Project acronym BIOUNCERTAINTY
Project Deep uncertainties in bioethics: genetic research, preventive medicine, reproductive decisions
Researcher (PI) Tomasz ZURADZKI
Host Institution (HI) UNIWERSYTET JAGIELLONSKI
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH5, ERC-2018-STG
Summary Uncertainty is everywhere, as the saying goes, but rarely considered in ethical reflections. This project aims to reinterpret ethical discussions on current advances in biomedicine: instead of understanding bioethical positions as extensions of classical normative views in ethics (consequentialism, deontologism, contractualism etc.), my project interprets them more accurately as involving various normative approaches to decision making under uncertainty. The following hard cases in bioethics provide the motivation for research:
1) Regulating scientific research under uncertainty about the ontological/moral status (e.g. parthenogenetic stem cells derived from human parthenotes) in the context of meta-reasoning under normative uncertainty.
2) The value of preventive medicine in healthcare (e.g. vaccinations) in the context of decision-making under metaphysical indeterminacy.
3) Population or reproductive decisions (e.g. preimplantation genetic diagnosis) in the context of valuing mere existence.
The main drive behind this project is the rapid progress in biomedical research combined with new kinds of uncertainties. These new and “deep” uncertainties trigger specific forms of emotions and cognitions that influence normative judgments and decisions. The main research questions that will be addressed by conceptual analysis, new psychological experiments, and case studies are the following: how do the heuristics and biases (H&B) documented by behavioral scientists influence the formation of normative judgments in bioethical contexts; how to demarcate between distorted and undistorted value judgments; to what extent is it permissible for individuals or policy makers to yield to H&B. The hypothesis is that many existing bioethical rules, regulations, practices seem to have emerged from unreliable reactions, rather than by means of deliberation on the possible justifications for alternative ways to decide about them under several layers and types of uncertainty.
Summary
Uncertainty is everywhere, as the saying goes, but rarely considered in ethical reflections. This project aims to reinterpret ethical discussions on current advances in biomedicine: instead of understanding bioethical positions as extensions of classical normative views in ethics (consequentialism, deontologism, contractualism etc.), my project interprets them more accurately as involving various normative approaches to decision making under uncertainty. The following hard cases in bioethics provide the motivation for research:
1) Regulating scientific research under uncertainty about the ontological/moral status (e.g. parthenogenetic stem cells derived from human parthenotes) in the context of meta-reasoning under normative uncertainty.
2) The value of preventive medicine in healthcare (e.g. vaccinations) in the context of decision-making under metaphysical indeterminacy.
3) Population or reproductive decisions (e.g. preimplantation genetic diagnosis) in the context of valuing mere existence.
The main drive behind this project is the rapid progress in biomedical research combined with new kinds of uncertainties. These new and “deep” uncertainties trigger specific forms of emotions and cognitions that influence normative judgments and decisions. The main research questions that will be addressed by conceptual analysis, new psychological experiments, and case studies are the following: how do the heuristics and biases (H&B) documented by behavioral scientists influence the formation of normative judgments in bioethical contexts; how to demarcate between distorted and undistorted value judgments; to what extent is it permissible for individuals or policy makers to yield to H&B. The hypothesis is that many existing bioethical rules, regulations, practices seem to have emerged from unreliable reactions, rather than by means of deliberation on the possible justifications for alternative ways to decide about them under several layers and types of uncertainty.
Max ERC Funding
1 499 625 €
Duration
Start date: 2019-02-01, End date: 2024-01-31
Project acronym CULTURECONTACT
Project Europe and America in contact: a multidisciplinary study of cross-cultural transfer in the New World across time
Researcher (PI) Justyna Agnieszka Olko
Host Institution (HI) UNIWERSYTET WARSZAWSKI
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH6, ERC-2012-StG_20111124
Summary "At the core of this research proposal is the aim of reconstructing and understanding the nature, exact trajectories, mechanisms and implications of cross-cultural contact and transfers between Europeans and the native people of the Americas, focusing on, but not limited to, the Nahuatl-speaking zone of central Mexico. A major innovation of this project is to study this process of cross-cultural communication in its full historical depth, through the colonial and postcolonial eras up to the present day and encompassing different stages and types of contact. The meticulous and cross-disciplinary study of an extensive body of texts in Nahuatl (“Aztec”) and Spanish, complemented by present-day ethnolinguistic data, will make it possible to deduce and understand patterns across time and space in ways novel to existing scholarship, embracing both micro- and macroregional trends. The proposed research starts with identifying transfers in language, studied systematically through the creation of extensive databases, but leads to exploring the substance of cross-cultural transfer and the essence of developments, becoming a fundamental way of studying culture and its transformations. Thus, an important aim is the correlation of language phenomena with more general contact-induced culture change, including especially evolving forms of political, social and municipal organization in the native world, where the change is more salient. Breaking existing disciplinary boundaries in the humanities, the project embraces both indigenous and European perspectives, assuming that the innovation of studying both sides in a single framework and in the proposed time span is particularly promising in dealing with a notably two-sided, prolonged historical process. The complementary lines of research, native and Spanish, are expected to highlight and make understandable factors underlying and facilitating cultural convergence between them in different aspects of colonial life and beyond."
Summary
"At the core of this research proposal is the aim of reconstructing and understanding the nature, exact trajectories, mechanisms and implications of cross-cultural contact and transfers between Europeans and the native people of the Americas, focusing on, but not limited to, the Nahuatl-speaking zone of central Mexico. A major innovation of this project is to study this process of cross-cultural communication in its full historical depth, through the colonial and postcolonial eras up to the present day and encompassing different stages and types of contact. The meticulous and cross-disciplinary study of an extensive body of texts in Nahuatl (“Aztec”) and Spanish, complemented by present-day ethnolinguistic data, will make it possible to deduce and understand patterns across time and space in ways novel to existing scholarship, embracing both micro- and macroregional trends. The proposed research starts with identifying transfers in language, studied systematically through the creation of extensive databases, but leads to exploring the substance of cross-cultural transfer and the essence of developments, becoming a fundamental way of studying culture and its transformations. Thus, an important aim is the correlation of language phenomena with more general contact-induced culture change, including especially evolving forms of political, social and municipal organization in the native world, where the change is more salient. Breaking existing disciplinary boundaries in the humanities, the project embraces both indigenous and European perspectives, assuming that the innovation of studying both sides in a single framework and in the proposed time span is particularly promising in dealing with a notably two-sided, prolonged historical process. The complementary lines of research, native and Spanish, are expected to highlight and make understandable factors underlying and facilitating cultural convergence between them in different aspects of colonial life and beyond."
Max ERC Funding
1 318 840 €
Duration
Start date: 2012-12-01, End date: 2017-11-30
Project acronym FIELDS-KNOTS
Project Quantum fields and knot homologies
Researcher (PI) Piotr Sulkowski
Host Institution (HI) UNIWERSYTET WARSZAWSKI
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), PE2, ERC-2013-StG
Summary This project is concerned with fundamental problems arising at the interface of quantum field theory, knot theory, and the theory of random matrices. The main aim of the project is to understand two of the most profound phenomena in physics and mathematics, namely quantization and categorification, and to establish an explicit and rigorous framework where they come into play in an interrelated fashion. The project and its aims focus on the following areas:
- Knot homologies and superpolynomials. The aim of the project in this area is to determine homological knot invariants and to derive an explicit form of colored superpolynomials for a large class of knots and links.
- Super-A-polynomial. The aim of the project in this area is to develop a theory of the super-A-polynomial, to find an explicit form of the super-A-polynomial for a large class of knots, and to understand its properties.
- Three-dimensional supersymmetric N=2 theories. This project aims to find and understand dualities between theories in this class, in particular theories related to knots by 3d-3d duality, and to generalize this duality to the level of homological knot invariants.
- Topological recursion and quantization. The project aims to develop a quantization procedure based on the topological recursion, to demonstrate its consistency with knot-theoretic quantization of A-polynomials, and to generalize this quantization scheme to super-A-polynomials.
All these research areas are connected via remarkable dualities unraveled very recently by physicists and mathematicians. The project is interdisciplinary and aims to reach the above goals by taking advantage of these dualities, and through simultaneous and complementary development in quantum field theory, knot theory, and random matrix theory, in collaboration with renowned experts in each of those fields.
Summary
This project is concerned with fundamental problems arising at the interface of quantum field theory, knot theory, and the theory of random matrices. The main aim of the project is to understand two of the most profound phenomena in physics and mathematics, namely quantization and categorification, and to establish an explicit and rigorous framework where they come into play in an interrelated fashion. The project and its aims focus on the following areas:
- Knot homologies and superpolynomials. The aim of the project in this area is to determine homological knot invariants and to derive an explicit form of colored superpolynomials for a large class of knots and links.
- Super-A-polynomial. The aim of the project in this area is to develop a theory of the super-A-polynomial, to find an explicit form of the super-A-polynomial for a large class of knots, and to understand its properties.
- Three-dimensional supersymmetric N=2 theories. This project aims to find and understand dualities between theories in this class, in particular theories related to knots by 3d-3d duality, and to generalize this duality to the level of homological knot invariants.
- Topological recursion and quantization. The project aims to develop a quantization procedure based on the topological recursion, to demonstrate its consistency with knot-theoretic quantization of A-polynomials, and to generalize this quantization scheme to super-A-polynomials.
All these research areas are connected via remarkable dualities unraveled very recently by physicists and mathematicians. The project is interdisciplinary and aims to reach the above goals by taking advantage of these dualities, and through simultaneous and complementary development in quantum field theory, knot theory, and random matrix theory, in collaboration with renowned experts in each of those fields.
Max ERC Funding
1 345 080 €
Duration
Start date: 2013-12-01, End date: 2018-11-30
Project acronym GHOST
Project Geographies and Histories of the Ottoman Supernatural Tradition Exploring Magic, the Marvelous, and the Strange in Ottoman Mentalities
Researcher (PI) Marinos SARIGIANNIS
Host Institution (HI) IDRYMA TECHNOLOGIAS KAI EREVNAS
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH6, ERC-2017-COG
Summary The project aims to explore Ottoman notions and belief systems concerning the supernatural. Its major objectives will be to explore the meaning and content of the perceptions of the “supernatural”, to localize such beliefs in the various Ottoman systems of thought, to analyze the changes that took place and to associate them with emerging or declining layers of culture and specific social groups. The project will address larger debates in recent historiography about the relevance of the “disenchantment” and “enlightenment” paradigms, integrating Ottoman intellectual history into the broader early modern cultural history.
The research team, composed of the PI, three post-doctoral fellows, four collaborating researchers, five post-graduate students and a technical assistant, will explore these objectives and produce a web portal (containing crowd-sourced dictionaries and bibliographies, open access papers and other material), three international meetings, monographs and papers, and an annual open-access periodical journal. Specific research modules will study the rationalist trends in Ottoman science, various aspects of the Ottoman occult and magic, and the formation and development of the Ottoman cosmological culture. A monograph will be written by the PI and dwell in: the various conceptions of the supernatural/preternatural and their development, the presence of spirits/jinn in Ottoman world image, theory and practice of Ottoman magic, attitudes toward folklore traditions, saintly miracles, and “marvelous geographies”. Monographs will also be produced by the post-doctoral fellows.
The project proposes an innovative approach in many ways, in a subject very much in the frontiers of the field; by exploring the supernatural and the occult in the context of the Ottoman Weltanschauung, the project will address a wider problématique on the Ottoman culture and its place in early modernity, especially as it will focus to the role of different cultural and social layers.
Summary
The project aims to explore Ottoman notions and belief systems concerning the supernatural. Its major objectives will be to explore the meaning and content of the perceptions of the “supernatural”, to localize such beliefs in the various Ottoman systems of thought, to analyze the changes that took place and to associate them with emerging or declining layers of culture and specific social groups. The project will address larger debates in recent historiography about the relevance of the “disenchantment” and “enlightenment” paradigms, integrating Ottoman intellectual history into the broader early modern cultural history.
The research team, composed of the PI, three post-doctoral fellows, four collaborating researchers, five post-graduate students and a technical assistant, will explore these objectives and produce a web portal (containing crowd-sourced dictionaries and bibliographies, open access papers and other material), three international meetings, monographs and papers, and an annual open-access periodical journal. Specific research modules will study the rationalist trends in Ottoman science, various aspects of the Ottoman occult and magic, and the formation and development of the Ottoman cosmological culture. A monograph will be written by the PI and dwell in: the various conceptions of the supernatural/preternatural and their development, the presence of spirits/jinn in Ottoman world image, theory and practice of Ottoman magic, attitudes toward folklore traditions, saintly miracles, and “marvelous geographies”. Monographs will also be produced by the post-doctoral fellows.
The project proposes an innovative approach in many ways, in a subject very much in the frontiers of the field; by exploring the supernatural and the occult in the context of the Ottoman Weltanschauung, the project will address a wider problématique on the Ottoman culture and its place in early modernity, especially as it will focus to the role of different cultural and social layers.
Max ERC Funding
1 289 824 €
Duration
Start date: 2018-03-01, End date: 2023-02-28
Project acronym GRASSROOTSMOBILISE
Project Directions in Religious Pluralism in Europe: Examining Grassroots Mobilisations in Europe in the Shadow of European Court of Human Rights Religious Freedom Jurisprudence
Researcher (PI) Efterpe Fokas
Host Institution (HI) Elliniko Idryma Evropaikis kai Exoterikis Politikis (HELLENIC FOUNDATION FOR EUROPEAN AND FOREIGN POLICY)
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH2, ERC-2013-StG
Summary The European public square has, in the last twenty years and increasingly so, been inundated with controversies around the place of religion in the public sphere. Issues such as freedom of religious expression, freedom of speech v. blasphemy, and the public display of religious symbols loom large in the workplace, in schools, in media coverage etc., at the local, national, and supranational level. The presence of Islam has been a catalyst for many debates on religion in Europe, but these have now grown to encompass much broader assumptions about the nature of religious communities, their relationship to state institutions, and the place of minority religious communities in society. Against this backdrop the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) adds its own voice and significantly influences the terms of the debates. This project examines the domestic impact of the ECtHR religion case law: it explores the mobilisation of local and national level actors in the wake of a number of high-profile ECtHR religious freedom cases in order to determine the nature and extent of European juridical influence on religious pluralism. In light of scholarly debates questioning the direct effects of courts, the project probes developments that take place ‘in the shadow’ of the Court. It engages especially with the extent to which court decisions define the ‘political opportunity structures’ and the discursive frameworks within which citizens act. What is the aftermath of the Court’s religion jurisprudence in terms of its applications at the grassroots level? The question is important because ECtHR case law will shape, to a large extent, both local and national level case law and – less conspicuously but no less importantly – grassroots developments in the promotion of or resistance to religious pluralism. Both the latter will, in turn, influence the future of the ECtHR caseload. The project will thus impart rare insight into directions being taken in religious pluralism in Europe.
Summary
The European public square has, in the last twenty years and increasingly so, been inundated with controversies around the place of religion in the public sphere. Issues such as freedom of religious expression, freedom of speech v. blasphemy, and the public display of religious symbols loom large in the workplace, in schools, in media coverage etc., at the local, national, and supranational level. The presence of Islam has been a catalyst for many debates on religion in Europe, but these have now grown to encompass much broader assumptions about the nature of religious communities, their relationship to state institutions, and the place of minority religious communities in society. Against this backdrop the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) adds its own voice and significantly influences the terms of the debates. This project examines the domestic impact of the ECtHR religion case law: it explores the mobilisation of local and national level actors in the wake of a number of high-profile ECtHR religious freedom cases in order to determine the nature and extent of European juridical influence on religious pluralism. In light of scholarly debates questioning the direct effects of courts, the project probes developments that take place ‘in the shadow’ of the Court. It engages especially with the extent to which court decisions define the ‘political opportunity structures’ and the discursive frameworks within which citizens act. What is the aftermath of the Court’s religion jurisprudence in terms of its applications at the grassroots level? The question is important because ECtHR case law will shape, to a large extent, both local and national level case law and – less conspicuously but no less importantly – grassroots developments in the promotion of or resistance to religious pluralism. Both the latter will, in turn, influence the future of the ECtHR caseload. The project will thus impart rare insight into directions being taken in religious pluralism in Europe.
Max ERC Funding
1 184 568 €
Duration
Start date: 2014-01-01, End date: 2018-12-31
Project acronym HETEROPOLITICS
Project Refiguring the Common and the Political
Researcher (PI) Alexandros KIOUPKIOLIS
Host Institution (HI) ARISTOTELIO PANEPISTIMIO THESSALONIKIS
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH5, ERC-2016-COG
Summary Heteropolitics is a project in contemporary political theory which purports to contribute to the renewal of political thought on the ‘common’ (communities and the commons) and the political in tandem. The common implies a variable interaction between differences which communicate and collaborate in and through their differences, converging partially on practices and particular pursuits. The political pertains to processes through which plural communities manage themselves in ways which enable mutual challenges, deliberation, and creative agency.
Since the dawn of the 21st century, a growing interest in rethinking and reconfiguring community has spread among theorists, citizens and social movements (see e.g. Esposito 2013; Dardot & Laval 2014; Amin & Roberts 2008). This has been triggered by a complex tangle of social, economic and political conditions. Climate change, economic crises, globalization, increasing migration flows and the malaise of liberal democracies loom large among them.
These issues are essentially political. Rethinking and refiguring communities goes hand in hand thus with rethinking and reinventing politics. Hence ‘hetero-politics’, the quest for another politics, which can establish bonds of commonality across differences and can enable action in common without re-enacting the closures of ‘organic’ community or the violence of transformative politics in the past.
Heteropolitics will seek to break new ground by combining an extended re-elaboration of contemporary political theory with a more empirically grounded research into alternative and incipient practices of community building and self-governance in: education; the social economy; art; new modes of civic engagement by young people; new platforms of citizens’ participation in municipal politics; network communities, and other social fields (Relevant cases include Sardex, a community currency in Sardinia; Barcelona en Comú, a citizens’ platform governing the city of Barcelona, etc.)
Summary
Heteropolitics is a project in contemporary political theory which purports to contribute to the renewal of political thought on the ‘common’ (communities and the commons) and the political in tandem. The common implies a variable interaction between differences which communicate and collaborate in and through their differences, converging partially on practices and particular pursuits. The political pertains to processes through which plural communities manage themselves in ways which enable mutual challenges, deliberation, and creative agency.
Since the dawn of the 21st century, a growing interest in rethinking and reconfiguring community has spread among theorists, citizens and social movements (see e.g. Esposito 2013; Dardot & Laval 2014; Amin & Roberts 2008). This has been triggered by a complex tangle of social, economic and political conditions. Climate change, economic crises, globalization, increasing migration flows and the malaise of liberal democracies loom large among them.
These issues are essentially political. Rethinking and refiguring communities goes hand in hand thus with rethinking and reinventing politics. Hence ‘hetero-politics’, the quest for another politics, which can establish bonds of commonality across differences and can enable action in common without re-enacting the closures of ‘organic’ community or the violence of transformative politics in the past.
Heteropolitics will seek to break new ground by combining an extended re-elaboration of contemporary political theory with a more empirically grounded research into alternative and incipient practices of community building and self-governance in: education; the social economy; art; new modes of civic engagement by young people; new platforms of citizens’ participation in municipal politics; network communities, and other social fields (Relevant cases include Sardex, a community currency in Sardinia; Barcelona en Comú, a citizens’ platform governing the city of Barcelona, etc.)
Max ERC Funding
758 031 €
Duration
Start date: 2017-04-01, End date: 2020-07-31
Project acronym KaraimBible
Project (Re)constructing a Bible. A new approach to unedited Biblical manuscripts as sources for the early history of the Karaim language
Researcher (PI) Michal NÉMETH
Host Institution (HI) UNIWERSYTET JAGIELLONSKI
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH5, ERC-2018-STG
Summary Eastern European Karaims are the sole representatives of Karaite Judaism in Europe. Their native tongue is a severely endangered Turkic vernacular listed on the UNESCO Atlas of the Worlds’ Languages in Danger. Due to many historical events, including World War II and the Soviet era, the cultural heritage of this intriguing ethnic minority suffered great losses. At the same time, since its investigation requires a rare combination of unique linguistic and palaeographic skills merely a fraction of its surviving written heritage has entered scholarly circulation. In particular, no comprehensive edition of the Karaim Hebrew Bible exists, even though nearly 100 Karaim Biblical texts have been discovered to date.
The project will construct a digital edition of the entire Karaim Bible, almost exclusively based on unedited texts in Hebrew script (15th–20th cc). It will be used as a tool to deliver the first linguistic and palaeographic descriptions of the oldest, still unedited records of Karaim as well as reconstruct the way in which the Karaim Bible was created. Combining traditional and computer-aided research methods will provide essential data on the early history of the Karaim language and ethnicity. The edition will be a highly complex instrument interconnected with a dictionary, which is an absolute novelty in the field.
The edition will contain the first ever comprehensive Karaim translation intelligible to present-day native-speakers. The texts will be treated according to the principles of textual criticism and translated into English. If permitted, facsimiles will be provided. One exciting aspect of the enterprise is that it will offer a virtual unification of the Karaim translations of one of the most important and influential works in world literature. Such a task is of fundamental importance and is crucial to sustaining an endangered culture, given that an awareness of the oldest Bible translations is an important component of European national identities.
Summary
Eastern European Karaims are the sole representatives of Karaite Judaism in Europe. Their native tongue is a severely endangered Turkic vernacular listed on the UNESCO Atlas of the Worlds’ Languages in Danger. Due to many historical events, including World War II and the Soviet era, the cultural heritage of this intriguing ethnic minority suffered great losses. At the same time, since its investigation requires a rare combination of unique linguistic and palaeographic skills merely a fraction of its surviving written heritage has entered scholarly circulation. In particular, no comprehensive edition of the Karaim Hebrew Bible exists, even though nearly 100 Karaim Biblical texts have been discovered to date.
The project will construct a digital edition of the entire Karaim Bible, almost exclusively based on unedited texts in Hebrew script (15th–20th cc). It will be used as a tool to deliver the first linguistic and palaeographic descriptions of the oldest, still unedited records of Karaim as well as reconstruct the way in which the Karaim Bible was created. Combining traditional and computer-aided research methods will provide essential data on the early history of the Karaim language and ethnicity. The edition will be a highly complex instrument interconnected with a dictionary, which is an absolute novelty in the field.
The edition will contain the first ever comprehensive Karaim translation intelligible to present-day native-speakers. The texts will be treated according to the principles of textual criticism and translated into English. If permitted, facsimiles will be provided. One exciting aspect of the enterprise is that it will offer a virtual unification of the Karaim translations of one of the most important and influential works in world literature. Such a task is of fundamental importance and is crucial to sustaining an endangered culture, given that an awareness of the oldest Bible translations is an important component of European national identities.
Max ERC Funding
1 484 075 €
Duration
Start date: 2019-02-01, End date: 2024-01-31
Project acronym NAMO
Project Narrative Modes of Historical Discourse in Asia
Researcher (PI) Ulrich Timme Kragh
Host Institution (HI) UNIWERSYTET IM. ADAMA MICKIEWICZA W POZNANIU
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH5, ERC-2013-CoG
Summary Modern historiography produced in Asia belongs to the history-paradigm of the European humanities and it is from within these epistemological confines that Western as well as Eastern scholars of Asian studies view the Asian writing of the past. While source criticism and historicism have today become key parts of historical consciousness in Asia, Asian historical representations are nonetheless firmly embedded in pre-modern Asian literary traditions via specific uses in historical writing of traditional rhetorical structures of narrative, emplotment, tropes, and literary imagery.
Taking such linkage between present and past Asian traditions of historiography as its premise, project NAMO – with four team members consisting of the PI and three Postdocs – will examine the literary features of Asian historiography in India, China, and Tibet across the longue durée of the classical, medieval, and modern periods. First, a new method for the study of the literary forms that characterize historiography in Asia will be established by adapting basic analytical principles from Asian literary theories drawn from twelve classical Indian and Chinese works on poetics. Next, the team will determine the specific literary characteristics of narrative, plot, tropes, and historical explanation found in seventeen classical and medieval histories composed in China, India, and Tibet. Finally, it will be examined to which extent those traditional literary features still function as constitutive rhetorical elements in modern Asian history writing. This will be done by analyzing the literary forms used in a selection of twenty representative histories written in the People's Republic of China and the Republic of India during the period 1980-2010.
The outcome will be a novel approach for the empirical study of Asian history that will open up a new level of comparative work in the theory of history across non-Western and Western traditions.
Summary
Modern historiography produced in Asia belongs to the history-paradigm of the European humanities and it is from within these epistemological confines that Western as well as Eastern scholars of Asian studies view the Asian writing of the past. While source criticism and historicism have today become key parts of historical consciousness in Asia, Asian historical representations are nonetheless firmly embedded in pre-modern Asian literary traditions via specific uses in historical writing of traditional rhetorical structures of narrative, emplotment, tropes, and literary imagery.
Taking such linkage between present and past Asian traditions of historiography as its premise, project NAMO – with four team members consisting of the PI and three Postdocs – will examine the literary features of Asian historiography in India, China, and Tibet across the longue durée of the classical, medieval, and modern periods. First, a new method for the study of the literary forms that characterize historiography in Asia will be established by adapting basic analytical principles from Asian literary theories drawn from twelve classical Indian and Chinese works on poetics. Next, the team will determine the specific literary characteristics of narrative, plot, tropes, and historical explanation found in seventeen classical and medieval histories composed in China, India, and Tibet. Finally, it will be examined to which extent those traditional literary features still function as constitutive rhetorical elements in modern Asian history writing. This will be done by analyzing the literary forms used in a selection of twenty representative histories written in the People's Republic of China and the Republic of India during the period 1980-2010.
The outcome will be a novel approach for the empirical study of Asian history that will open up a new level of comparative work in the theory of history across non-Western and Western traditions.
Max ERC Funding
1 995 162 €
Duration
Start date: 2014-12-01, End date: 2019-11-30
Project acronym PGPE
Project Public Goods through Private Eyes. Exploring Citizens' Attitudes to Public Goods and the State in Central Eastern Europe
Researcher (PI) Natalia Garner
Host Institution (HI) UNIWERSYTET WARSZAWSKI
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH2, ERC-2009-StG
Summary Post-communist states of Central and Eastern Europe form a particularly challenging context for public goods production, due to the communist legacies as well as experiences of transformation. Drawing on theory and research available in political science, sociology and economics, this multi-disciplinary, comparative project will formulate and test an extensive model of public goods oriented behaviour and its determinants in the context of post-communist countries of CEE. The key objectives of this proposed project are to: (i) design and execute a full-scale cross-national survey on the determinants of public's attitudes and behaviour towards public goods; and (ii) combine these data with a wider range of existing indicators, relating to institutional design, social changes, political and economic reforms as well as historical legacies, in the context of post-communist Central Eastern Europe. Its fundamental aim, therefore, is to generate knowledge on the key determinants of democratic governance and democratic deepening in new democracies. This knowledge will allow to understand how citizens and governments of transition countries can work together towards a greater social, political, economic and environmental sustainability.
Summary
Post-communist states of Central and Eastern Europe form a particularly challenging context for public goods production, due to the communist legacies as well as experiences of transformation. Drawing on theory and research available in political science, sociology and economics, this multi-disciplinary, comparative project will formulate and test an extensive model of public goods oriented behaviour and its determinants in the context of post-communist countries of CEE. The key objectives of this proposed project are to: (i) design and execute a full-scale cross-national survey on the determinants of public's attitudes and behaviour towards public goods; and (ii) combine these data with a wider range of existing indicators, relating to institutional design, social changes, political and economic reforms as well as historical legacies, in the context of post-communist Central Eastern Europe. Its fundamental aim, therefore, is to generate knowledge on the key determinants of democratic governance and democratic deepening in new democracies. This knowledge will allow to understand how citizens and governments of transition countries can work together towards a greater social, political, economic and environmental sustainability.
Max ERC Funding
1 730 000 €
Duration
Start date: 2009-12-01, End date: 2014-11-30
Project acronym QOLAPS
Project Quantum resources: conceptuals and applications
Researcher (PI) Ryszard Horodecki
Host Institution (HI) UNIWERSYTET GDANSKI
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), PE2, ERC-2011-ADG_20110209
Summary "The studies of quantum resources - entanglement (E) and non-locality (NL) carried out over the last decade have broadened horizons of our conceptual understanding of Nature and at the same time opened unprecedented possibilities for practical applications.
The project aims at taking advantage of the most recent discoveries to understand the ultimate power and find novel applications of these resources. The main objectives are: E) to study novel entanglement-induced non-additivity effects in quantum communication and application of mixed state entanglement to quantum metrology NL) to recognize the influence of information causality on the power of quantum non-locality and verify the power of non-locality, and more generally – contextuality – for quantum computational speed-up. In particular, it is planned: E) to find new non-additivities by providing explicit constructions of bipartite channels, broadcast channels and quantum networks; to demonstrate experimentally non-additivity effects; to provide experimentally friendly entanglement measures in quantum networks; to analyse entanglement-enhanced metrology in presence of decoherence NL) to determine to what extent information-causality reproduces quantum mechanics; to generalize information causality to multipartite systems; to provide new fundamental information-theoretical principles behind quantum mechanics; to quantify and classify contextuality; to design and analyse multiparty non-local systems independently of quantum mechanics; to verify their usefulness for communication and computational tasks.
We shall extensively exploit multiple interrelations between these two aspects of quantum physics. The results of theoretical investigations will be implemented in labs by experimental partners. In particular, we plan pioneering implementations of quantum channel non-additivity effects. The proposed research lines will bring ground-breaking results for quantum information processing."
Summary
"The studies of quantum resources - entanglement (E) and non-locality (NL) carried out over the last decade have broadened horizons of our conceptual understanding of Nature and at the same time opened unprecedented possibilities for practical applications.
The project aims at taking advantage of the most recent discoveries to understand the ultimate power and find novel applications of these resources. The main objectives are: E) to study novel entanglement-induced non-additivity effects in quantum communication and application of mixed state entanglement to quantum metrology NL) to recognize the influence of information causality on the power of quantum non-locality and verify the power of non-locality, and more generally – contextuality – for quantum computational speed-up. In particular, it is planned: E) to find new non-additivities by providing explicit constructions of bipartite channels, broadcast channels and quantum networks; to demonstrate experimentally non-additivity effects; to provide experimentally friendly entanglement measures in quantum networks; to analyse entanglement-enhanced metrology in presence of decoherence NL) to determine to what extent information-causality reproduces quantum mechanics; to generalize information causality to multipartite systems; to provide new fundamental information-theoretical principles behind quantum mechanics; to quantify and classify contextuality; to design and analyse multiparty non-local systems independently of quantum mechanics; to verify their usefulness for communication and computational tasks.
We shall extensively exploit multiple interrelations between these two aspects of quantum physics. The results of theoretical investigations will be implemented in labs by experimental partners. In particular, we plan pioneering implementations of quantum channel non-additivity effects. The proposed research lines will bring ground-breaking results for quantum information processing."
Max ERC Funding
1 970 380 €
Duration
Start date: 2012-01-01, End date: 2016-12-31
Project acronym RICONTRANS
Project Visual Culture, Piety and Propaganda: Transfer and Reception of Russian Religious Art in the Balkans and the Eastern Mediterranean (16th to early 20th Century)
Researcher (PI) Yuliana BOYCHEVA
Host Institution (HI) IDRYMA TECHNOLOGIAS KAI EREVNAS
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH6, ERC-2018-COG
Summary The Russian religious artefacts (icons and ecclesiastical furnishings) held in museums, church or monastery collections in the Balkans and Eastern Mediterranean constitute a body of valuable monuments hitherto largely neglected by historians and historians of art. These objects acquire various interrelated religious/ideological, political and aesthetic meanings, value and uses. Their transfer and reception is a significant component of the larger process of transformation of the artistic language and visual culture in the region and its transition from medieval to modern idioms. It is at the same time a process reflecting the changing cultural and political relations between Russia and the Orthodox communities in the Ottoman Empire and its successor states in the Balkans over a long period of time (16th-20th century). In this dynamic transfer, piety, propaganda and visual culture appear intertwined in historically unexplored and theoretically provoking ways.
The aim of RICONTRANS is to investigate, for the first time in a systematic and interdisciplinary way, this transnational phenomenon of artefact transfer and reception. Applying the cultural transfer approach in combination with the recent challenging openings of art history to visual studies, this project aims to: map the phenomenon in its long history by identifying preserved objects in the region; follow the paths and identify the mediums of this transfer; analyse the dynamics and the moving factors (religious, political, ideological) of this process during its various historical phases; study and classify these objects according to their iconographic and artistic particularities; inquire into the aesthetic, ideological, political, and social factors which shaped the context of the reception of Russian religious art objects in various social, cultural and religious environments; investigate the influence of these transferred artefacts on the visual culture of the host societies.
Summary
The Russian religious artefacts (icons and ecclesiastical furnishings) held in museums, church or monastery collections in the Balkans and Eastern Mediterranean constitute a body of valuable monuments hitherto largely neglected by historians and historians of art. These objects acquire various interrelated religious/ideological, political and aesthetic meanings, value and uses. Their transfer and reception is a significant component of the larger process of transformation of the artistic language and visual culture in the region and its transition from medieval to modern idioms. It is at the same time a process reflecting the changing cultural and political relations between Russia and the Orthodox communities in the Ottoman Empire and its successor states in the Balkans over a long period of time (16th-20th century). In this dynamic transfer, piety, propaganda and visual culture appear intertwined in historically unexplored and theoretically provoking ways.
The aim of RICONTRANS is to investigate, for the first time in a systematic and interdisciplinary way, this transnational phenomenon of artefact transfer and reception. Applying the cultural transfer approach in combination with the recent challenging openings of art history to visual studies, this project aims to: map the phenomenon in its long history by identifying preserved objects in the region; follow the paths and identify the mediums of this transfer; analyse the dynamics and the moving factors (religious, political, ideological) of this process during its various historical phases; study and classify these objects according to their iconographic and artistic particularities; inquire into the aesthetic, ideological, political, and social factors which shaped the context of the reception of Russian religious art objects in various social, cultural and religious environments; investigate the influence of these transferred artefacts on the visual culture of the host societies.
Max ERC Funding
1 914 670 €
Duration
Start date: 2019-05-01, End date: 2024-04-30
Project acronym SeaLiT
Project Seafaring Lives in Transition. Mediterranean Maritime Labour and Shipping during Globalization, 1850s-1920s.
Researcher (PI) Apostolos Delis
Host Institution (HI) IDRYMA TECHNOLOGIAS KAI EREVNAS
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH6, ERC-2016-STG
Summary SeaLiT explores the transition from sail to steam navigation and its effects on seafaring populations in the Mediterranean and the Black Sea between the 1850s and the 1920s. In the core of the project lie the effects of technological innovation on seafaring people and maritime communities, whose lives were drastically altered by the advent of steam. The project addresses the changes through the actors, seafarers, shipowners and their families, focusing on the adjustment of seafaring lives to a novel socio-economic reality. It investigates the maritime labour market, the evolving relations among shipowner, captain, crew and their local societies, life on board and ashore, as well as the development of new business strategies, trade routes and navigation patterns.
Maritime labour and shipping remains an understudied case of the transition from the premodern working environment of the sailing ship to that of the steamer, in a period of rapid technological improvements, economic growth and market integration. Therefore, the project will address a major gap in maritime historiography: on the one hand, the transition from sail to steam, and on the other, the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, “the extended Mediterranean” according to F. Braudel.
The project examines in a comparative approach seven maritime regions: the Ionian, Aegean, Tyrrhenian, Adriatic and Black Seas, Spain and southern France. The research team composed of the PI, three postdoctoral fellows, four senior researchers and four Ph.D. candidates from Greece, Italy, Spain, France and Ukraine will study unpublished sources: ship logbooks, crew lists, business records, and private correspondence. They will produce a collective volume, several articles, a final synthesis by the PI, four Ph.D. dissertations, three workshops, one international conference and a website with an online open access database, an archival and bibliographical corpus and reconstruction of ship voyages on a web G.I.S. application.
Summary
SeaLiT explores the transition from sail to steam navigation and its effects on seafaring populations in the Mediterranean and the Black Sea between the 1850s and the 1920s. In the core of the project lie the effects of technological innovation on seafaring people and maritime communities, whose lives were drastically altered by the advent of steam. The project addresses the changes through the actors, seafarers, shipowners and their families, focusing on the adjustment of seafaring lives to a novel socio-economic reality. It investigates the maritime labour market, the evolving relations among shipowner, captain, crew and their local societies, life on board and ashore, as well as the development of new business strategies, trade routes and navigation patterns.
Maritime labour and shipping remains an understudied case of the transition from the premodern working environment of the sailing ship to that of the steamer, in a period of rapid technological improvements, economic growth and market integration. Therefore, the project will address a major gap in maritime historiography: on the one hand, the transition from sail to steam, and on the other, the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, “the extended Mediterranean” according to F. Braudel.
The project examines in a comparative approach seven maritime regions: the Ionian, Aegean, Tyrrhenian, Adriatic and Black Seas, Spain and southern France. The research team composed of the PI, three postdoctoral fellows, four senior researchers and four Ph.D. candidates from Greece, Italy, Spain, France and Ukraine will study unpublished sources: ship logbooks, crew lists, business records, and private correspondence. They will produce a collective volume, several articles, a final synthesis by the PI, four Ph.D. dissertations, three workshops, one international conference and a website with an online open access database, an archival and bibliographical corpus and reconstruction of ship voyages on a web G.I.S. application.
Max ERC Funding
1 372 350 €
Duration
Start date: 2017-02-01, End date: 2022-01-31
Project acronym TrafficFluid
Project Lane-free Artificial-Fluid Environment for Vehicular Traffic
Researcher (PI) Markos PAPAGEORGIOU
Host Institution (HI) POLYTECHNEIO KRITIS
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), SH2, ERC-2018-ADG
Summary "Traffic congestion is a serious threat for the economic and social life of modern societies as well as for the environment, which calls for drastic and radical solutions. The proposal puts forward an utterly original idea that leads to a novel paradigm for vehicular traffic in the era of connected and automated vehicles (CAVs) and is based on two combined principles.
The first principle is lane-free traffic, which renders the driving task for CAVs smoother and safer, as risky lane-changing manoeuvres become obsolete; increases the static and dynamic capacity of the roadway due to increased road occupancy; and mitigates congestion-triggering manoeuvres. The second principle is the nudge effect, whereby vehicles may be ""pushing"" (from a distance, using sensors or communication) other vehicles in front of them; this allows for traffic flow to be freed from the anisotropy restriction, which stems from the fact that human driving is influenced only by downstream vehicles. The nudge effect may be implemented in various possible ways, so as to maximize the traffic flow efficiency, subject to safety and convenience constraints.
TrafficFluid combines lane-free traffic with vehicle nudging to provide, for the first time since the automobile invention, the possibility to design (rather than merely describe or model) the traffic flow characteristics in an optimal way, i.e. to engineer the future CAV traffic flow as an efficient artificial fluid. To this end, the project will develop and deliver the necessary vehicle movement strategies for various motorway and urban road infrastructures, along with microscopic and macroscopic simulators and traffic management actions.
TrafficFluid risk stems from the immense challenge of designing a new traffic system from scratch; however, we expect that the project will trigger a whole new path of international innovative research developments and testbeds that would pave the way towards a new efficient traffic system in the era of CAVs.
"
Summary
"Traffic congestion is a serious threat for the economic and social life of modern societies as well as for the environment, which calls for drastic and radical solutions. The proposal puts forward an utterly original idea that leads to a novel paradigm for vehicular traffic in the era of connected and automated vehicles (CAVs) and is based on two combined principles.
The first principle is lane-free traffic, which renders the driving task for CAVs smoother and safer, as risky lane-changing manoeuvres become obsolete; increases the static and dynamic capacity of the roadway due to increased road occupancy; and mitigates congestion-triggering manoeuvres. The second principle is the nudge effect, whereby vehicles may be ""pushing"" (from a distance, using sensors or communication) other vehicles in front of them; this allows for traffic flow to be freed from the anisotropy restriction, which stems from the fact that human driving is influenced only by downstream vehicles. The nudge effect may be implemented in various possible ways, so as to maximize the traffic flow efficiency, subject to safety and convenience constraints.
TrafficFluid combines lane-free traffic with vehicle nudging to provide, for the first time since the automobile invention, the possibility to design (rather than merely describe or model) the traffic flow characteristics in an optimal way, i.e. to engineer the future CAV traffic flow as an efficient artificial fluid. To this end, the project will develop and deliver the necessary vehicle movement strategies for various motorway and urban road infrastructures, along with microscopic and macroscopic simulators and traffic management actions.
TrafficFluid risk stems from the immense challenge of designing a new traffic system from scratch; however, we expect that the project will trigger a whole new path of international innovative research developments and testbeds that would pave the way towards a new efficient traffic system in the era of CAVs.
"
Max ERC Funding
2 495 500 €
Duration
Start date: 2019-10-01, End date: 2024-09-30
Project acronym TRICEPS
Project Time-resolved Ring-Cavity-Enhanced Polarization Spectroscopy: Breakthroughs in measurements of a) Atomic Parity Violation, b) Protein conformation and biosensing and c) surface and thin film dynamics
Researcher (PI) Theodore Peter Rakitzis
Host Institution (HI) FOUNDATION FOR RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY HELLAS
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), PE2, ERC-2007-StG
Summary Polarimetry is a crucial tool in both fundamental and applied physics, ranging from the measurement of parity nonconservation (PNC) in atoms, to the determination of biomolecule structure, and the probing of interfaces. These measurements tend to be extremely challenging as the change of the polarization of light is usually extremely small; typical differences in polarization states are of the order of 10^-5 to 10^-8. Current experimental techniques often require acquisition times of the order of seconds or, in the case of PNC, even many days, limiting the possibilities of time-resolved measurements. Here, I propose to develop optical-cavity-based techniques which will enhance measurements of the polarization sensitivity and/or the time-resolution by 3-6 orders of magnitude. Preliminary data from prototypes and feasibility studies are presented. I propose to demonstrate how these breakthroughs will revolutionize polarimetry, by addressing some of the most important multidisciplinary problems in fundamental physics, biophysics, and material science: a) Testing the limits of the Standard Model with atomic PNC measurements. Current PNC experiments, and more importantly theory, for cesium atoms are limited to precision of about 0.5%. The novel and robust experimental technique I am proposing here affords 4 orders-of-magnitude higher sensitivity, thus giving access to lighter atoms, where the theory can be better than 0.1%, for the most stringent test of the Standard Model, while seeking new physics. b) The measurement of protein folding dynamics. Highly sensitive time-resolved spectroscopic ellipsometry, providing novel dynamical information on protein folding: nanosecond resolved, position measurements of functional groups of surface proteins, which map out the time-dependent protein structure. c) Determination of thin film thickness and surface density with nanosecond resolution, for the study of processes such as laser ablation and polymer growth.
Summary
Polarimetry is a crucial tool in both fundamental and applied physics, ranging from the measurement of parity nonconservation (PNC) in atoms, to the determination of biomolecule structure, and the probing of interfaces. These measurements tend to be extremely challenging as the change of the polarization of light is usually extremely small; typical differences in polarization states are of the order of 10^-5 to 10^-8. Current experimental techniques often require acquisition times of the order of seconds or, in the case of PNC, even many days, limiting the possibilities of time-resolved measurements. Here, I propose to develop optical-cavity-based techniques which will enhance measurements of the polarization sensitivity and/or the time-resolution by 3-6 orders of magnitude. Preliminary data from prototypes and feasibility studies are presented. I propose to demonstrate how these breakthroughs will revolutionize polarimetry, by addressing some of the most important multidisciplinary problems in fundamental physics, biophysics, and material science: a) Testing the limits of the Standard Model with atomic PNC measurements. Current PNC experiments, and more importantly theory, for cesium atoms are limited to precision of about 0.5%. The novel and robust experimental technique I am proposing here affords 4 orders-of-magnitude higher sensitivity, thus giving access to lighter atoms, where the theory can be better than 0.1%, for the most stringent test of the Standard Model, while seeking new physics. b) The measurement of protein folding dynamics. Highly sensitive time-resolved spectroscopic ellipsometry, providing novel dynamical information on protein folding: nanosecond resolved, position measurements of functional groups of surface proteins, which map out the time-dependent protein structure. c) Determination of thin film thickness and surface density with nanosecond resolution, for the study of processes such as laser ablation and polymer growth.
Max ERC Funding
909 999 €
Duration
Start date: 2009-01-01, End date: 2014-12-31
Project acronym UMMA
Project Urban Metamorphosis of the community of a Medieval African capital city
Researcher (PI) Artur OBLUSKI
Host Institution (HI) UNIWERSYTET WARSZAWSKI
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH6, ERC-2017-STG
Summary UMMA (Arab. أمة - community) is a multidisciplinary project aimed as the first study of the liminal phases of a Christian African community inhabiting Dongola, the capital city of of Makuria (modern Sudan). It will concern the twilight of Christian Dongola and the metamorphosis of its urban community into a new entity organised along different social and religious paradigms. The project will investigate the impact between the weakening of the central authority and migrations of Islamic Arab tribes on the kingdom’s capital city and its community. The notion that the project intends to investigate is that a complete breakdown of this urban organism and its hinterland was avoided thanks to cooperation established between the remaining local community and migrant population groups arriving in the period under consideration. The project will seek to identify strategies of
interaction between the local community and the newcomers, as well as patterns of survival of the old traditions on household level. UMMA will lay foundations for further enquiries into evolution of precolonial African communities and provoke a general discussion on social changes in urban environments. It will unfold a whole new research perspective on the period from the gradual decline of the kingdom of Makuria (14th-15th cent. CE) to the Egyptian invasion in 1820, which is virtually absent from scholarly enquiry to date.
UMMA brings together specialists from several disciplines to carry out an exemplary archaeological project to set the standards for future archaeological research on late medieval and early modern Sudan. The project will combine methods of inquiry used in disciplines like history, archaeology, geophysics, chemistry and physics to obtain a multifaceted, cross-disciplinary perspective on the social phenomenon of liminal periods in urbanism.
Summary
UMMA (Arab. أمة - community) is a multidisciplinary project aimed as the first study of the liminal phases of a Christian African community inhabiting Dongola, the capital city of of Makuria (modern Sudan). It will concern the twilight of Christian Dongola and the metamorphosis of its urban community into a new entity organised along different social and religious paradigms. The project will investigate the impact between the weakening of the central authority and migrations of Islamic Arab tribes on the kingdom’s capital city and its community. The notion that the project intends to investigate is that a complete breakdown of this urban organism and its hinterland was avoided thanks to cooperation established between the remaining local community and migrant population groups arriving in the period under consideration. The project will seek to identify strategies of
interaction between the local community and the newcomers, as well as patterns of survival of the old traditions on household level. UMMA will lay foundations for further enquiries into evolution of precolonial African communities and provoke a general discussion on social changes in urban environments. It will unfold a whole new research perspective on the period from the gradual decline of the kingdom of Makuria (14th-15th cent. CE) to the Egyptian invasion in 1820, which is virtually absent from scholarly enquiry to date.
UMMA brings together specialists from several disciplines to carry out an exemplary archaeological project to set the standards for future archaeological research on late medieval and early modern Sudan. The project will combine methods of inquiry used in disciplines like history, archaeology, geophysics, chemistry and physics to obtain a multifaceted, cross-disciplinary perspective on the social phenomenon of liminal periods in urbanism.
Max ERC Funding
1 484 854 €
Duration
Start date: 2018-06-01, End date: 2023-05-31
