Project acronym ANINAN
Project An Intersectional Analysis of Ancient Jewish Travel Narratives
Researcher (PI) Elisa Katariina UUSIMaeKI
Host Institution (HI) AARHUS UNIVERSITET
Country Denmark
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH5, ERC-2020-STG
Summary ANINAN investigates literary and cultural representations of travel and mobility – the often temporary move of a person from her or his home to another location – in ancient Israelite/Jewish narratives, including selected texts of the Hebrew Bible and other Jewish writings from the Hellenistic and early Roman eras (ca. 300 BCE – 100 CE). The sources, which originate from different parts of the Mediterranean region, are written or preserved in Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, Latin, and Ge’ez.
The aim is to understand how human mobility was perceived and/or imagined in Jewish antiquity, including its agents, motives, and outcomes. The main objectives are: (1) to produce a series of case-studies that illustrate the portrayal of human mobility and its social confines in Israelite/Jewish literature; and (2) to compare and theorize the cultural representations of travel in an intersectional frame and, as a result, to provide a ground-breaking interpretative framework for the study of mobility in texts from the human past. The selected intersectional approach is novel and specifically unearths questions of power and social stratification that evidently pertain to (in)voluntary forms of mobility, including the individual profile of the traveller and the social realities that prompted, enabled, or compelled her or his travel in the first place.
The challenge is that we know nothing about the power dynamics of ancient Israelite/Jewish travel accounts. They are expected to reveal striking intersectional concerns, highlighting the complexity of human phenomena such as mobility. While multiple ‘categories of difference’ characterize the travelling agents, mobility also affects and shapes these categories, e.g., by leading the agent to negotiate, refine, or recreate aspects of her or his identity. The narratives also illustrate encounters between the Israelites/Jews and ‘others’, which results in a new understanding of cultural interaction in the ancient eastern Mediterranean.
Summary
ANINAN investigates literary and cultural representations of travel and mobility – the often temporary move of a person from her or his home to another location – in ancient Israelite/Jewish narratives, including selected texts of the Hebrew Bible and other Jewish writings from the Hellenistic and early Roman eras (ca. 300 BCE – 100 CE). The sources, which originate from different parts of the Mediterranean region, are written or preserved in Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, Latin, and Ge’ez.
The aim is to understand how human mobility was perceived and/or imagined in Jewish antiquity, including its agents, motives, and outcomes. The main objectives are: (1) to produce a series of case-studies that illustrate the portrayal of human mobility and its social confines in Israelite/Jewish literature; and (2) to compare and theorize the cultural representations of travel in an intersectional frame and, as a result, to provide a ground-breaking interpretative framework for the study of mobility in texts from the human past. The selected intersectional approach is novel and specifically unearths questions of power and social stratification that evidently pertain to (in)voluntary forms of mobility, including the individual profile of the traveller and the social realities that prompted, enabled, or compelled her or his travel in the first place.
The challenge is that we know nothing about the power dynamics of ancient Israelite/Jewish travel accounts. They are expected to reveal striking intersectional concerns, highlighting the complexity of human phenomena such as mobility. While multiple ‘categories of difference’ characterize the travelling agents, mobility also affects and shapes these categories, e.g., by leading the agent to negotiate, refine, or recreate aspects of her or his identity. The narratives also illustrate encounters between the Israelites/Jews and ‘others’, which results in a new understanding of cultural interaction in the ancient eastern Mediterranean.
Max ERC Funding
1 368 977 €
Duration
Start date: 2021-02-01, End date: 2026-01-31
Project acronym ENVNANO
Project Environmental Effects and Risk Evaluation of Engineered Nanoparticles
Researcher (PI) Anders Baun
Host Institution (HI) DANMARKS TEKNISKE UNIVERSITET
Country Denmark
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), LS9, ERC-2011-StG_20101109
Summary The objective of the project Environmental Effects and Risk Evaluation of Engineered Nanoparticles (EnvNano) is to elucidate the particle specific properties that govern the ecotoxicological effects of engineered nanoparticles and in this way shift the paradigm for environmental risk assessment of nanomaterials.
While current activities in the emerging field of nano-ecotoxicology and environmental risk assessment of nanomaterials are based on the assumption that the methodologies developed for chemicals can be adapted to be applicable for nanomaterials, EnvNano has a completely different starting point: The behaviour of nanoparticles in suspension is fundamentally different from that of chemicals in on solution.
Therefore, all modifications of existing techniques that do not take this fact into account are bound to have a limited sphere of application or in the worst case to be invalid. By replacing the assumption of dissolved chemicals with a particle behaviour assumption, the traditional risk assessment paradigm will be so seriously impaired that a shift of paradigm will be needed.
EnvNano is based on the following hypotheses: 1. The ecotoxicity and bioaccumulation of engineered nanoparticles will be a function of specific physical and chemical characteristics of the nanoparticles; 2. The environmental hazards of engineered nanoparticles cannot be derived from hazard identifications of the material in other forms; 3. Existing regulatory risk assessment procedures for chemicals will not be appropriate to assess the behaviour and potential harmful effects of engineered nanoparticles on the environment.
These research hypotheses will be addressed in the four interacting research topics of EnvNano: Particle Characterization, Ecotoxicty, Bioaccumulation, and Framework for Risk Evaluation of Nanoparticles aimed to form the foundation for a movement from coefficient-based to kinetic-based environmental nanotoxicology and risk assessment.
Summary
The objective of the project Environmental Effects and Risk Evaluation of Engineered Nanoparticles (EnvNano) is to elucidate the particle specific properties that govern the ecotoxicological effects of engineered nanoparticles and in this way shift the paradigm for environmental risk assessment of nanomaterials.
While current activities in the emerging field of nano-ecotoxicology and environmental risk assessment of nanomaterials are based on the assumption that the methodologies developed for chemicals can be adapted to be applicable for nanomaterials, EnvNano has a completely different starting point: The behaviour of nanoparticles in suspension is fundamentally different from that of chemicals in on solution.
Therefore, all modifications of existing techniques that do not take this fact into account are bound to have a limited sphere of application or in the worst case to be invalid. By replacing the assumption of dissolved chemicals with a particle behaviour assumption, the traditional risk assessment paradigm will be so seriously impaired that a shift of paradigm will be needed.
EnvNano is based on the following hypotheses: 1. The ecotoxicity and bioaccumulation of engineered nanoparticles will be a function of specific physical and chemical characteristics of the nanoparticles; 2. The environmental hazards of engineered nanoparticles cannot be derived from hazard identifications of the material in other forms; 3. Existing regulatory risk assessment procedures for chemicals will not be appropriate to assess the behaviour and potential harmful effects of engineered nanoparticles on the environment.
These research hypotheses will be addressed in the four interacting research topics of EnvNano: Particle Characterization, Ecotoxicty, Bioaccumulation, and Framework for Risk Evaluation of Nanoparticles aimed to form the foundation for a movement from coefficient-based to kinetic-based environmental nanotoxicology and risk assessment.
Max ERC Funding
1 196 260 €
Duration
Start date: 2011-12-01, End date: 2016-03-31
Project acronym miPDesign
Project Designing microProteins to alter growth processes in crop plants
Researcher (PI) Stephan Wenkel
Host Institution (HI) KOBENHAVNS UNIVERSITET
Country Denmark
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), LS9, ERC-2013-StG
Summary The directed control of protein activity plays a crucial role in the regulation of growth and development of multicellular organisms. Different post-translational control mechanisms are known to influence the activity of proteins. Here, I am proposing a novel way to control the activity of proteins that function as multimeric complexes. MicroProteins, are small single-domain protein species that can influence target proteins by sequestering them into non-productive protein complexes. I have developed the concept of microProtein function and subsequently started to identify novel microProtein regulators in the model plant Arabidopsis. The aim of this proposal is to use the microProtein concept and build synthetic microProtein modules in economical import crop plants. By combining synthetic biology approaches with modern plant breeding, we intent to re-wire plant development and alter the flowering behaviour of rice. In addition, we will use a combination of artificial microProteins and microProtein-resistant transcription factors to modify the inclination angle of leaves in rice and the bioenergy model species Brachypodium distachion. Modification of the leaf angle will allow us to grow crops at higher densities, thus having the potential to increase both biomass and seed production per acreage. Finally, we aim to identify novel, evolutionary conserved microProtein-modules and unravel the mechanism of microProtein function, to study their role in plant development and adaptation.
Summary
The directed control of protein activity plays a crucial role in the regulation of growth and development of multicellular organisms. Different post-translational control mechanisms are known to influence the activity of proteins. Here, I am proposing a novel way to control the activity of proteins that function as multimeric complexes. MicroProteins, are small single-domain protein species that can influence target proteins by sequestering them into non-productive protein complexes. I have developed the concept of microProtein function and subsequently started to identify novel microProtein regulators in the model plant Arabidopsis. The aim of this proposal is to use the microProtein concept and build synthetic microProtein modules in economical import crop plants. By combining synthetic biology approaches with modern plant breeding, we intent to re-wire plant development and alter the flowering behaviour of rice. In addition, we will use a combination of artificial microProteins and microProtein-resistant transcription factors to modify the inclination angle of leaves in rice and the bioenergy model species Brachypodium distachion. Modification of the leaf angle will allow us to grow crops at higher densities, thus having the potential to increase both biomass and seed production per acreage. Finally, we aim to identify novel, evolutionary conserved microProtein-modules and unravel the mechanism of microProtein function, to study their role in plant development and adaptation.
Max ERC Funding
1 443 320 €
Duration
Start date: 2013-12-01, End date: 2018-11-30
Project acronym MOS
Project Manifestations of Solitude: Withdrawal and Engagement in the long seventeenth-century
Researcher (PI) Mette Birkedal Bruun
Host Institution (HI) KOBENHAVNS UNIVERSITET
Country Denmark
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH5, ERC-2012-StG_20111124
Summary The objective of Manifestations of Solitude: Withdrawal and Engagement in the long seventeenth-century is to demonstrate how the creation of zones of unworldliness within the world structures re-ligious practice. We will examine withdrawal in its historical settings and uncover the facetted na-ture of this phenomenon in the seventeenth-century religious culture, thus offering insights and tools for a better understanding of the representation of religious experience in European culture.
Working across cultural and confessional boundaries, the project explores appropriations of the appeal that the Christian be in the world but not of the world: in texts, architecture, images and mu-sic, and it examines the ways in which these media are employed to prompt and sustain with¬drawal from the world. The project focuses on ten institutional social units (e.g. the abbey, the Konventikel, the household), which manifest solitude in different ways. It examines such units through ten exem-plary places (e.g. Herrnhut, Saint-Cyr) and their cultural and reli¬gious life, drawing on materials such as architectural plans, interior decoration, treatises on theology and aesthetics, letters, diaries, epitaphs, emblems, portraits, devotional images, sermons and musical pieces.
The backbone of the project is an innovative strategy for interdisciplinary analysis which traces the generation of a symbolically charged space around religious withdrawals. With this analytical tool we will examine how symbols of ‘world’, ‘solitude’ and the demarcation between them are materialized in forms ranging from material culture (architecture, furnishing), via artistic, perfor-mative expressions (devotional images, musical pieces) to literary topoi and metaphors and the in-fluence on such forms of contemporary aesthetic sensibilities. The project examines the cultivation of the religious self: shaping a sym¬bolically charged space – and shaped in turn by this space.
Summary
The objective of Manifestations of Solitude: Withdrawal and Engagement in the long seventeenth-century is to demonstrate how the creation of zones of unworldliness within the world structures re-ligious practice. We will examine withdrawal in its historical settings and uncover the facetted na-ture of this phenomenon in the seventeenth-century religious culture, thus offering insights and tools for a better understanding of the representation of religious experience in European culture.
Working across cultural and confessional boundaries, the project explores appropriations of the appeal that the Christian be in the world but not of the world: in texts, architecture, images and mu-sic, and it examines the ways in which these media are employed to prompt and sustain with¬drawal from the world. The project focuses on ten institutional social units (e.g. the abbey, the Konventikel, the household), which manifest solitude in different ways. It examines such units through ten exem-plary places (e.g. Herrnhut, Saint-Cyr) and their cultural and reli¬gious life, drawing on materials such as architectural plans, interior decoration, treatises on theology and aesthetics, letters, diaries, epitaphs, emblems, portraits, devotional images, sermons and musical pieces.
The backbone of the project is an innovative strategy for interdisciplinary analysis which traces the generation of a symbolically charged space around religious withdrawals. With this analytical tool we will examine how symbols of ‘world’, ‘solitude’ and the demarcation between them are materialized in forms ranging from material culture (architecture, furnishing), via artistic, perfor-mative expressions (devotional images, musical pieces) to literary topoi and metaphors and the in-fluence on such forms of contemporary aesthetic sensibilities. The project examines the cultivation of the religious self: shaping a sym¬bolically charged space – and shaped in turn by this space.
Max ERC Funding
1 250 000 €
Duration
Start date: 2013-02-01, End date: 2017-03-31
