Project acronym ArtHistCEE
Project Art Historiographies in Central and Eastern Europe An Inquiry from the Perspective of Entangled Histories
Researcher (PI) Ada HAJDU
Host Institution (HI) FUNDATIA NOUA EUROPA
Country Romania
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH5, ERC-2018-STG
Summary Our project proposes a fragmentary account of the art histories produced in present-day Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria and Serbia between 1850 and 1950, from an entangled histories perspective. We will look at the relationships between the art histories produced in these countries and the art histories produced in Western Europe. But, more importantly, we will investigate how the art histories written in the countries mentioned above resonate with each other, either proposing conflicting interpretations of the past, or ignoring uncomfortable competing discourses. We will investigate the art histories written between 1850 and 1950 because we are interested in how art history contributed to nation building discourses. Therefore, we will focus on those art histories that concur to nationalising the past. Our project is articulated around three crucial concepts – periodisation, style and influence – set in the context of relevant contemporary historiographies produced in Western Europe, and analysing the entanglements with competing historiographies in each of the countries considered. We will focus on two main issues: 1. How did Central and Eastern European art historians adopt, adapt and respond to theoretical and methodological issues developed elsewhere, and 2. What are the periodisations of art produced on the territory of Central and Eastern European countries; what are the theoretical and methodological strategies for conceptualising local styles; and how was the concept of influence used in establishing hierarchical relationships. Researching the conceptualisation of a theoretical framework that would accommodate the artistic production of the past will show the difficulties in dealing with a complex reality without simplifying and essentializing it along ideological lines. The research will also show that the three concepts that we focus on are not neutral or strictly descriptive, and that their use in art history needs to be reconsidered.
Summary
Our project proposes a fragmentary account of the art histories produced in present-day Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria and Serbia between 1850 and 1950, from an entangled histories perspective. We will look at the relationships between the art histories produced in these countries and the art histories produced in Western Europe. But, more importantly, we will investigate how the art histories written in the countries mentioned above resonate with each other, either proposing conflicting interpretations of the past, or ignoring uncomfortable competing discourses. We will investigate the art histories written between 1850 and 1950 because we are interested in how art history contributed to nation building discourses. Therefore, we will focus on those art histories that concur to nationalising the past. Our project is articulated around three crucial concepts – periodisation, style and influence – set in the context of relevant contemporary historiographies produced in Western Europe, and analysing the entanglements with competing historiographies in each of the countries considered. We will focus on two main issues: 1. How did Central and Eastern European art historians adopt, adapt and respond to theoretical and methodological issues developed elsewhere, and 2. What are the periodisations of art produced on the territory of Central and Eastern European countries; what are the theoretical and methodological strategies for conceptualising local styles; and how was the concept of influence used in establishing hierarchical relationships. Researching the conceptualisation of a theoretical framework that would accommodate the artistic production of the past will show the difficulties in dealing with a complex reality without simplifying and essentializing it along ideological lines. The research will also show that the three concepts that we focus on are not neutral or strictly descriptive, and that their use in art history needs to be reconsidered.
Max ERC Funding
638 619 €
Duration
Start date: 2018-10-01, End date: 2021-07-31
Project acronym CASTELLANY ACCOUNTS
Project Record-keeping, fiscal reform, and the rise of institutional accountability in late-medieval Savoy: a source-oriented approach
Researcher (PI) Ionut Epurescu-Pascovici
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITATEA DIN BUCURESTI
Country Romania
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH6, ERC-2014-STG
Summary The present research project focuses on an unjustly neglected corpus of late-medieval sources, the administrative and fiscal accounts (‘computi’) of the castellanies – basic administrative units – of the county of Savoy. I propose a holistic model of analysis that can fully capitalise on the unusual wealth of detail of the Savoyard source material, in order to illuminate some key topics in late-medieval institutional and socio-economic history, from the development of state institutions through administrative and fiscal reform – with particular attention to the transition from personal to institutional accountability – to the question of socio-economic growth, decline, and recovery during the turbulent period of the late-thirteenth to the late-fourteenth century. More broadly, my research into these topics aims to contribute to our understanding of the late-medieval origins of European modernity. The advances of pragmatic literacy, record-keeping, and auditing practices will be analysed with the aid of anthropological and social scientific theories of practice. By comparing the Savoyard ‘computi’ with their sources of inspiration, from the Anglo-Norman pipe rolls to the Catalan fiscal records, the project aims to highlight the creative adaptation of imported administrative models, and thus to contribute to our knowledge of institutional transfers in European history. The project will develop an inclusive frame of analysis in which the ‘computi’ will be read against the evidence from enfeoffment charters, castellany surveys (‘extente’), and the records of direct taxation (‘subsidia’). The serial data will be analysed by building a database; the findings of quantitative analysis will be verified by case studies of the individuals and families (many from the middle social strata) that surface in the fiscal records.
Summary
The present research project focuses on an unjustly neglected corpus of late-medieval sources, the administrative and fiscal accounts (‘computi’) of the castellanies – basic administrative units – of the county of Savoy. I propose a holistic model of analysis that can fully capitalise on the unusual wealth of detail of the Savoyard source material, in order to illuminate some key topics in late-medieval institutional and socio-economic history, from the development of state institutions through administrative and fiscal reform – with particular attention to the transition from personal to institutional accountability – to the question of socio-economic growth, decline, and recovery during the turbulent period of the late-thirteenth to the late-fourteenth century. More broadly, my research into these topics aims to contribute to our understanding of the late-medieval origins of European modernity. The advances of pragmatic literacy, record-keeping, and auditing practices will be analysed with the aid of anthropological and social scientific theories of practice. By comparing the Savoyard ‘computi’ with their sources of inspiration, from the Anglo-Norman pipe rolls to the Catalan fiscal records, the project aims to highlight the creative adaptation of imported administrative models, and thus to contribute to our knowledge of institutional transfers in European history. The project will develop an inclusive frame of analysis in which the ‘computi’ will be read against the evidence from enfeoffment charters, castellany surveys (‘extente’), and the records of direct taxation (‘subsidia’). The serial data will be analysed by building a database; the findings of quantitative analysis will be verified by case studies of the individuals and families (many from the middle social strata) that surface in the fiscal records.
Max ERC Funding
671 875 €
Duration
Start date: 2015-05-01, End date: 2020-04-30
Project acronym CORNET
Project Provably Correct Networks
Researcher (PI) Costin RAICIU
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITATEA POLITEHNICA DIN BUCURESTI
Country Romania
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), PE6, ERC-2017-STG
Summary Networks are the backbone of our society, but configuring them is error-prone and tedious: misconfigured networks result in headline grabbing network outages that affect many users and hurt company revenues while security breaches that endanger millions of customers. There are currently no guarantees that deployed networks correctly implement their operator’s policy.
Existing research has focused on two directions: a) low level analysis and instrumentation of real networking code prevents memory bugs in individual network elements, but does not capture network-wide properties desired by operators such as reachability or loop freedom; b) high-level analysis of network-wide properties to verify operator policies on abstract network models; unfortunately, there are no guarantees that the models are an accurate representation of the real network code, and often low-level errors invalidate the conclusions of the high-level analysis.
We propose to achieve provably correct networks by simultaneously targeting both low-level security concerns and network-wide policy compliance checking. Our key proposal is to rely on exhaustive network symbolic execution for verification and to automatically generate provably correct implementations from network models. Generating efficient code that is equivalent to the model poses great challenges that we will address with three key contributions:
a) We will develop a novel theoretical equivalence framework based on symbolic execution semantics, as well as equivalence-preserving model transformations to automatically optimize network models for runtime efficiency.
b) We will develop compilers that take network models and generate functionally equivalent and efficient executable code for different targets (e.g. P4 and C).
c) We will design algorithms that generate and insert runtime guards that ensure correctness of the network with respect to the desired policy even when legacy boxes are deployed in the network.
Summary
Networks are the backbone of our society, but configuring them is error-prone and tedious: misconfigured networks result in headline grabbing network outages that affect many users and hurt company revenues while security breaches that endanger millions of customers. There are currently no guarantees that deployed networks correctly implement their operator’s policy.
Existing research has focused on two directions: a) low level analysis and instrumentation of real networking code prevents memory bugs in individual network elements, but does not capture network-wide properties desired by operators such as reachability or loop freedom; b) high-level analysis of network-wide properties to verify operator policies on abstract network models; unfortunately, there are no guarantees that the models are an accurate representation of the real network code, and often low-level errors invalidate the conclusions of the high-level analysis.
We propose to achieve provably correct networks by simultaneously targeting both low-level security concerns and network-wide policy compliance checking. Our key proposal is to rely on exhaustive network symbolic execution for verification and to automatically generate provably correct implementations from network models. Generating efficient code that is equivalent to the model poses great challenges that we will address with three key contributions:
a) We will develop a novel theoretical equivalence framework based on symbolic execution semantics, as well as equivalence-preserving model transformations to automatically optimize network models for runtime efficiency.
b) We will develop compilers that take network models and generate functionally equivalent and efficient executable code for different targets (e.g. P4 and C).
c) We will design algorithms that generate and insert runtime guards that ensure correctness of the network with respect to the desired policy even when legacy boxes are deployed in the network.
Max ERC Funding
1 325 000 €
Duration
Start date: 2018-01-01, End date: 2022-12-31
Project acronym CosNeD
Project Radio wave propagation in heterogeneous media: implications on the electronics of Cosmic Neutrino Detectors
Researcher (PI) Alina Mihaela BADESCU
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITATEA POLITEHNICA DIN BUCURESTI
Country Romania
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), PE7, ERC-2016-STG
Summary Detection of cosmic neutrinos can answer very important questions related to some extremely energetic yet unexplained astrophysical sources such as: compact binary stars, accreting black holes, supernovae etc., key elements in understanding the evolution and fate of the Universe. Moreover, these particles carry the highest
energies per particle known to man, impossible to achieve in any present or foreseen man made accelerator devices thus their detection can test and probe extreme high energy physics.
One of the newest techniques for measuring high energy cosmic neutrinos regards their radio detection in natural salt mines. A first and essential step is to determine experimentally the radio wave attenuation length in salt mines, and this will represent the main goal of this project. The results shall be used to estimate the implications on the construction of the detector. The outcome of this project may rejuvenate the radio detection in salt technique and be a compelling case for Romanian involvement. The same measurements can be used: to validate and improve previous work on theoretical simulation models of propagation in heterogeneous media –a regime not very well understood (which represents another goal of the project), and to study the behavior of classical antennas in non-conventional media (the third major goal).
The results to be obtained would be immediately relevant in determination of the key parameters that describe a cosmic neutrino detector, its performances and limitations. The events detected by such a telescope will allow identification of individual sources indicating a step forward in “neutrino astronomy”. The extensive propagation and antenna behavior studies in heterogeneous media will be in the direct interest for the scientific community and have a prompt impact in telecommunications theory and industry.
Summary
Detection of cosmic neutrinos can answer very important questions related to some extremely energetic yet unexplained astrophysical sources such as: compact binary stars, accreting black holes, supernovae etc., key elements in understanding the evolution and fate of the Universe. Moreover, these particles carry the highest
energies per particle known to man, impossible to achieve in any present or foreseen man made accelerator devices thus their detection can test and probe extreme high energy physics.
One of the newest techniques for measuring high energy cosmic neutrinos regards their radio detection in natural salt mines. A first and essential step is to determine experimentally the radio wave attenuation length in salt mines, and this will represent the main goal of this project. The results shall be used to estimate the implications on the construction of the detector. The outcome of this project may rejuvenate the radio detection in salt technique and be a compelling case for Romanian involvement. The same measurements can be used: to validate and improve previous work on theoretical simulation models of propagation in heterogeneous media –a regime not very well understood (which represents another goal of the project), and to study the behavior of classical antennas in non-conventional media (the third major goal).
The results to be obtained would be immediately relevant in determination of the key parameters that describe a cosmic neutrino detector, its performances and limitations. The events detected by such a telescope will allow identification of individual sources indicating a step forward in “neutrino astronomy”. The extensive propagation and antenna behavior studies in heterogeneous media will be in the direct interest for the scientific community and have a prompt impact in telecommunications theory and industry.
Max ERC Funding
185 925 €
Duration
Start date: 2016-11-01, End date: 2018-10-31
Project acronym INTERTRAP
Project Integrated absolute dating approach for terrestrial records of past climate using trapped charge methods
Researcher (PI) Alida Iulia Gabor
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITATEA BABES BOLYAI
Country Romania
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), PE10, ERC-2015-STG
Summary The practice of tuning different climate proxies prevents the observation of regional response times of terrestrial archives to global changes. Thus, it is imperative to develop correlation protocols based on absolute chronologies. Loess-palaeosol deposits are continental archives of Quaternary paleoclimates and loess is generally considered an ideal material for the application of luminescence dating. The agreement obtained for 10-20 ka ages using different techniques has given us confidence in using the state of the art measurement protocols for young deposits, as confirmed by comparison with independent age control. INTERTRAP proposes detailed investigations of loess samples from three continents collected in close proximity to the transition to the recent soil, with the purpose of obtaining a temporal quantification of the ending of the Late Tardiglacial and the beginning of the Holocene. However, a series of recent luminescence investigations carried out on quartz of different grain sizes extracted from Romanian and Serbian loess yielded severe age discrepancies for ages >~40 ka. While the cause of this observation is hitherto not fully explained, our ongoing studies on Chinese loess prove that it is a general effect, potentially affecting deposits worldwide, and raising doubts on previous chronologies. Methodological studies within INTERTRAP will develop an integrated approach using optically stimulated luminescence, thermoluminescence and electron spin resonance investigations. This part of the study aims at unravelling the mechanism responsible for the observed discrepancies and developing innovative trapped charge dating measurement protocols based on quartz that will yield reliable ages for and beyond the last interglacial glacial cycle.
Summary
The practice of tuning different climate proxies prevents the observation of regional response times of terrestrial archives to global changes. Thus, it is imperative to develop correlation protocols based on absolute chronologies. Loess-palaeosol deposits are continental archives of Quaternary paleoclimates and loess is generally considered an ideal material for the application of luminescence dating. The agreement obtained for 10-20 ka ages using different techniques has given us confidence in using the state of the art measurement protocols for young deposits, as confirmed by comparison with independent age control. INTERTRAP proposes detailed investigations of loess samples from three continents collected in close proximity to the transition to the recent soil, with the purpose of obtaining a temporal quantification of the ending of the Late Tardiglacial and the beginning of the Holocene. However, a series of recent luminescence investigations carried out on quartz of different grain sizes extracted from Romanian and Serbian loess yielded severe age discrepancies for ages >~40 ka. While the cause of this observation is hitherto not fully explained, our ongoing studies on Chinese loess prove that it is a general effect, potentially affecting deposits worldwide, and raising doubts on previous chronologies. Methodological studies within INTERTRAP will develop an integrated approach using optically stimulated luminescence, thermoluminescence and electron spin resonance investigations. This part of the study aims at unravelling the mechanism responsible for the observed discrepancies and developing innovative trapped charge dating measurement protocols based on quartz that will yield reliable ages for and beyond the last interglacial glacial cycle.
Max ERC Funding
1 500 000 €
Duration
Start date: 2016-04-01, End date: 2021-09-30
Project acronym NOTA
Project Note-taking and Notebooks as Channels of Medieval Academic Dissemination across Europe
Researcher (PI) Alexandra Baneu
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITATEA BABES BOLYAI
Country Romania
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH6, ERC-2020-STG
Summary Note-taking is a common intellectual practice. In academia, it is a universal endeavor that we share with students since the origin of the universities. Yet no one has focused on this practice as an original and independent object of research that, once investigated, will bring innovation and expand our knowledge of European intellectual history. Project NOTA is an ambitious enterprise, rooted in the discovery that decoding medieval notebooks produced in the context of late medieval universities will reveal invisible aspects of the process of producing scientific knowledge, of the European networking of scholars, and of the dynamic circulation of texts. Stemming from the Faculty of Theology during the 14th and 15th centuries, when paper invaded the university as an accessible material support, the student’s notebooks constitute the ideal laboratory in which we can investigate how knowledge was formed and disseminated by means of note-taking. It was one of the superior faculties, meaning that the note-takers had reached intellectual maturity, offering notes of better quality than those of students in the liberal arts. Proposing a unique corpus of Latin manuscripts, project NOTA will launch creative reflections on the motivation and the technical aspects involved in producing notebooks. The project will combine interdisciplinary approaches (doctrinal, codicological and paleographical) and will impact the present state of the art by showing the potential of data that can be obtained by deciphering the practice of note-taking. New concepts will be launched (classification of notebooks, technical practices), traces of unknown authors and texts will be identified, and connections between scholars, institutions and texts will be established, fully justifying the recognition of notebooks as a new subject in the field of intellectual history and as an element of cultural identity shared by universities all around Europe.
Summary
Note-taking is a common intellectual practice. In academia, it is a universal endeavor that we share with students since the origin of the universities. Yet no one has focused on this practice as an original and independent object of research that, once investigated, will bring innovation and expand our knowledge of European intellectual history. Project NOTA is an ambitious enterprise, rooted in the discovery that decoding medieval notebooks produced in the context of late medieval universities will reveal invisible aspects of the process of producing scientific knowledge, of the European networking of scholars, and of the dynamic circulation of texts. Stemming from the Faculty of Theology during the 14th and 15th centuries, when paper invaded the university as an accessible material support, the student’s notebooks constitute the ideal laboratory in which we can investigate how knowledge was formed and disseminated by means of note-taking. It was one of the superior faculties, meaning that the note-takers had reached intellectual maturity, offering notes of better quality than those of students in the liberal arts. Proposing a unique corpus of Latin manuscripts, project NOTA will launch creative reflections on the motivation and the technical aspects involved in producing notebooks. The project will combine interdisciplinary approaches (doctrinal, codicological and paleographical) and will impact the present state of the art by showing the potential of data that can be obtained by deciphering the practice of note-taking. New concepts will be launched (classification of notebooks, technical practices), traces of unknown authors and texts will be identified, and connections between scholars, institutions and texts will be established, fully justifying the recognition of notebooks as a new subject in the field of intellectual history and as an element of cultural identity shared by universities all around Europe.
Max ERC Funding
1 175 100 €
Duration
Start date: 2021-01-01, End date: 2025-12-31
