideas from multiple sources. This intellectual interchange is clearly evident in the long history of stereotomy or stone construction. A rich tradition of advanced stone cutting (domes, cross vaults and complex stair solutions), evolved through experimentation and importation. Initially solutions from the Byzantine world and North Africa were influential. A wider experimentation occurred during the Renaissance. In this era new technologies often related to seismic concerns and involving the use of lighter structures stimulated innovation. The multiple earthquakes that struck the island initiated a fascinating and, in some ways, effective series of experiments in the field of anti-seismic construction technology.
This project aims to investigate building criteria applied between the Middle Ages and the Modern era in the Mediterranean basin, with a particular attention to Sicily and other big islands, southern Italy, eastern Spain, North Africa and near East. Measurements, surveys, and the material knowledge of the building techniques will be intertwined with the tools of the historical investigation. Research will study geometric, constructive and formal models and chart their origins and routes of development. A most challenging aspect of the project is the verification of the flow of ideas in the Mediterranean, in order to show a less simplistic image of the history and of the civilizations that here faced. It is expected to have a relevant scientific and social impact, modifying scholars' attitude on the investigated topics and laying the foundations for a new strategy of conservation and management of the Mediterranean cultural heritage, thought as a whole, stimulating the rising of new study interests and fruition circuits.
Max ERC Funding
1 203 960 €
Duration
Start date: 2012-04-01, End date: 2016-09-30