Project acronym 9 SALT
Project Reassessing Ninth Century Philosophy. A Synchronic Approach to the Logical Traditions
Researcher (PI) Christophe Florian Erismann
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITAT WIEN
Country Austria
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH5, ERC-2014-CoG
Summary This project aims at a better understanding of the philosophical richness of ninth century thought using the unprecedented and highly innovative method of the synchronic approach. The hypothesis directing this synchronic approach is that studying together in parallel the four main philosophical traditions of the century – i.e. Latin, Greek, Syriac and Arabic – will bring results that the traditional enquiry limited to one tradition alone can never reach. This implies pioneering a new methodology to overcome the compartmentalization of research which prevails nowadays. Using this method is only possible because the four conditions of applicability – comparable intellectual environment, common text corpus, similar methodological perspective, commensurable problems – are fulfilled. The ninth century, a time of cultural renewal in the Carolingian, Byzantine and Abbasid empires, possesses the remarkable characteristic – which ensures commensurability – that the same texts, namely the writings of Aristotelian logic (mainly Porphyry’s Isagoge and Aristotle’s Categories) were read and commented upon in Latin, Greek, Syriac and Arabic alike.
Logic is fundamental to philosophical enquiry. The contested question is the human capacity to rationalise, analyse and describe the sensible reality, to understand the ontological structure of the world, and to define the types of entities which exist. The use of this unprecedented synchronic approach will allow us a deeper understanding of the positions, a clear identification of the a priori postulates of the philosophical debates, and a critical evaluation of the arguments used. It provides a unique opportunity to compare the different traditions and highlight the heritage which is common, to stress the specificities of each tradition when tackling philosophical issues and to discover the doctrinal results triggered by their mutual interactions, be they constructive (scholarly exchanges) or polemic (religious controversies).
Summary
This project aims at a better understanding of the philosophical richness of ninth century thought using the unprecedented and highly innovative method of the synchronic approach. The hypothesis directing this synchronic approach is that studying together in parallel the four main philosophical traditions of the century – i.e. Latin, Greek, Syriac and Arabic – will bring results that the traditional enquiry limited to one tradition alone can never reach. This implies pioneering a new methodology to overcome the compartmentalization of research which prevails nowadays. Using this method is only possible because the four conditions of applicability – comparable intellectual environment, common text corpus, similar methodological perspective, commensurable problems – are fulfilled. The ninth century, a time of cultural renewal in the Carolingian, Byzantine and Abbasid empires, possesses the remarkable characteristic – which ensures commensurability – that the same texts, namely the writings of Aristotelian logic (mainly Porphyry’s Isagoge and Aristotle’s Categories) were read and commented upon in Latin, Greek, Syriac and Arabic alike.
Logic is fundamental to philosophical enquiry. The contested question is the human capacity to rationalise, analyse and describe the sensible reality, to understand the ontological structure of the world, and to define the types of entities which exist. The use of this unprecedented synchronic approach will allow us a deeper understanding of the positions, a clear identification of the a priori postulates of the philosophical debates, and a critical evaluation of the arguments used. It provides a unique opportunity to compare the different traditions and highlight the heritage which is common, to stress the specificities of each tradition when tackling philosophical issues and to discover the doctrinal results triggered by their mutual interactions, be they constructive (scholarly exchanges) or polemic (religious controversies).
Max ERC Funding
1 998 566 €
Duration
Start date: 2015-09-01, End date: 2021-02-28
Project acronym ACO
Project The Proceedings of the Ecumenical Councils from Oral Utterance to Manuscript Edition as Evidence for Late Antique Persuasion and Self-Representation Techniques
Researcher (PI) Peter Alfred Riedlberger
Host Institution (HI) OTTO-FRIEDRICH-UNIVERSITAET BAMBERG
Country Germany
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH5, ERC-2015-STG
Summary The Acts of the Ecumenical Councils of Late Antiquity include (purportedly) verbatim minutes of the proceedings, a formal framework and copies of relevant documents which were either (allegedly) read out during the proceedings or which were later attached to the Acts proper. Despite this unusual wealth of documentary evidence, the daunting nature of the Acts demanding multidisciplinary competency, their complex structure with a matryoshka-like nesting of proceedings from different dates, and the stereotype that their contents bear only on Christological niceties have deterred generations of historians from studying them. Only in recent years have their fortunes begun to improve, but this recent research has not always been based on sound principles: the recorded proceedings of the sessions are still often accepted as verbatim minutes. Yet even a superficial reading quickly reveals widespread editorial interference. We must accept that in many cases the Acts will teach us less about the actual debates than about the editors who shaped their presentation. This does not depreciate the Acts’ evidence: on the contrary, they are first-rate material for the rhetoric of persuasion and self-representation. It is possible, in fact, to take the investigation to a deeper level and examine in what manner the oral proceedings were put into writing: several passages in the Acts comment upon the process of note-taking and the work of the shorthand writers. Thus, the main objective of the proposed research project could be described as an attempt to trace the destinies of the Acts’ texts, from the oral utterance to the manuscript texts we have today. This will include the fullest study on ancient transcript techniques to date; a structural analysis of the Acts’ texts with the aim of highlighting edited passages; and a careful comparison of the various editions of the Acts, which survive in Greek, Latin, Syriac and Coptic, in order to detect traces of editorial interference.
Summary
The Acts of the Ecumenical Councils of Late Antiquity include (purportedly) verbatim minutes of the proceedings, a formal framework and copies of relevant documents which were either (allegedly) read out during the proceedings or which were later attached to the Acts proper. Despite this unusual wealth of documentary evidence, the daunting nature of the Acts demanding multidisciplinary competency, their complex structure with a matryoshka-like nesting of proceedings from different dates, and the stereotype that their contents bear only on Christological niceties have deterred generations of historians from studying them. Only in recent years have their fortunes begun to improve, but this recent research has not always been based on sound principles: the recorded proceedings of the sessions are still often accepted as verbatim minutes. Yet even a superficial reading quickly reveals widespread editorial interference. We must accept that in many cases the Acts will teach us less about the actual debates than about the editors who shaped their presentation. This does not depreciate the Acts’ evidence: on the contrary, they are first-rate material for the rhetoric of persuasion and self-representation. It is possible, in fact, to take the investigation to a deeper level and examine in what manner the oral proceedings were put into writing: several passages in the Acts comment upon the process of note-taking and the work of the shorthand writers. Thus, the main objective of the proposed research project could be described as an attempt to trace the destinies of the Acts’ texts, from the oral utterance to the manuscript texts we have today. This will include the fullest study on ancient transcript techniques to date; a structural analysis of the Acts’ texts with the aim of highlighting edited passages; and a careful comparison of the various editions of the Acts, which survive in Greek, Latin, Syriac and Coptic, in order to detect traces of editorial interference.
Max ERC Funding
1 497 250 €
Duration
Start date: 2016-05-01, End date: 2021-04-30
Project acronym ADAPT
Project The Adoption of New Technological Arrays in the Production of Broadcast Television
Researcher (PI) John Cyril Paget Ellis
Host Institution (HI) ROYAL HOLLOWAY AND BEDFORD NEW COLLEGE
Country United Kingdom
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), SH5, ERC-2012-ADG_20120411
Summary "Since 1960, the television industry has undergone successive waves of technological change. Both the methods of programme making and the programmes themselves have changed substantially. The current opening of TV’s vast archives to public and academic use has emphasised the need to explain old programming to new users. Why particular programmes are like they are is not obvious to the contemporary viewer: the prevailing technologies imposed limits and enabled forms that have fallen into disuse. The project will examine the processes of change which gave rise to the particular dominant configurations of technologies for sound and image capture and processing, and some idea of the national and regional variants that existed. It will emphasise the capabilities of the machines in use rather than the process of their invention. The project therefore studies how the technologies of film and tape were implemented; how both broadcasters and individual filmers coped with the conflicting demands of the different machines at their disposal; how new ‘standard ways of doing things’ gradually emerged; and how all of this enabled desired changes in the resultant programmes. The project will produce an overall written account of the principal changes in the technologies in use in broadcast TV since 1960 to the near present. It will offer a theory of technological innovation, and a major case study in the adoption of digital workflow management in production for broadcasting: the so-called ‘tapeless environment’ which is currently being implemented in major organisations. It will offer two historical case studies: a longditudinal study of the evolution of tape-based sound recording and one of the rapid change from 16mm film cutting to digital editing, a process that took less than five years. Reconstructions of the process of working with particular technological arrays will be filmed and will be made available as explanatory material for any online archive of TV material ."
Summary
"Since 1960, the television industry has undergone successive waves of technological change. Both the methods of programme making and the programmes themselves have changed substantially. The current opening of TV’s vast archives to public and academic use has emphasised the need to explain old programming to new users. Why particular programmes are like they are is not obvious to the contemporary viewer: the prevailing technologies imposed limits and enabled forms that have fallen into disuse. The project will examine the processes of change which gave rise to the particular dominant configurations of technologies for sound and image capture and processing, and some idea of the national and regional variants that existed. It will emphasise the capabilities of the machines in use rather than the process of their invention. The project therefore studies how the technologies of film and tape were implemented; how both broadcasters and individual filmers coped with the conflicting demands of the different machines at their disposal; how new ‘standard ways of doing things’ gradually emerged; and how all of this enabled desired changes in the resultant programmes. The project will produce an overall written account of the principal changes in the technologies in use in broadcast TV since 1960 to the near present. It will offer a theory of technological innovation, and a major case study in the adoption of digital workflow management in production for broadcasting: the so-called ‘tapeless environment’ which is currently being implemented in major organisations. It will offer two historical case studies: a longditudinal study of the evolution of tape-based sound recording and one of the rapid change from 16mm film cutting to digital editing, a process that took less than five years. Reconstructions of the process of working with particular technological arrays will be filmed and will be made available as explanatory material for any online archive of TV material ."
Max ERC Funding
1 680 121 €
Duration
Start date: 2013-08-01, End date: 2018-07-31
Project acronym AdriArchCult
Project Architectural Culture of the Early Modern Eastern Adriatic
Researcher (PI) Jasenka Gudelj
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITA CA' FOSCARI VENEZIA
Country Italy
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH5, ERC-2019-COG
Summary During the 15th century, the political process of reducing the Eastern Adriatic, here considered as encompassing what is now littoral of Slovenia, Croatia and Montenegro, to a thin strip of border territories substantially separated from the continental massive to which they belong, reached its conclusion. The insularity of its large natural archipelago, i.e. almost exclusive dependence on the maritime communications, became characteristic even of mainland coastal towns, with lasting consequences. The project explores the impact of this change in the area between 15th and 18th c., focusing on architecture as the most evident materialization of a culture and its transformations. The goal is to examine the architectural culture in question in terms of both consumption and production. Factors such as political and economic consolidation of Venetian and Dubrovnik Republics as well as Habsburg Empire in the area, war and commerce with the Ottomans, but also the quick spread of revival of antiquity and the Catholic Revival, all fuelled the need for architectural creation with certain functional and symbolic characteristics, setting the cultural standards. On the other hand, the economics of production of architecture consisted of interrelated systems of the provision of materials (esp. Istrian stone) and organisation of construction sites, which, given the ease of the sea transport, resulted in an active market for architectural goods. This approach will provide an original contribution to the understanding of cultural practices that not only produced specific buildings, the most significant among which are now listed as World Heritage sites but also put into circulation ancient and modern models, techniques and materials for a European-wide audience. Moreover, it will investigate the trans-border and trans-confessional character of the architectural market, thus providing an innovative model for a study of such phenomena across Europe.
Summary
During the 15th century, the political process of reducing the Eastern Adriatic, here considered as encompassing what is now littoral of Slovenia, Croatia and Montenegro, to a thin strip of border territories substantially separated from the continental massive to which they belong, reached its conclusion. The insularity of its large natural archipelago, i.e. almost exclusive dependence on the maritime communications, became characteristic even of mainland coastal towns, with lasting consequences. The project explores the impact of this change in the area between 15th and 18th c., focusing on architecture as the most evident materialization of a culture and its transformations. The goal is to examine the architectural culture in question in terms of both consumption and production. Factors such as political and economic consolidation of Venetian and Dubrovnik Republics as well as Habsburg Empire in the area, war and commerce with the Ottomans, but also the quick spread of revival of antiquity and the Catholic Revival, all fuelled the need for architectural creation with certain functional and symbolic characteristics, setting the cultural standards. On the other hand, the economics of production of architecture consisted of interrelated systems of the provision of materials (esp. Istrian stone) and organisation of construction sites, which, given the ease of the sea transport, resulted in an active market for architectural goods. This approach will provide an original contribution to the understanding of cultural practices that not only produced specific buildings, the most significant among which are now listed as World Heritage sites but also put into circulation ancient and modern models, techniques and materials for a European-wide audience. Moreover, it will investigate the trans-border and trans-confessional character of the architectural market, thus providing an innovative model for a study of such phenomena across Europe.
Max ERC Funding
1 999 750 €
Duration
Start date: 2020-09-01, End date: 2025-08-31
Project acronym AestApp
Project The Aesthetics of Applied Theatre
Researcher (PI) Matthias Warstat
Host Institution (HI) FREIE UNIVERSITAET BERLIN
Country Germany
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), SH5, ERC-2011-ADG_20110406
Summary The project aims to systematically explore an entire field of current forms of theatre, which despite its outstanding cultural and political significance has so far largely been ignored by theatre studies. Over the past two decades, notwithstanding intense competition from television and electronic media, theatre has been able to reassert and even reinforce its relevance in many different parts of the world and in widely diverse cultural fields (politics, business, social work, development aid, health care, and education). This renewed relevance originates not in traditional, experimental, or commercial theatre but rather among the many different types of applied theatre, which set in motion constructive social processes while upholding theatre’s aesthetic claim. Theatre with clear social, political, or economic aims is experiencing an unprecedented boom. The study will analyse this cross-cultural trend against the background of new theories of the aesthetics of performances and rehearsal processes. This theatre studies approach promises precise insights into the aesthetic forms of applied theatre, which constitute the (hitherto barely researched) foundation of its political effects. It will furthermore bring to light the ethical issues of applied theatre: intense aesthetic experiences – often linked with risks when it comes to performances – do not readily fit in with the claim to restore children, youngsters, patients, and other target groups to health, integrity, and self-confidence through theatrical practice. The project aims to show how aesthetic, political, and ethical aspects interact in the practice of applied theatre. Investigations will focus on carefully selected case studies in Africa, Europe, the Middle East, and Latin America, whose comparison will make it possible for the first time to capture the worldwide landscape of applied theatre in its full diversity, but also in its overarching structures and interrelations.
Summary
The project aims to systematically explore an entire field of current forms of theatre, which despite its outstanding cultural and political significance has so far largely been ignored by theatre studies. Over the past two decades, notwithstanding intense competition from television and electronic media, theatre has been able to reassert and even reinforce its relevance in many different parts of the world and in widely diverse cultural fields (politics, business, social work, development aid, health care, and education). This renewed relevance originates not in traditional, experimental, or commercial theatre but rather among the many different types of applied theatre, which set in motion constructive social processes while upholding theatre’s aesthetic claim. Theatre with clear social, political, or economic aims is experiencing an unprecedented boom. The study will analyse this cross-cultural trend against the background of new theories of the aesthetics of performances and rehearsal processes. This theatre studies approach promises precise insights into the aesthetic forms of applied theatre, which constitute the (hitherto barely researched) foundation of its political effects. It will furthermore bring to light the ethical issues of applied theatre: intense aesthetic experiences – often linked with risks when it comes to performances – do not readily fit in with the claim to restore children, youngsters, patients, and other target groups to health, integrity, and self-confidence through theatrical practice. The project aims to show how aesthetic, political, and ethical aspects interact in the practice of applied theatre. Investigations will focus on carefully selected case studies in Africa, Europe, the Middle East, and Latin America, whose comparison will make it possible for the first time to capture the worldwide landscape of applied theatre in its full diversity, but also in its overarching structures and interrelations.
Max ERC Funding
2 285 295 €
Duration
Start date: 2012-12-01, End date: 2017-11-30
Project acronym AFRISCREENWORLDS
Project African Screen Worlds: Decolonising Film and Screen Studies
Researcher (PI) Lindiwe Dovey
Host Institution (HI) SCHOOL OF ORIENTAL AND AFRICAN STUDIES ROYAL CHARTER
Country United Kingdom
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH5, ERC-2018-COG
Summary A half century since it came into existence, the discipline of Film and Screen Studies remains mostly Eurocentric in its historical, theoretical and critical frameworks. Although “world cinema” and “transnational cinema” scholars have attempted to broaden its canon and frameworks, several major problems persist. Films and scholarship by Africans in particular, and by people of colour in general, are frequently marginalised if not altogether excluded. This prevents exciting exchanges that could help to re-envision Film and Screen Studies for the twenty-first century, in an era in which greater access to the technological means of making films, and circulating them on a range of screens, means that dynamic “screen worlds” are developing at a rapid rate. AFRISCREENWORLDS will study these “screen worlds” (in both their textual forms and industrial structures), with a focus on Africa, as a way of centring the most marginalised regional cinema. We will also elaborate comparative studies of global “screen worlds” – and, in particular, “screen worlds” in the Global South – exploring their similarities, differences, and parallel developments. We will respond to the exclusions of Film and Screen Studies not only in scholarly ways – through conferences and publications – but also in creative and activist ways – through drawing on cutting-edge creative research methodologies (such as audiovisual criticism and filmmaking) and through helping to decolonise Film and Screen Studies (through the production of ‘toolkits’ on how to make curricula, syllabi, and teaching more globally representative and inclusive). On a theoretical level, we will make an intervention through considering how the concept of “screen worlds” is better equipped than “world cinema” or “transnational cinema” to explore the complexities of audiovisual narratives, and their production and circulation in our contemporary moment, in diverse contexts throughout the globe.
Summary
A half century since it came into existence, the discipline of Film and Screen Studies remains mostly Eurocentric in its historical, theoretical and critical frameworks. Although “world cinema” and “transnational cinema” scholars have attempted to broaden its canon and frameworks, several major problems persist. Films and scholarship by Africans in particular, and by people of colour in general, are frequently marginalised if not altogether excluded. This prevents exciting exchanges that could help to re-envision Film and Screen Studies for the twenty-first century, in an era in which greater access to the technological means of making films, and circulating them on a range of screens, means that dynamic “screen worlds” are developing at a rapid rate. AFRISCREENWORLDS will study these “screen worlds” (in both their textual forms and industrial structures), with a focus on Africa, as a way of centring the most marginalised regional cinema. We will also elaborate comparative studies of global “screen worlds” – and, in particular, “screen worlds” in the Global South – exploring their similarities, differences, and parallel developments. We will respond to the exclusions of Film and Screen Studies not only in scholarly ways – through conferences and publications – but also in creative and activist ways – through drawing on cutting-edge creative research methodologies (such as audiovisual criticism and filmmaking) and through helping to decolonise Film and Screen Studies (through the production of ‘toolkits’ on how to make curricula, syllabi, and teaching more globally representative and inclusive). On a theoretical level, we will make an intervention through considering how the concept of “screen worlds” is better equipped than “world cinema” or “transnational cinema” to explore the complexities of audiovisual narratives, and their production and circulation in our contemporary moment, in diverse contexts throughout the globe.
Max ERC Funding
1 985 578 €
Duration
Start date: 2019-06-01, End date: 2024-05-31
Project acronym AFRIUNI
Project The Creative Lives of African Universities: Pedagogies of Hope and Despair
Researcher (PI) Ruth Bush
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITY OF BRISTOL
Country United Kingdom
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH5, ERC-2020-STG
Summary AFRIUNI explores cultural representations and lived experiences of university life on the African continent. Building on insights from critical pedagogy and decolonial thought, the project considers in material, affective, and aesthetic terms the forms of structural and epistemic violence, physical discomfort, and individual and collective self-realization that obtain within these contested institutions. The project asks: 1. How are African universities represented in creative work and how do these representations inform the perception of education? 2. What do student experiences of campus life tell us about the human experience of uncertainty in the global South? 3. What are the languages of creative expression in these universities and how does translation manifest? What does multilingualism contribute to the experiences of hope, resilience, uncertainty and despair experienced there? 4. How do debates around epistemic justice and engaged pedagogy manifest in historically francophone sites? 5. How can fine-grained understanding of cultural production and reception on campus inform local and global thinking about education? The work responds to these questions by exploring case studies in Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire, Benin and Cameroon. The project’s first strand will document and analyse cultural representations (including literature, hip hop, film, theatre) of the universities; the second strand will map the histories of literary curricula/pedagogies; the third strand will focus on students’ lived experiences. Throughout, the project will test and develop cutting-edge decolonial (participatory, co-productive, digital) methodologies for Humanities research. AFRIUNI is acutely attuned both to the legacies of imperial linguistic and cultural structures and the significance of place-based learning. It will drive forward connections between these case studies and local, continental, and global scales of debate concerning decoloniality, creativity, and education.
Summary
AFRIUNI explores cultural representations and lived experiences of university life on the African continent. Building on insights from critical pedagogy and decolonial thought, the project considers in material, affective, and aesthetic terms the forms of structural and epistemic violence, physical discomfort, and individual and collective self-realization that obtain within these contested institutions. The project asks: 1. How are African universities represented in creative work and how do these representations inform the perception of education? 2. What do student experiences of campus life tell us about the human experience of uncertainty in the global South? 3. What are the languages of creative expression in these universities and how does translation manifest? What does multilingualism contribute to the experiences of hope, resilience, uncertainty and despair experienced there? 4. How do debates around epistemic justice and engaged pedagogy manifest in historically francophone sites? 5. How can fine-grained understanding of cultural production and reception on campus inform local and global thinking about education? The work responds to these questions by exploring case studies in Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire, Benin and Cameroon. The project’s first strand will document and analyse cultural representations (including literature, hip hop, film, theatre) of the universities; the second strand will map the histories of literary curricula/pedagogies; the third strand will focus on students’ lived experiences. Throughout, the project will test and develop cutting-edge decolonial (participatory, co-productive, digital) methodologies for Humanities research. AFRIUNI is acutely attuned both to the legacies of imperial linguistic and cultural structures and the significance of place-based learning. It will drive forward connections between these case studies and local, continental, and global scales of debate concerning decoloniality, creativity, and education.
Max ERC Funding
1 500 000 €
Duration
Start date: 2021-02-01, End date: 2026-01-31
Project acronym AGATM
Project A Global Anthropology of Transforming Marriage
Researcher (PI) Janet CARSTEN
Host Institution (HI) THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH
Country United Kingdom
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), SH5, ERC-2015-AdG
Summary This research will create a new theoretical vision of the importance of marriage as an agent of transformation in human sociality. Marriage globally is undergoing profound change, provoking intense debate and anxiety. These concerns refract wider instabilities in political, economic, and familial institutions. They signal the critical role of marriage in bringing together - and separating - intimate, personal, and familial life with wider state institutions. But we have little up to date comparative research or general theory of how marriage changes or the long-term significance of such change. Paradoxically, social scientific and public discourse emphasise the conservative and normative aspects of marriage. This underlines the need for a new theoretical frame that takes account of cultural and historical specificity to grasp the importance of marriage as both vehicle of and engine for transformation. AGATM overturns conventional understandings by viewing marriage as inherently transformative, indeed at the heart of social and cultural change. The research will investigate current transformations of marriage in two distinct senses. First, it will undertake an ethnographic investigation of new forms of marriage in selected sites in Europe, N. America, Asia, and Africa. Second, it will subject ‘marriage’ to a rigorous theoretical critique that will denaturalise marriage and reintegrate it into the new anthropology of kinship. Research on five complementary and contrastive sub-projects examining emerging forms of marriage in different locations will be structured through the themes of care, property, and ritual forms. The overarching analytic of temporality will frame the theoretical vision of the research and connect the themes. The resulting six monographs, journal articles, and exhibition will together revitalise the study of kinship by placing the moral, practical, political, and imaginative significance of marriage over time at its centre.
Summary
This research will create a new theoretical vision of the importance of marriage as an agent of transformation in human sociality. Marriage globally is undergoing profound change, provoking intense debate and anxiety. These concerns refract wider instabilities in political, economic, and familial institutions. They signal the critical role of marriage in bringing together - and separating - intimate, personal, and familial life with wider state institutions. But we have little up to date comparative research or general theory of how marriage changes or the long-term significance of such change. Paradoxically, social scientific and public discourse emphasise the conservative and normative aspects of marriage. This underlines the need for a new theoretical frame that takes account of cultural and historical specificity to grasp the importance of marriage as both vehicle of and engine for transformation. AGATM overturns conventional understandings by viewing marriage as inherently transformative, indeed at the heart of social and cultural change. The research will investigate current transformations of marriage in two distinct senses. First, it will undertake an ethnographic investigation of new forms of marriage in selected sites in Europe, N. America, Asia, and Africa. Second, it will subject ‘marriage’ to a rigorous theoretical critique that will denaturalise marriage and reintegrate it into the new anthropology of kinship. Research on five complementary and contrastive sub-projects examining emerging forms of marriage in different locations will be structured through the themes of care, property, and ritual forms. The overarching analytic of temporality will frame the theoretical vision of the research and connect the themes. The resulting six monographs, journal articles, and exhibition will together revitalise the study of kinship by placing the moral, practical, political, and imaginative significance of marriage over time at its centre.
Max ERC Funding
2 297 584 €
Duration
Start date: 2017-01-01, End date: 2022-06-30
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
Country Italy
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 ALTERUMMA
Project Creating an Alternative umma: Clerical Authority and Religio-political Mobilisation in Transnational Shii Islam
Researcher (PI) Oliver Paul SCHARBRODT
Host Institution (HI) THE UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM
Country United Kingdom
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH5, ERC-2016-COG
Summary This interdisciplinary project investigates the transformation of Shii Islam in the Middle East and Europe since the 1950s. The project examines the formation of modern Shii communal identities and the role Shii clerical authorities and their transnational networks have played in their religio-political mobilisation. The volatile situation post-Arab Spring, the rise of militant movements such as ISIS and the sectarianisation of geopolitical conflicts in the Middle East have intensified efforts to forge distinct Shii communal identities and to conceive Shii Muslims as part of an alternative umma (Islamic community). The project focusses on Iran, Iraq and significant but unexplored diasporic links to Syria, Kuwait and Britain. In response to the rise of modern nation-states in the Middle East, Shii clerical authorities resorted to a wide range of activities: (a) articulating intellectual responses to the ideologies underpinning modern Middle Eastern nation-states, (b) forming political parties and other platforms of socio-political activism and (c) using various forms of cultural production by systematising and promoting Shii ritual practices and utilising visual art, poetry and new media.
The project yields a perspectival shift on the factors that led to Shii communal mobilisation by:
- Analysing unacknowledged intellectual responses of Shii clerical authorities to the secular or sectarian ideologies of post-colonial nation-states and to the current sectarianisation of geopolitics in the Middle East.
- Emphasising the central role of diasporic networks in the Middle East and Europe in mobilising Shii communities and in influencing discourses and agendas of clerical authorities based in Iraq and Iran.
- Exploring new modes of cultural production in the form of a modern Shii aesthetics articulated in ritual practices, visual art, poetry and new media and thus creating a more holistic narrative on Shii religio-political mobilisation.
Summary
This interdisciplinary project investigates the transformation of Shii Islam in the Middle East and Europe since the 1950s. The project examines the formation of modern Shii communal identities and the role Shii clerical authorities and their transnational networks have played in their religio-political mobilisation. The volatile situation post-Arab Spring, the rise of militant movements such as ISIS and the sectarianisation of geopolitical conflicts in the Middle East have intensified efforts to forge distinct Shii communal identities and to conceive Shii Muslims as part of an alternative umma (Islamic community). The project focusses on Iran, Iraq and significant but unexplored diasporic links to Syria, Kuwait and Britain. In response to the rise of modern nation-states in the Middle East, Shii clerical authorities resorted to a wide range of activities: (a) articulating intellectual responses to the ideologies underpinning modern Middle Eastern nation-states, (b) forming political parties and other platforms of socio-political activism and (c) using various forms of cultural production by systematising and promoting Shii ritual practices and utilising visual art, poetry and new media.
The project yields a perspectival shift on the factors that led to Shii communal mobilisation by:
- Analysing unacknowledged intellectual responses of Shii clerical authorities to the secular or sectarian ideologies of post-colonial nation-states and to the current sectarianisation of geopolitics in the Middle East.
- Emphasising the central role of diasporic networks in the Middle East and Europe in mobilising Shii communities and in influencing discourses and agendas of clerical authorities based in Iraq and Iran.
- Exploring new modes of cultural production in the form of a modern Shii aesthetics articulated in ritual practices, visual art, poetry and new media and thus creating a more holistic narrative on Shii religio-political mobilisation.
Max ERC Funding
1 952 374 €
Duration
Start date: 2018-01-01, End date: 2022-12-31
