Project acronym BANTURIVERS
Project At a Crossroads of Bantu Expansions: Present and Past Riverside Communities in the Congo Basin, from an Integrated Linguistic, Anthropological and Archaeological Perspective
Researcher (PI) Birgit RICQUIER
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITE LIBRE DE BRUXELLES
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH6, ERC-2018-STG
Summary The “Bantu Expansion”, a research theme within the precolonial history of Central Africa, unites scholars of different disciplines. Much research is focused on the initial expansions of Bantu subgroups, which are explained as farmers ever looking for new lands and therefore avoiding the rainforest, also in the recent research on the “Savannah Corridor”. We want to study a crossroads of different Bantu expansions in the very heart of the Central-African rainforest, namely the eastern part of the Congo Basin (the Congo River and its tributaries up- and downstream of Kisangani until Bumba and Kindu). The region hosts multiple language groups from Bantu and other origin, complex ethnic identities and people practicing complementary subsistence strategies. Considering that farming is complicated in a rainforest environment, we will investigate the role of rivers in the settlement of these speech communities into the area, both as ways into the forest and as abundant source of animal protein (fish).
The project is multidisciplinary and will apply an integrated linguistic, anthropological and archaeological approach to study both present and past riverside communities in the Congo Basin. Historical comparative linguistics will offer insights into the historical relations between speech communities through language classification and the study of language contact, and will study specialized vocabulary to trace the history of river-related techniques, tools and knowledge. Anthropological research involves extensive fieldwork concerning ethnoecology, trade and/or exchange networks, sociocultural aspects of life at the riverside, and ethnohistory. Archaeologists will conduct surveys in the region of focus to provide a chrono-cultural framework.
Summary
The “Bantu Expansion”, a research theme within the precolonial history of Central Africa, unites scholars of different disciplines. Much research is focused on the initial expansions of Bantu subgroups, which are explained as farmers ever looking for new lands and therefore avoiding the rainforest, also in the recent research on the “Savannah Corridor”. We want to study a crossroads of different Bantu expansions in the very heart of the Central-African rainforest, namely the eastern part of the Congo Basin (the Congo River and its tributaries up- and downstream of Kisangani until Bumba and Kindu). The region hosts multiple language groups from Bantu and other origin, complex ethnic identities and people practicing complementary subsistence strategies. Considering that farming is complicated in a rainforest environment, we will investigate the role of rivers in the settlement of these speech communities into the area, both as ways into the forest and as abundant source of animal protein (fish).
The project is multidisciplinary and will apply an integrated linguistic, anthropological and archaeological approach to study both present and past riverside communities in the Congo Basin. Historical comparative linguistics will offer insights into the historical relations between speech communities through language classification and the study of language contact, and will study specialized vocabulary to trace the history of river-related techniques, tools and knowledge. Anthropological research involves extensive fieldwork concerning ethnoecology, trade and/or exchange networks, sociocultural aspects of life at the riverside, and ethnohistory. Archaeologists will conduct surveys in the region of focus to provide a chrono-cultural framework.
Max ERC Funding
1 427 821 €
Duration
Start date: 2019-01-01, End date: 2023-12-31
Project acronym CAFYR
Project Constructing Age for Young Readers
Researcher (PI) Vanessa JOOSEN
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITEIT ANTWERPEN
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH5, ERC-2018-STG
Summary Constructing Age for Young Readers (CAFYR)
CAFYR starts from the observations that Europe has recently witnessed a few pertinent crises in intergenerational tension, that age norms and ageism frequently go unchecked and that they are part of children’s socialization. It aims at developing pioneering research for understanding how age is constructed in cultural products. CAFYR focuses on fiction for young readers as a discourse that often naturalizes age norms as part of an engaging story and that is endorsed in educational contexts for contributing to children’s literacy, social and cultural development. The effect of three factors on the construction of age in children’s books is studied: the age of the author, the age of the intended reader, and the age of the real reader.
CAFYR aims to lay bare whether and how the age and aging process of children’s authors affect their construction of the life stages in their works. It will show how various crosswriters shape the stages in life differently for young and adult readers. It considers the age of young readers as varied in its own right, and investigates how age is constructed differently for children of different ages, from preschoolers to adolescents. Finally, it brings together readers of various stages in the life course in a reception study that will help understand how real readers construct age, during the reading process and in dialogue with each other. CAFYR also aims to break new theoretical and methodological ground. It offers an interdisciplinary approach that enriches children’s literature research with concepts and theories from age studies. It combines close reading strategies with distant reading and tools developed for digital text analysis. It provides a platform to people of different stages in life, contributing to their awareness about age, and facilitating and investigating dialogues about age, with the aim of ultimately fostering them more.
Summary
Constructing Age for Young Readers (CAFYR)
CAFYR starts from the observations that Europe has recently witnessed a few pertinent crises in intergenerational tension, that age norms and ageism frequently go unchecked and that they are part of children’s socialization. It aims at developing pioneering research for understanding how age is constructed in cultural products. CAFYR focuses on fiction for young readers as a discourse that often naturalizes age norms as part of an engaging story and that is endorsed in educational contexts for contributing to children’s literacy, social and cultural development. The effect of three factors on the construction of age in children’s books is studied: the age of the author, the age of the intended reader, and the age of the real reader.
CAFYR aims to lay bare whether and how the age and aging process of children’s authors affect their construction of the life stages in their works. It will show how various crosswriters shape the stages in life differently for young and adult readers. It considers the age of young readers as varied in its own right, and investigates how age is constructed differently for children of different ages, from preschoolers to adolescents. Finally, it brings together readers of various stages in the life course in a reception study that will help understand how real readers construct age, during the reading process and in dialogue with each other. CAFYR also aims to break new theoretical and methodological ground. It offers an interdisciplinary approach that enriches children’s literature research with concepts and theories from age studies. It combines close reading strategies with distant reading and tools developed for digital text analysis. It provides a platform to people of different stages in life, contributing to their awareness about age, and facilitating and investigating dialogues about age, with the aim of ultimately fostering them more.
Max ERC Funding
1 400 885 €
Duration
Start date: 2019-02-01, End date: 2024-01-31
Project acronym CLIC
Project Classical Influences and Irish Culture
Researcher (PI) Isabelle Torrance
Host Institution (HI) AARHUS UNIVERSITET
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH5, ERC-2018-COG
Summary The hypothesis of this project is that Ireland has a unique and hitherto underexplored history of cultural engagement with models from ancient Greece and Rome. Unlike Britain and mainland Europe, Ireland was never part of the Roman Empire. Yet the island has an extraordinarily vibrant tradition of classical learning that dates back to its earliest recorded literature, and is unparalleled in other northern European countries. Research for this project will address why this is the case, by examining sources through nine significant diachronic themes identified by the PI: language; land; travel and exile; Troy; satire; Neoplatonism; female voices; material culture; and global influence. This multi-thematic approach will enable analysis of what is remarkable about classical reception in Ireland. It will also provide a heuristic framework that generates dialogue between normally disparate fields, such as classical reception studies, Irish and British history, English-language literature, Irish-language literature, medieval studies, postcolonial studies, philosophy, material culture, women's studies, and global studies. The project will engage with contemporary preoccupations surrounding the politics and history of the divided island of Ireland, such as the current decade of centenary commemorations for the foundation of an independent Irish state (1912-1922, 2012-2022), and the on-going violence and political divisions in Northern Ireland. These issues will serve as a springboard for opening new avenues of investigation that look far beyond the past 100 years, but are linked to them. The project will thus shed new light on the role of classical culture in shaping literary, social, and political discourse across the island of Ireland, and throughout its history.
Summary
The hypothesis of this project is that Ireland has a unique and hitherto underexplored history of cultural engagement with models from ancient Greece and Rome. Unlike Britain and mainland Europe, Ireland was never part of the Roman Empire. Yet the island has an extraordinarily vibrant tradition of classical learning that dates back to its earliest recorded literature, and is unparalleled in other northern European countries. Research for this project will address why this is the case, by examining sources through nine significant diachronic themes identified by the PI: language; land; travel and exile; Troy; satire; Neoplatonism; female voices; material culture; and global influence. This multi-thematic approach will enable analysis of what is remarkable about classical reception in Ireland. It will also provide a heuristic framework that generates dialogue between normally disparate fields, such as classical reception studies, Irish and British history, English-language literature, Irish-language literature, medieval studies, postcolonial studies, philosophy, material culture, women's studies, and global studies. The project will engage with contemporary preoccupations surrounding the politics and history of the divided island of Ireland, such as the current decade of centenary commemorations for the foundation of an independent Irish state (1912-1922, 2012-2022), and the on-going violence and political divisions in Northern Ireland. These issues will serve as a springboard for opening new avenues of investigation that look far beyond the past 100 years, but are linked to them. The project will thus shed new light on the role of classical culture in shaping literary, social, and political discourse across the island of Ireland, and throughout its history.
Max ERC Funding
1 888 592 €
Duration
Start date: 2019-10-01, End date: 2024-09-30
Project acronym CLIOARCH
Project Cliodynamic archaeology: Computational approaches to Final Palaeolithic/earliest Mesolithic archaeology and climate change
Researcher (PI) Felix RIEDE
Host Institution (HI) AARHUS UNIVERSITET
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH6, ERC-2018-COG
Summary Late Pleistocene/early Holocene Europe is said to be the ideal laboratory for the investigation of human responses to rapidly changing climates and environments, migration and adaptation. Yet, pinpointing precisely how and why contemporaneous Final Palaeolithic/earliest Mesolithic (15,000-11,000 years BP) foragers migrated, and which environmental or other factors they adapted to – or failed to – has remained remarkably elusive. At the core of ClioArch is the radical but, in light of research-historical insights, necessary hypothesis that the current archaeological cultural taxonomy for this iconic period of European prehistory is epistemologically flawed and that operationalisations and interpretations based on this traditional taxonomy – especially those that seek to relate observed changes in material culture and land-use to contemporaneous climatic and environmental changes – are therefore problematic. Hence, novel approaches to crafting the taxonomic building blocks are required, as are novel analyses of human|environment relations in this period. ClioArch’s premier ambition is to provide operational cultural taxonomies for the Final Palaeolithic/earliest Mesolithic of Europe and to couple these with interdisciplinary cultural evolutionary, quantitative ecological methods and field archaeological investigations beyond the state-of-the-art, so as to better capture such adaptations – almost certainly with major implications for the standard culture-historical narrative relating to this period. In so doing, the project will pioneer a fully transparent and replicable – and eminently transferable – methodology for the study of the impacts of climate change and extreme environmental events in deep history. In turn, such a quantitative understanding of past adaptive dynamics will position archaeology more centrally in contemporary debates about climate change, environmental catastrophe and their cultural dimensions.
Summary
Late Pleistocene/early Holocene Europe is said to be the ideal laboratory for the investigation of human responses to rapidly changing climates and environments, migration and adaptation. Yet, pinpointing precisely how and why contemporaneous Final Palaeolithic/earliest Mesolithic (15,000-11,000 years BP) foragers migrated, and which environmental or other factors they adapted to – or failed to – has remained remarkably elusive. At the core of ClioArch is the radical but, in light of research-historical insights, necessary hypothesis that the current archaeological cultural taxonomy for this iconic period of European prehistory is epistemologically flawed and that operationalisations and interpretations based on this traditional taxonomy – especially those that seek to relate observed changes in material culture and land-use to contemporaneous climatic and environmental changes – are therefore problematic. Hence, novel approaches to crafting the taxonomic building blocks are required, as are novel analyses of human|environment relations in this period. ClioArch’s premier ambition is to provide operational cultural taxonomies for the Final Palaeolithic/earliest Mesolithic of Europe and to couple these with interdisciplinary cultural evolutionary, quantitative ecological methods and field archaeological investigations beyond the state-of-the-art, so as to better capture such adaptations – almost certainly with major implications for the standard culture-historical narrative relating to this period. In so doing, the project will pioneer a fully transparent and replicable – and eminently transferable – methodology for the study of the impacts of climate change and extreme environmental events in deep history. In turn, such a quantitative understanding of past adaptive dynamics will position archaeology more centrally in contemporary debates about climate change, environmental catastrophe and their cultural dimensions.
Max ERC Funding
1 907 638 €
Duration
Start date: 2019-09-01, End date: 2024-08-31
Project acronym HANDLING
Project Writers handling pictures: a material intermediality (1880-today)
Researcher (PI) anne REVERSEAU
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITE CATHOLIQUE DE LOUVAIN
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH5, ERC-2018-STG
Summary Not only does the writer’s hand hold the pen, it manipulates pictures as well. Writers touch, hoard, cut, copy, pin and paste various kinds of pictures and these actions integrate literature in visual culture in many ways that have never been tackled as a whole before.
Some writers spent their life surrounded by pictures taken from magazines, creating an inspirational environment; yet others nurtured their imagination with touristic leaflets and visual advertisements; others created fictional characters based on collected portraits. What do writers do with pictures? How does literature stage the pictures handled? From very concrete and banal uses of pictures will emerge a new vision of literature as intermediality in action.
This investigation applies the tool set of visual anthropology and visual studies to writers for a deeper understanding of visual ecosystems. Covering a large period, from the beginning of mass reproduction in the 1880s and the digital practices of today, HANDLING focuses on the French and French-speaking field and stands as a laboratory to refashion a broader model for relationships between image and text. Its main challenge is to get to the root of contemporary iconographic practices.
HANDLING is unconventional because literary studies usually focus on the text: contrary to the norm, it sets the image at the very centre of the literary act. This approach might yield promising results for the visibility of literature in the future, especially in exhibitions. Making these practices visible will make literature itself more visible.
As an internationally recognized specialist of text-image relationships with an in-depth knowledge of French/Belgian literature and photography, I will build a team and lead this 5-year ambitious project. Grounded in interdisciplinarity, it will show the significant and unexpected role of literature in material visual culture.
Summary
Not only does the writer’s hand hold the pen, it manipulates pictures as well. Writers touch, hoard, cut, copy, pin and paste various kinds of pictures and these actions integrate literature in visual culture in many ways that have never been tackled as a whole before.
Some writers spent their life surrounded by pictures taken from magazines, creating an inspirational environment; yet others nurtured their imagination with touristic leaflets and visual advertisements; others created fictional characters based on collected portraits. What do writers do with pictures? How does literature stage the pictures handled? From very concrete and banal uses of pictures will emerge a new vision of literature as intermediality in action.
This investigation applies the tool set of visual anthropology and visual studies to writers for a deeper understanding of visual ecosystems. Covering a large period, from the beginning of mass reproduction in the 1880s and the digital practices of today, HANDLING focuses on the French and French-speaking field and stands as a laboratory to refashion a broader model for relationships between image and text. Its main challenge is to get to the root of contemporary iconographic practices.
HANDLING is unconventional because literary studies usually focus on the text: contrary to the norm, it sets the image at the very centre of the literary act. This approach might yield promising results for the visibility of literature in the future, especially in exhibitions. Making these practices visible will make literature itself more visible.
As an internationally recognized specialist of text-image relationships with an in-depth knowledge of French/Belgian literature and photography, I will build a team and lead this 5-year ambitious project. Grounded in interdisciplinarity, it will show the significant and unexpected role of literature in material visual culture.
Max ERC Funding
1 500 000 €
Duration
Start date: 2019-07-01, End date: 2024-06-30
Project acronym IMAGINE
Project EUROPEAN CONSTITUTIONAL IMAGINARIES: UTOPIAS, IDEOLOGIES AND THE OTHER
Researcher (PI) Jan KOMAREK
Host Institution (HI) KOBENHAVNS UNIVERSITET
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH2, ERC-2018-STG
Summary While scholars have presented and promoted a series of specific theories of EU constitutionalism, no one has yet attempted to analyse their wider intellectual context and the relationship among them – what we call here ‘European constitutional imaginaries’ (ECIs). In addition, IMAGINE does not limit this general analysis to the mainstream thinkers writing for the audience located at the supranational/transnational level. It includes the perspective of thinkers writing in particular EU member states. IMAGINE seeks to uncover whether there are individuals and ideas that have made important, yet often overlooked, contributions to ECIs. Crucially, IMAGINE puts emphasis on post-communist Europe’ experience, hitherto mostly ignored in EU constitutional scholarship.
As a result, IMAGINE will provide the first-ever synthesis and critical evaluation of the core theories of EU constitutionalism, theorizing their mutual relationship and the way in which they have influenced each other.
The overarching objective is to provide a novel account of ECIs: one informed by their intellectual history, which comprises both Old and the post-communist Europe, and which seeks to understand the various problems that lead some people to reject EU constitutionalism and its core values, seeing them as mere utopias or oppressing ideologies.
IMAGINE employs an innovative combination of research methods: empirical surveys, citation network analyses and elite in-depth interviews, together with traditional legal analysis. It will involve experts from particular member states though a number of workshops and a conference organized by the IMAGINE Team.
The PI is uniquely placed to realise IMAGINE: now based as a Professor of EU law at an elite socio-legal research centre iCourts (University of Copenhagen), he has participated in EU constitutional discourse both as a scholar and practitioner in one of the member states of post-communist Europe for more than 10 years.
Summary
While scholars have presented and promoted a series of specific theories of EU constitutionalism, no one has yet attempted to analyse their wider intellectual context and the relationship among them – what we call here ‘European constitutional imaginaries’ (ECIs). In addition, IMAGINE does not limit this general analysis to the mainstream thinkers writing for the audience located at the supranational/transnational level. It includes the perspective of thinkers writing in particular EU member states. IMAGINE seeks to uncover whether there are individuals and ideas that have made important, yet often overlooked, contributions to ECIs. Crucially, IMAGINE puts emphasis on post-communist Europe’ experience, hitherto mostly ignored in EU constitutional scholarship.
As a result, IMAGINE will provide the first-ever synthesis and critical evaluation of the core theories of EU constitutionalism, theorizing their mutual relationship and the way in which they have influenced each other.
The overarching objective is to provide a novel account of ECIs: one informed by their intellectual history, which comprises both Old and the post-communist Europe, and which seeks to understand the various problems that lead some people to reject EU constitutionalism and its core values, seeing them as mere utopias or oppressing ideologies.
IMAGINE employs an innovative combination of research methods: empirical surveys, citation network analyses and elite in-depth interviews, together with traditional legal analysis. It will involve experts from particular member states though a number of workshops and a conference organized by the IMAGINE Team.
The PI is uniquely placed to realise IMAGINE: now based as a Professor of EU law at an elite socio-legal research centre iCourts (University of Copenhagen), he has participated in EU constitutional discourse both as a scholar and practitioner in one of the member states of post-communist Europe for more than 10 years.
Max ERC Funding
1 497 685 €
Duration
Start date: 2019-02-01, End date: 2024-01-31
Project acronym JustSites
Project The Global Sites of International Criminal Justice
Researcher (PI) Mikkel Jarle CHRISTENSEN
Host Institution (HI) KOBENHAVNS UNIVERSITET
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH2, ERC-2018-STG
Summary JustSites studies the multitude of localities in which international criminal justice is produced, received and has impact. Building an innovative scientific vocabulary, the project understands these justice sites to be social topographies in which the political, legal and professional activities that collectively create international criminal justice are developed. The justice sites include locations in which forensic exhumations are carried out, NGO offices in conflict zones, foreign ministries, private law firms, media outlets, academic research centers, and the international criminal courts. These sites are closely related, and all depend on and compete with each other to define the direction of international criminal justice. With its analysis of justice sites, the project moves beyond the conventional focus on courts and their context to investigate instead the balances of authority and power that affect the relations between these topographies and thus drive the development of international criminal justice as a field of law. To investigate the relational topography of justice sites, the multidisciplinary project analyzes how these sites produce international criminal justice ideas and practices, and how such ideas and practices are received and have impact in other sites. By following the impact of ideas and practices as they move from one site to another, the relative and perceived authority and power of these sites will be identified and analyzed. Through their productive and receptive character, the justice sites also communicate the results of international criminal justice to broader audiences, labelling them in the process as a success or a failure. Therefore, contributing the first investigation of the topography of justice sites is not only of significant value as frontier research, but is crucial for understanding the wider societal, legal and political impact of this field of law.
Summary
JustSites studies the multitude of localities in which international criminal justice is produced, received and has impact. Building an innovative scientific vocabulary, the project understands these justice sites to be social topographies in which the political, legal and professional activities that collectively create international criminal justice are developed. The justice sites include locations in which forensic exhumations are carried out, NGO offices in conflict zones, foreign ministries, private law firms, media outlets, academic research centers, and the international criminal courts. These sites are closely related, and all depend on and compete with each other to define the direction of international criminal justice. With its analysis of justice sites, the project moves beyond the conventional focus on courts and their context to investigate instead the balances of authority and power that affect the relations between these topographies and thus drive the development of international criminal justice as a field of law. To investigate the relational topography of justice sites, the multidisciplinary project analyzes how these sites produce international criminal justice ideas and practices, and how such ideas and practices are received and have impact in other sites. By following the impact of ideas and practices as they move from one site to another, the relative and perceived authority and power of these sites will be identified and analyzed. Through their productive and receptive character, the justice sites also communicate the results of international criminal justice to broader audiences, labelling them in the process as a success or a failure. Therefore, contributing the first investigation of the topography of justice sites is not only of significant value as frontier research, but is crucial for understanding the wider societal, legal and political impact of this field of law.
Max ERC Funding
1 497 436 €
Duration
Start date: 2019-01-01, End date: 2023-12-31
Project acronym M-POWER
Project The Aggregate Implications of Market Power
Researcher (PI) Jan Kamiel S. De Loecker
Host Institution (HI) KATHOLIEKE UNIVERSITEIT LEUVEN
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH1, ERC-2018-COG
Summary It has been long understood by economists that market power can negatively affect welfare by limiting output, stifling innovation, and introducing inefficiencies in the overall allocation of production. On the one hand, there is ample evidence from case-studies, that the presence of market power, in the form of explicit or implicit cartels and other practices of anti-competitive behavior, can lead to substantial damages to producers and consumers in a given market. On the other hand, very little is known about the broad cross- sectional and time-series patterns of market power across sectors, regions and countries. In addition, and perhaps more importantly, if market power is at all present, does it affect so-called aggregate outcomes in the product and factor markets? For example should the analysis of productivity growth and investment take into account the presence of market power, and does market power play a role in labor market outcomes, such as e.g. in the recently reported decline in the labor share across a variety of countries? This project aims to fill the gap in the literature by applying recently developed techniques to, first of all, systematically document markups, across firms in the entire economy, and secondly, to analyze the implications for producers and consumers in the economy at large, including both product and input markets. While the macroeconomic literature on misallocation has considered a variety of distortions that affect the allocation of inputs across plants, the project introduces an empirical framework to quantify the welfare loss from market power. Special attention is given to the impact on productive inefficiency. The overall aim is to better understand, and quantify, how market power affects the allocation of resources in the context of heterogeneous producers, and empirically quantify the trade-off of price and cost effects.
Summary
It has been long understood by economists that market power can negatively affect welfare by limiting output, stifling innovation, and introducing inefficiencies in the overall allocation of production. On the one hand, there is ample evidence from case-studies, that the presence of market power, in the form of explicit or implicit cartels and other practices of anti-competitive behavior, can lead to substantial damages to producers and consumers in a given market. On the other hand, very little is known about the broad cross- sectional and time-series patterns of market power across sectors, regions and countries. In addition, and perhaps more importantly, if market power is at all present, does it affect so-called aggregate outcomes in the product and factor markets? For example should the analysis of productivity growth and investment take into account the presence of market power, and does market power play a role in labor market outcomes, such as e.g. in the recently reported decline in the labor share across a variety of countries? This project aims to fill the gap in the literature by applying recently developed techniques to, first of all, systematically document markups, across firms in the entire economy, and secondly, to analyze the implications for producers and consumers in the economy at large, including both product and input markets. While the macroeconomic literature on misallocation has considered a variety of distortions that affect the allocation of inputs across plants, the project introduces an empirical framework to quantify the welfare loss from market power. Special attention is given to the impact on productive inefficiency. The overall aim is to better understand, and quantify, how market power affects the allocation of resources in the context of heterogeneous producers, and empirically quantify the trade-off of price and cost effects.
Max ERC Funding
1 575 000 €
Duration
Start date: 2019-04-01, End date: 2024-03-31
Project acronym NEUROEPIGENETHICS
Project Epigenetics, Experience and Responsibility: Implications for neurodevelopmental disorders
Researcher (PI) Kristien HENS
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITEIT ANTWERPEN
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH5, ERC-2018-STG
Summary In folk psychology and in bioethical discussions, the central dogma of genetics is often taken for granted: humans are seen as defined in a genetic blueprint. The conceptualization of psychiatric conditions as innate or acquired, biological or psychosocial, genetic or environmental, influences the ascription of both capacity responsibility (the capacity to adapt or adjust one’s own behavior) and normative responsibility of individuals or the society towards those diagnosed. But findings in the field of epigenetics indicate that the social and physical environment influence how genes are expressed. Indeed, epigenetics may shed a new light on distinctions such as innate/acquired, genetic/environmental, biological/psychosocial: a far more complex view on neurodevelopmental disorders may emerge, with ethical implications. However, the implications of epigenetics for discussions on the scope and extent of normative responsibility have not been adequately addressed.
NEUROEPIGENETHICS aims to investigate the ethical implications of epigenetics for neurodevelopmental disorders. We will use theoretical and empirical methods to investigate how certain concepts (innate/biological/genetic) affect the ways in which professionals and stakeholders (persons with a neurodevelopmental disorder and their families) conceive of responsibility. We will evaluate how the emerging field of epigenetics alters the ascription of capacity responsibility and normative responsibility. We will research how individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), Tourette Syndrome (TS) and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)and their families experience the interaction between their condition and their biological and social environment. Finally, we will define moral responsibility in light of the emerging field of epigenetics in the area of neurodevelopmental disorders and child psychiatric practice.
Summary
In folk psychology and in bioethical discussions, the central dogma of genetics is often taken for granted: humans are seen as defined in a genetic blueprint. The conceptualization of psychiatric conditions as innate or acquired, biological or psychosocial, genetic or environmental, influences the ascription of both capacity responsibility (the capacity to adapt or adjust one’s own behavior) and normative responsibility of individuals or the society towards those diagnosed. But findings in the field of epigenetics indicate that the social and physical environment influence how genes are expressed. Indeed, epigenetics may shed a new light on distinctions such as innate/acquired, genetic/environmental, biological/psychosocial: a far more complex view on neurodevelopmental disorders may emerge, with ethical implications. However, the implications of epigenetics for discussions on the scope and extent of normative responsibility have not been adequately addressed.
NEUROEPIGENETHICS aims to investigate the ethical implications of epigenetics for neurodevelopmental disorders. We will use theoretical and empirical methods to investigate how certain concepts (innate/biological/genetic) affect the ways in which professionals and stakeholders (persons with a neurodevelopmental disorder and their families) conceive of responsibility. We will evaluate how the emerging field of epigenetics alters the ascription of capacity responsibility and normative responsibility. We will research how individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), Tourette Syndrome (TS) and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)and their families experience the interaction between their condition and their biological and social environment. Finally, we will define moral responsibility in light of the emerging field of epigenetics in the area of neurodevelopmental disorders and child psychiatric practice.
Max ERC Funding
1 453 012 €
Duration
Start date: 2019-01-01, End date: 2023-12-31
Project acronym NovelEchoes
Project Novel Echoes. Ancient Novelistic Receptions and Concepts of Fiction in Late Antique and Medieval Secular Narrative from East to West
Researcher (PI) Koen DE TEMMERMAN
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITEIT GENT
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH5, ERC-2018-COG
Summary This project offers the first comprehensive reconstruction and interpretation of receptions of ancient novels (1st-4th cent. AD) in (Greek, Arabic and western vernacular) secular narrative from Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages. Novel Echoes follows up from the ERC Starting Grant project Novel Saints (on hagiography). It does so by taking ancient novelistic receptions towards entirely new, unexplored horizons.
Our knowledge about the early history of the novel is incomplete. Receptions of ancient novels have been studied for periods from the 11th and 12th cent. onwards but not systematically examined for preceding eras – much to the detriment of the study of both narrative (then and later) and the history of fiction. This project pursues the hypothesis that different secular, narrative traditions in this period were impacted (directly or indirectly) by ancient novelistic influences of different kinds and adopted (and adapted) them to various degrees and purposes; and that, since the ancient novel is a genre defined by its own fictionality, its reception in later narrative impacts notions of truth and authentication in ways that other (often more authoritative) literary models (e.g. Homer and the Bible) do not.
Novel Echoes strikes a balance between breath and depth by envisaging three objectives:
1. the creation of a reference tool charting all types of novelistic influence in secular narrative from the 4th to the 12th cent.;
2. the in-depth study of particular sets of texts and the analysis of their implicit conceptualizations of truth, authentication, fiction and narrative;
3. the reconstruction of routes of transmission in both the West and the East.
Given the project’s innovative focus, it will enhance our understanding of both the corpus texts and the early history of the novel; place the study of corpus texts on an improved methodological footing; and contribute to the theoretical study of the much-vexed question of how to conceptualize fiction.
Summary
This project offers the first comprehensive reconstruction and interpretation of receptions of ancient novels (1st-4th cent. AD) in (Greek, Arabic and western vernacular) secular narrative from Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages. Novel Echoes follows up from the ERC Starting Grant project Novel Saints (on hagiography). It does so by taking ancient novelistic receptions towards entirely new, unexplored horizons.
Our knowledge about the early history of the novel is incomplete. Receptions of ancient novels have been studied for periods from the 11th and 12th cent. onwards but not systematically examined for preceding eras – much to the detriment of the study of both narrative (then and later) and the history of fiction. This project pursues the hypothesis that different secular, narrative traditions in this period were impacted (directly or indirectly) by ancient novelistic influences of different kinds and adopted (and adapted) them to various degrees and purposes; and that, since the ancient novel is a genre defined by its own fictionality, its reception in later narrative impacts notions of truth and authentication in ways that other (often more authoritative) literary models (e.g. Homer and the Bible) do not.
Novel Echoes strikes a balance between breath and depth by envisaging three objectives:
1. the creation of a reference tool charting all types of novelistic influence in secular narrative from the 4th to the 12th cent.;
2. the in-depth study of particular sets of texts and the analysis of their implicit conceptualizations of truth, authentication, fiction and narrative;
3. the reconstruction of routes of transmission in both the West and the East.
Given the project’s innovative focus, it will enhance our understanding of both the corpus texts and the early history of the novel; place the study of corpus texts on an improved methodological footing; and contribute to the theoretical study of the much-vexed question of how to conceptualize fiction.
Max ERC Funding
1 999 375 €
Duration
Start date: 2019-05-01, End date: 2024-04-30
