Project acronym ALLEGRO
Project unrAvelLing sLow modE travelinG and tRaffic: with innOvative data to a new transportation and traffic theory for pedestrians and bicycles
Researcher (PI) Serge Hoogendoorn
Host Institution (HI) TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITEIT DELFT
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), SH3, ERC-2014-ADG
Summary A major challenge in contemporary traffic and transportation theory is having a comprehensive understanding of pedestrians and cyclists behaviour. This is notoriously hard to observe, since sensors providing abundant and detailed information about key variables characterising this behaviour have not been available until very recently. The behaviour is also far more complex than that of the much better understood fast mode. This is due to the many degrees of freedom in decision-making, the interactions among slow traffic participants that are more involved and far less guided by traffic rules and regulations than those between car-drivers, and the many fascinating but complex phenomena in slow traffic flows (self-organised patterns, turbulence, spontaneous phase transitions, herding, etc.) that are very hard to predict accurately.
With slow traffic modes gaining ground in terms of mode share in many cities, lack of empirical insights, behavioural theories, predictively valid analytical and simulation models, and tools to support planning, design, management and control is posing a major societal problem as well: examples of major accidents due to bad planning, organisation and management of events are manifold, as are locations where safety of slow modes is a serious issue due to interactions with fast modes.
This programme is geared towards establishing a comprehensive theory of slow mode traffic behaviour, considering the different behavioural levels relevant for understanding, reproducing and predicting slow mode traffic flows in cities. The levels deal with walking and cycling operations, activity scheduling and travel behaviour, and knowledge representation and learning. Major scientific breakthroughs are expected at each of these levels, in terms of theory and modelling, by using innovative (big) data collection and experimentation, analysis and fusion techniques, including social media data analytics, using augmented reality, and remote and crowd sensing.
Summary
A major challenge in contemporary traffic and transportation theory is having a comprehensive understanding of pedestrians and cyclists behaviour. This is notoriously hard to observe, since sensors providing abundant and detailed information about key variables characterising this behaviour have not been available until very recently. The behaviour is also far more complex than that of the much better understood fast mode. This is due to the many degrees of freedom in decision-making, the interactions among slow traffic participants that are more involved and far less guided by traffic rules and regulations than those between car-drivers, and the many fascinating but complex phenomena in slow traffic flows (self-organised patterns, turbulence, spontaneous phase transitions, herding, etc.) that are very hard to predict accurately.
With slow traffic modes gaining ground in terms of mode share in many cities, lack of empirical insights, behavioural theories, predictively valid analytical and simulation models, and tools to support planning, design, management and control is posing a major societal problem as well: examples of major accidents due to bad planning, organisation and management of events are manifold, as are locations where safety of slow modes is a serious issue due to interactions with fast modes.
This programme is geared towards establishing a comprehensive theory of slow mode traffic behaviour, considering the different behavioural levels relevant for understanding, reproducing and predicting slow mode traffic flows in cities. The levels deal with walking and cycling operations, activity scheduling and travel behaviour, and knowledge representation and learning. Major scientific breakthroughs are expected at each of these levels, in terms of theory and modelling, by using innovative (big) data collection and experimentation, analysis and fusion techniques, including social media data analytics, using augmented reality, and remote and crowd sensing.
Max ERC Funding
2 458 700 €
Duration
Start date: 2015-11-01, End date: 2020-10-31
Project acronym ARTECHNE
Project Technique in the Arts. Concepts, Practices, Expertise (1500-1950)
Researcher (PI) Sven Georges Mathieu Dupré
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITEIT UTRECHT
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH5, ERC-2014-CoG
Summary The transmission of ‘technique’ in art has been a conspicuous ‘black box’ resisting analysis. The tools of the humanities used to study the transmission of ideas and concepts are insufficient when it comes to understanding the transmission of something as non-propositional and non-verbal as ‘technique’. The insights of the neurosciences in, for example, the acquisition and transmission of drawing skills are not yet sufficiently advanced to be historically restrictive. However, only in the most recent years, the history of science and technology has turned to how-to instructions as given in recipes. This project proposes to undertake the experimental reconstruction of historical recipes to finally open the black box of the transmission of technique in the visual and decorative arts. Considering ‘technique’ as a textual, material and social practice, this project will write a long-term history of the theory and practice of the study of ‘technique’ in the visual and decorative arts between 1500 and 1950. The three central research questions here are: (1) what is technique in the visual and decorative arts, (2) how is technique transmitted and studied, and (3) who is considered expert in technique, and why? This project will make a breakthrough in our understanding of the transmission of technique in the arts by integrating methodologies typical for the humanities and historical disciplines with laboratory work. Also, by providing a history of technique in the arts, this project lays the historical foundations of the epistemologies of conservation, restoration and technical art history precisely at a moment of greatest urgency. The connection between the history of science and technology and the expertise in conservation, restoration and technical art history (in the Ateliergebouw in Amsterdam) this project envisions builds the intellectual infrastructure of a new field of interdisciplinary research, unique in Europe.
Summary
The transmission of ‘technique’ in art has been a conspicuous ‘black box’ resisting analysis. The tools of the humanities used to study the transmission of ideas and concepts are insufficient when it comes to understanding the transmission of something as non-propositional and non-verbal as ‘technique’. The insights of the neurosciences in, for example, the acquisition and transmission of drawing skills are not yet sufficiently advanced to be historically restrictive. However, only in the most recent years, the history of science and technology has turned to how-to instructions as given in recipes. This project proposes to undertake the experimental reconstruction of historical recipes to finally open the black box of the transmission of technique in the visual and decorative arts. Considering ‘technique’ as a textual, material and social practice, this project will write a long-term history of the theory and practice of the study of ‘technique’ in the visual and decorative arts between 1500 and 1950. The three central research questions here are: (1) what is technique in the visual and decorative arts, (2) how is technique transmitted and studied, and (3) who is considered expert in technique, and why? This project will make a breakthrough in our understanding of the transmission of technique in the arts by integrating methodologies typical for the humanities and historical disciplines with laboratory work. Also, by providing a history of technique in the arts, this project lays the historical foundations of the epistemologies of conservation, restoration and technical art history precisely at a moment of greatest urgency. The connection between the history of science and technology and the expertise in conservation, restoration and technical art history (in the Ateliergebouw in Amsterdam) this project envisions builds the intellectual infrastructure of a new field of interdisciplinary research, unique in Europe.
Max ERC Funding
1 907 944 €
Duration
Start date: 2015-09-01, End date: 2020-08-31
Project acronym CONNECTINGEUROPE
Project Digital Crossings in Europe: Gender, Diaspora and Belonging
Researcher (PI) Sandra Ponzanesi
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITEIT UTRECHT
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH5, ERC-2014-CoG
Summary Many immigrants enter Europe both legally and illegally every year. This creates multiple challenges for the Union, including the gender and ethnic segregation of migrant groups, especially women. While it strives for an inclusive and integrated society as envisioned by the EU motto ‘Unity in Diversity’, it is still often perceived more as ‘Fortress Europe.’ This project focuses on the ‘connected migrant’, studying how virtual communities of migrants, or digital diasporas, convey issues of technology, migration, globalisation, alienation and belonging capturing the lives of migrants in their interaction with multiple worlds and media.
More specifically, it will investigate whether digital technologies enhance European integration or foster gender and ethnic segregation, and, if so, how. Using a multi-layered and cutting-edge approach that draws from the humanities, social science and new media studies (i.e. internet studies and mobile media), this research considers: 1. How migration and digital technologies enable digital diasporas (Somali, Turkish, Romanian) and the impact these have on identity, gender and belonging in European urban centres; 2. How these entanglements are connected to and perceived from outside Europe by focusing on transnational ties; and 3. How digital connections create new possibilities for cosmopolitan outlooks, rearticulating Europe’s motto of ‘Unity in Diversity.’
The outcomes of this work will be innovative at three levels. a) Empirically, the project gathers, maps and critically grounds online behaviour by migrant women from a European comparative perspective. b) Methodologically, it breaks new ground by developing new methods of analysis for digital diasporas contributing to the development of ‘postcolonial’ digital humanities. c) Conceptually, it integrates colonial and migrant relations into the idea of Europe, elaborating on the notion of cosmopolitan belonging through virtual connectivity.
Summary
Many immigrants enter Europe both legally and illegally every year. This creates multiple challenges for the Union, including the gender and ethnic segregation of migrant groups, especially women. While it strives for an inclusive and integrated society as envisioned by the EU motto ‘Unity in Diversity’, it is still often perceived more as ‘Fortress Europe.’ This project focuses on the ‘connected migrant’, studying how virtual communities of migrants, or digital diasporas, convey issues of technology, migration, globalisation, alienation and belonging capturing the lives of migrants in their interaction with multiple worlds and media.
More specifically, it will investigate whether digital technologies enhance European integration or foster gender and ethnic segregation, and, if so, how. Using a multi-layered and cutting-edge approach that draws from the humanities, social science and new media studies (i.e. internet studies and mobile media), this research considers: 1. How migration and digital technologies enable digital diasporas (Somali, Turkish, Romanian) and the impact these have on identity, gender and belonging in European urban centres; 2. How these entanglements are connected to and perceived from outside Europe by focusing on transnational ties; and 3. How digital connections create new possibilities for cosmopolitan outlooks, rearticulating Europe’s motto of ‘Unity in Diversity.’
The outcomes of this work will be innovative at three levels. a) Empirically, the project gathers, maps and critically grounds online behaviour by migrant women from a European comparative perspective. b) Methodologically, it breaks new ground by developing new methods of analysis for digital diasporas contributing to the development of ‘postcolonial’ digital humanities. c) Conceptually, it integrates colonial and migrant relations into the idea of Europe, elaborating on the notion of cosmopolitan belonging through virtual connectivity.
Max ERC Funding
1 992 809 €
Duration
Start date: 2016-01-01, End date: 2020-12-31
Project acronym DTHPS
Project Sound and Materialism in the 19th Century
Researcher (PI) David John Trippett
Host Institution (HI) THE CHANCELLOR MASTERS AND SCHOLARS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH5, ERC-2014-STG
Summary This research project aims to enlarge substantially our understanding of the dialogue between 19th-century music and natural science. It examines in particular how a scientific-materialist conception of sound was formed alongside a dominant culture of romantic idealism. Placing itself at the intersection of historical musicology and the history and philosophy of science, the project will investigate the view that musical sound, ostensibly the property of metaphysics, was also regarded by writers, composers, scientists and engineers as tangible, material and subject to physical laws; that scientific thinking was not anathema but—at key moments—intrinsic to music aesthetics and criticism; that philosophies of mind and theories of the creative process also drew on mechanical rules of causality and associative ‘laws’; and that the technological innovations brought about by scientific research—from steam trains to stethoscopes—were accompanied by new concepts and new ways of listening that radically impacted the sound world of composers, critics, and performers. It seeks, in short, to uncover for the first time a fully integrated view of the musical and scientific culture of the 19th century. The research will be broken down into four areas, each of which circumscribes a particular set of discourses: machines and mechanism; forms of nature; technologies for sound; and music medicalised. Drawing on a range of archival and printed sources in Great Britain, France and Germany, the project offers an innovative approach by examining historical soundscapes and new listening practices, by adopting a media perspective on scientific and musical instruments, and by investigating the interrelations between artistic sounds and non-artistic, industrial technologies. The cross-disciplinary research, divided between the PI and four postdoctoral scholars, will open up new interactions between music and materialism as a concealed site of knowledge and historically significant nexus.
Summary
This research project aims to enlarge substantially our understanding of the dialogue between 19th-century music and natural science. It examines in particular how a scientific-materialist conception of sound was formed alongside a dominant culture of romantic idealism. Placing itself at the intersection of historical musicology and the history and philosophy of science, the project will investigate the view that musical sound, ostensibly the property of metaphysics, was also regarded by writers, composers, scientists and engineers as tangible, material and subject to physical laws; that scientific thinking was not anathema but—at key moments—intrinsic to music aesthetics and criticism; that philosophies of mind and theories of the creative process also drew on mechanical rules of causality and associative ‘laws’; and that the technological innovations brought about by scientific research—from steam trains to stethoscopes—were accompanied by new concepts and new ways of listening that radically impacted the sound world of composers, critics, and performers. It seeks, in short, to uncover for the first time a fully integrated view of the musical and scientific culture of the 19th century. The research will be broken down into four areas, each of which circumscribes a particular set of discourses: machines and mechanism; forms of nature; technologies for sound; and music medicalised. Drawing on a range of archival and printed sources in Great Britain, France and Germany, the project offers an innovative approach by examining historical soundscapes and new listening practices, by adopting a media perspective on scientific and musical instruments, and by investigating the interrelations between artistic sounds and non-artistic, industrial technologies. The cross-disciplinary research, divided between the PI and four postdoctoral scholars, will open up new interactions between music and materialism as a concealed site of knowledge and historically significant nexus.
Max ERC Funding
1 496 345 €
Duration
Start date: 2015-09-01, End date: 2020-08-31
Project acronym EUROHERIT
Project Legitimation of European cultural heritage and the dynamics of identity politics in the EU
Researcher (PI) Tuuli Kaarina Lähdesmäki
Host Institution (HI) JYVASKYLAN YLIOPISTO
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH5, ERC-2014-STG
Summary The problematic of transnational cultural heritage has become topical in a new way in Europe with the utilization of the idea of heritage for political purposes in the EU policy. Since the turn of the century, the EU has launched or jointly administered several initiatives focusing on fostering the idea of a common European cultural heritage. The heritage initiatives are the EU’s ‘technologies of power’ aiming to legitimate and justify certain political ideas and ideologies, such as European-wide identity politics and the cultural integration in Europe. However, the politics, discourses, and practices of heritage—and of transnational heritage in particular—are often intertwined with contentions over its symbolical and factual ownership, meanings, and uses. The project investigates the EU as a new heritage agent and its heritage politics as an attempt to create a new trans-European heritage regime in Europe: How does the EU aim to create common European cultural heritage in a politically shaking and culturally diversified Europe, and what kind of explicit and implicit politics are included in its aims? The project will focus on the legitimation processes of European cultural heritage at different territorial levels and the power relations formed in the processes between diverse agencies. The academia still lacks a comparative empirical investigation on the politics and practices of trans-European cultural heritage and the theoretical discussion on the role of the EU in them. The project aims to respond to this lack with a broad comparative empirical research including cases from various parts of Europe, penetrating different territorial scales (local, regional, national, and the EU), and theorizing cultural heritage from a multisectional perspective (stressing its concurrent use in diverse societal domains and discourses). The project participates in a critical discussion on the current identity and integration politics and policies in the EU and Europe.
Summary
The problematic of transnational cultural heritage has become topical in a new way in Europe with the utilization of the idea of heritage for political purposes in the EU policy. Since the turn of the century, the EU has launched or jointly administered several initiatives focusing on fostering the idea of a common European cultural heritage. The heritage initiatives are the EU’s ‘technologies of power’ aiming to legitimate and justify certain political ideas and ideologies, such as European-wide identity politics and the cultural integration in Europe. However, the politics, discourses, and practices of heritage—and of transnational heritage in particular—are often intertwined with contentions over its symbolical and factual ownership, meanings, and uses. The project investigates the EU as a new heritage agent and its heritage politics as an attempt to create a new trans-European heritage regime in Europe: How does the EU aim to create common European cultural heritage in a politically shaking and culturally diversified Europe, and what kind of explicit and implicit politics are included in its aims? The project will focus on the legitimation processes of European cultural heritage at different territorial levels and the power relations formed in the processes between diverse agencies. The academia still lacks a comparative empirical investigation on the politics and practices of trans-European cultural heritage and the theoretical discussion on the role of the EU in them. The project aims to respond to this lack with a broad comparative empirical research including cases from various parts of Europe, penetrating different territorial scales (local, regional, national, and the EU), and theorizing cultural heritage from a multisectional perspective (stressing its concurrent use in diverse societal domains and discourses). The project participates in a critical discussion on the current identity and integration politics and policies in the EU and Europe.
Max ERC Funding
1 339 755 €
Duration
Start date: 2015-09-01, End date: 2020-08-31
Project acronym FamilyComplexity
Project Intergenerational Reproduction and Solidarity in an Era of Family Complexity
Researcher (PI) Matthijs Kalmijn
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITEIT VAN AMSTERDAM
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), SH3, ERC-2014-ADG
Summary One of the important consequences of the Second Demographic Transition has been the increasing complexity of families. The aim of this project is to study how rising family complexity has affected two fundamental aspects of intergenerational relationships: reproduction and solidarity. Theoretically, family complexity is distinguished into four dimensions: (a) the length, timing and nature of exposure to the child, (c) biological relatedness to the child, and (c) characteristics of parent-parent ties (triadic effects), (d) characteristics of the wider family network. Using insights from several disciplines, I develop a common theoretical framework for understanding intergenerational reproduction and solidarity. To test the theory, an innovative multiactor survey is developed with an oversampling strategy in which for each adult child, information is collected on all parent figures, and for each parent, information on all adult children. In addition, register data are used to analyze one aspect of reproduction in a dynamic fashion (educational reproduction) and vignette data are used to analyze one aspect of solidarity in more depth (norms prescribing solidarity). By studying reproduction and solidarity as outcomes, I shift the traditional focus from examining how the SDT has affected individual well-being, to the question of how the SDT has affected relationships. In doing so, I analyze a new problem in demography and sociology and contribute to classic debates about population ageing and social inequality. Theoretically, the study of family complexity yields unique opportunities to test ideas about the nature of intergenerational relationships and will shed new light on the traditional dichotomy of social vis-à-vis biological bases of intergenerational relationships. Methodological innovation is made by developing solutions for well-known problems of multiactor data, thereby strengthening the theoretical relevance of survey data for the social sciences.
Summary
One of the important consequences of the Second Demographic Transition has been the increasing complexity of families. The aim of this project is to study how rising family complexity has affected two fundamental aspects of intergenerational relationships: reproduction and solidarity. Theoretically, family complexity is distinguished into four dimensions: (a) the length, timing and nature of exposure to the child, (c) biological relatedness to the child, and (c) characteristics of parent-parent ties (triadic effects), (d) characteristics of the wider family network. Using insights from several disciplines, I develop a common theoretical framework for understanding intergenerational reproduction and solidarity. To test the theory, an innovative multiactor survey is developed with an oversampling strategy in which for each adult child, information is collected on all parent figures, and for each parent, information on all adult children. In addition, register data are used to analyze one aspect of reproduction in a dynamic fashion (educational reproduction) and vignette data are used to analyze one aspect of solidarity in more depth (norms prescribing solidarity). By studying reproduction and solidarity as outcomes, I shift the traditional focus from examining how the SDT has affected individual well-being, to the question of how the SDT has affected relationships. In doing so, I analyze a new problem in demography and sociology and contribute to classic debates about population ageing and social inequality. Theoretically, the study of family complexity yields unique opportunities to test ideas about the nature of intergenerational relationships and will shed new light on the traditional dichotomy of social vis-à-vis biological bases of intergenerational relationships. Methodological innovation is made by developing solutions for well-known problems of multiactor data, thereby strengthening the theoretical relevance of survey data for the social sciences.
Max ERC Funding
2 499 533 €
Duration
Start date: 2015-11-01, End date: 2020-10-31
Project acronym GTCMR
Project Global Terrorism and Collective Moral Responsibility: Redesigning Military, Police and Intelligence Institutions in Liberal Democracies
Researcher (PI) Seumas Miller
Host Institution (HI) TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITEIT DELFT
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), SH5, ERC-2014-ADG
Summary International terrorism, e.g. Al Qaeda, IS, is a major global security threat. Counter-terrorism is a morally complex enterprise involving police, military, intelligence agencies and non-security agencies. Counter-terrorism should be framed as a collective moral responsibility of governments, security institutions and citizens. (1) How is international terrorism to be defined? (2) What is the required theoretical notion of collective moral responsibility? (3) What counter-terrorist strategies and tactics are effective, morally permissible and consistent with liberal democracy? Tactics: targeted killing, drone warfare, preventative detention, and bulk metadata collection (e.g. by NSA); (4) How is this inchoate collective moral responsibility to be institutionally embedded in security agencies? (i) How are security institutions to be redesigned to enable them to realise and coordinate their counter-terrorism strategies without over-reaching their various core institutional purposes which have hitherto been disparate, (e.g. law enforcement versus military combat), and without compromising human rights, (e.g. right to life of innocent civilians, right to freedom, right to privacy), including by means of morally unacceptable counter-terrorism tactics? (ii) How are these tactics to be integrated with a broad-based counter-terrorism strategy which has such measures as anti-radicalisation and state-to-state engagement to address key sources of terrorism, such as the dissemination of extremist religious ideology (e.g. militant Wahhabi ideology emanating from Saudi Arabia) and the legitimate grievances of some terrorist groups (e.g. Palestinian state)? What ought a morally permissible and efficacious (i) structure of counter-terrorist institutional arrangements, and (ii) set of counter-terrorist tactics, for a contemporary liberal democracy collaborating with other liberal democracies facing the common problem of international terrorism consist of?
Summary
International terrorism, e.g. Al Qaeda, IS, is a major global security threat. Counter-terrorism is a morally complex enterprise involving police, military, intelligence agencies and non-security agencies. Counter-terrorism should be framed as a collective moral responsibility of governments, security institutions and citizens. (1) How is international terrorism to be defined? (2) What is the required theoretical notion of collective moral responsibility? (3) What counter-terrorist strategies and tactics are effective, morally permissible and consistent with liberal democracy? Tactics: targeted killing, drone warfare, preventative detention, and bulk metadata collection (e.g. by NSA); (4) How is this inchoate collective moral responsibility to be institutionally embedded in security agencies? (i) How are security institutions to be redesigned to enable them to realise and coordinate their counter-terrorism strategies without over-reaching their various core institutional purposes which have hitherto been disparate, (e.g. law enforcement versus military combat), and without compromising human rights, (e.g. right to life of innocent civilians, right to freedom, right to privacy), including by means of morally unacceptable counter-terrorism tactics? (ii) How are these tactics to be integrated with a broad-based counter-terrorism strategy which has such measures as anti-radicalisation and state-to-state engagement to address key sources of terrorism, such as the dissemination of extremist religious ideology (e.g. militant Wahhabi ideology emanating from Saudi Arabia) and the legitimate grievances of some terrorist groups (e.g. Palestinian state)? What ought a morally permissible and efficacious (i) structure of counter-terrorist institutional arrangements, and (ii) set of counter-terrorist tactics, for a contemporary liberal democracy collaborating with other liberal democracies facing the common problem of international terrorism consist of?
Max ERC Funding
2 479 810 €
Duration
Start date: 2016-01-01, End date: 2020-12-31
Project acronym HandsandBible
Project The Hands that Wrote the Bible: Digital Palaeography and Scribal Culture of the Dead Sea Scrolls
Researcher (PI) Mladen Popovic
Host Institution (HI) RIJKSUNIVERSITEIT GRONINGEN
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH5, ERC-2014-STG
Summary The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls has fundamentally transformed our knowledge of Jewish and Christian origins. The scrolls provide a unique vantage point for studying the dynamic and creative engagement with authoritative scriptures that were to become the Bible. They also offer evidence for a scribal culture ‘in action’. Palaeography can provide access to this scribal culture, showing the human hand behind what came to be regarded as holy texts.
The main objective of this interdisciplinary project is to shed new light on ancient Jewish scribal culture and the making of the Bible by freshly investigating two aspects of the scrolls’ palaeography: the typological development of writing styles and writer identification. We will combine three different approaches to study these two aspects: palaeography, computational intelligence, and 14C-dating.
The combination of new 14C samples and the use of computational intelligence as quantitative methods in order to assess the development of handwriting styles and to identify individual scribes is a unique strength of this project, which will provide a new and much-needed scientific and quantitative basis for the typological estimations of traditional palaeography of the Dead Sea Scrolls. The quantitative evidence will be used to cluster manuscripts as products of scribal activity in order to profile scribal production and to determine a more precise location in time for their activity, focusing, from literary and cultural-historical perspectives, on the content and genres of the texts that scribes wrote and copied and on the scripts and languages that they used.
Through their scribal activities these anonymous scribes constructed a ‘textual community’ and negotiated identities of the movement behind the Dead Sea Scrolls. The exciting aspect of this project is the fact that it will, through the innovative and unconventional digital palaeographic analysis that we will be using, bring these scribal identities back to life.
Summary
The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls has fundamentally transformed our knowledge of Jewish and Christian origins. The scrolls provide a unique vantage point for studying the dynamic and creative engagement with authoritative scriptures that were to become the Bible. They also offer evidence for a scribal culture ‘in action’. Palaeography can provide access to this scribal culture, showing the human hand behind what came to be regarded as holy texts.
The main objective of this interdisciplinary project is to shed new light on ancient Jewish scribal culture and the making of the Bible by freshly investigating two aspects of the scrolls’ palaeography: the typological development of writing styles and writer identification. We will combine three different approaches to study these two aspects: palaeography, computational intelligence, and 14C-dating.
The combination of new 14C samples and the use of computational intelligence as quantitative methods in order to assess the development of handwriting styles and to identify individual scribes is a unique strength of this project, which will provide a new and much-needed scientific and quantitative basis for the typological estimations of traditional palaeography of the Dead Sea Scrolls. The quantitative evidence will be used to cluster manuscripts as products of scribal activity in order to profile scribal production and to determine a more precise location in time for their activity, focusing, from literary and cultural-historical perspectives, on the content and genres of the texts that scribes wrote and copied and on the scripts and languages that they used.
Through their scribal activities these anonymous scribes constructed a ‘textual community’ and negotiated identities of the movement behind the Dead Sea Scrolls. The exciting aspect of this project is the fact that it will, through the innovative and unconventional digital palaeographic analysis that we will be using, bring these scribal identities back to life.
Max ERC Funding
1 484 274 €
Duration
Start date: 2015-11-01, End date: 2020-10-31
Project acronym HYP
Project The Hatha Yoga Project: Mapping Indian and Transnational Traditions of Physical Yoga through Philology and Ethnography
Researcher (PI) William James William Mallinson
Host Institution (HI) SCHOOL OF ORIENTAL AND AFRICAN STUDIES ROYAL CHARTER
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH5, ERC-2014-CoG
Summary Hatha was the name given in medieval India to a method of yoga in which physical practices predominate. Its origins are unclear, but some of its techniques can be traced to the first millennium BCE and it gradually became central to several Indian religious traditions, including, by the second half of the second millennium CE, orthodox Hinduism. Hatha yoga is also the source of much of the modern yoga practised around the world today.
The history of hatha yoga is thus crucial for an understanding of both Indian religion and modern yoga, but is yet to be the object of serious study. As a result key questions about yoga — such as who were hatha yoga’s first practitioners and why did they practise it, and which modern yoga practices predate colonialism and which are innovations — are yet to be answered satisfactorily. The Hatha Yoga Project seeks to redress this by identifying the origins of both hatha and modern yoga. Its methodology will be predominantly philological and ethnographic, and it will draw on resources that are fast disappearing: crumbling manuscripts of Sanskrit texts on yoga and traditional Indian ascetic yogis whose practices are starting to change under the influence of modern globalised yoga.
The primary output of the project will be three monographs. The first will analyse hatha yoga and its practitioners in the period in which it was formalised, the 11th to 15th centuries CE. The second will document its subsequent proliferation and development, and identify what constituted yoga practice in India on the eve of colonialism. The third will focus on hatha yoga’s physical techniques in order to chart their history and identify continuities with and differences from the practices of modern globalised yoga. A secondary output will be critical editions and annotated translations of ten previously unpublished Sanskrit manuals of hatha yoga: the six earliest texts on the subject together with four later texts that were key to its subsequent development.
Summary
Hatha was the name given in medieval India to a method of yoga in which physical practices predominate. Its origins are unclear, but some of its techniques can be traced to the first millennium BCE and it gradually became central to several Indian religious traditions, including, by the second half of the second millennium CE, orthodox Hinduism. Hatha yoga is also the source of much of the modern yoga practised around the world today.
The history of hatha yoga is thus crucial for an understanding of both Indian religion and modern yoga, but is yet to be the object of serious study. As a result key questions about yoga — such as who were hatha yoga’s first practitioners and why did they practise it, and which modern yoga practices predate colonialism and which are innovations — are yet to be answered satisfactorily. The Hatha Yoga Project seeks to redress this by identifying the origins of both hatha and modern yoga. Its methodology will be predominantly philological and ethnographic, and it will draw on resources that are fast disappearing: crumbling manuscripts of Sanskrit texts on yoga and traditional Indian ascetic yogis whose practices are starting to change under the influence of modern globalised yoga.
The primary output of the project will be three monographs. The first will analyse hatha yoga and its practitioners in the period in which it was formalised, the 11th to 15th centuries CE. The second will document its subsequent proliferation and development, and identify what constituted yoga practice in India on the eve of colonialism. The third will focus on hatha yoga’s physical techniques in order to chart their history and identify continuities with and differences from the practices of modern globalised yoga. A secondary output will be critical editions and annotated translations of ten previously unpublished Sanskrit manuals of hatha yoga: the six earliest texts on the subject together with four later texts that were key to its subsequent development.
Max ERC Funding
1 846 122 €
Duration
Start date: 2015-10-01, End date: 2020-09-30
Project acronym Integrating Turkish
Project Beyond East and West: Developing and Documenting an Evolving Transcultural Musical Practice
Researcher (PI) Michael Paul Ellison
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITY OF BRISTOL
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH5, ERC-2014-CoG
Summary For composers in Turkey today, the urge to integrate the beauties of Turkey’s rich musical heritage into contemporary concert music has become almost an imperative. But differences in tuning, texture, and between oral and notated orientations to performance have presented seemingly intractable obstacles. This project systematises practical processes essential for the creation of a new, East-West strand of contemporary music and opera. It initiates cutting-edge research workshops in Istanbul, Holland and the UK to: 1. Train top-level traditional instrumentalists and singers in Turkey effectively to perform a new repertoire; 2. Train top professional Western singers in non-Western techniques and nuances of vocal production; 3. Develop approaches for modelling such music's impacts on Turkish and Western musicians’ adaptive processes in rehearsal and performance, and diverse audiences’ perceptions of such music; 4. Create an ensemble interface (including newly designed instruments) to increase capacity for merging sounds beyond levels now achievable; 5. Produce groundbreaking studies on timbre to provide new insights into how sound is produced; 6. Establish a new template for mapping Eastern and Western tuning systems onto one another. This research, together with an orchestration manual for Turkish sounds will comprise the core of a published (CUP) team-authored e-book, Integrating Turkish Instruments and Voices into Contemporary Music (ITI), with included audio and visual examples linked as an online resource. Looking further, this project’s multi-modal, transdisciplinary approach also suggests a model for probing how the ‘free play’ of the imagination (Kant) possible within processes of art and its creation can provide metaphors towards understanding one of the most urgent and compelling issues of our time: how to transcend cultural barriers (real or imagined) that exist today.
Summary
For composers in Turkey today, the urge to integrate the beauties of Turkey’s rich musical heritage into contemporary concert music has become almost an imperative. But differences in tuning, texture, and between oral and notated orientations to performance have presented seemingly intractable obstacles. This project systematises practical processes essential for the creation of a new, East-West strand of contemporary music and opera. It initiates cutting-edge research workshops in Istanbul, Holland and the UK to: 1. Train top-level traditional instrumentalists and singers in Turkey effectively to perform a new repertoire; 2. Train top professional Western singers in non-Western techniques and nuances of vocal production; 3. Develop approaches for modelling such music's impacts on Turkish and Western musicians’ adaptive processes in rehearsal and performance, and diverse audiences’ perceptions of such music; 4. Create an ensemble interface (including newly designed instruments) to increase capacity for merging sounds beyond levels now achievable; 5. Produce groundbreaking studies on timbre to provide new insights into how sound is produced; 6. Establish a new template for mapping Eastern and Western tuning systems onto one another. This research, together with an orchestration manual for Turkish sounds will comprise the core of a published (CUP) team-authored e-book, Integrating Turkish Instruments and Voices into Contemporary Music (ITI), with included audio and visual examples linked as an online resource. Looking further, this project’s multi-modal, transdisciplinary approach also suggests a model for probing how the ‘free play’ of the imagination (Kant) possible within processes of art and its creation can provide metaphors towards understanding one of the most urgent and compelling issues of our time: how to transcend cultural barriers (real or imagined) that exist today.
Max ERC Funding
2 000 000 €
Duration
Start date: 2015-09-01, End date: 2020-08-31
