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Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE220101054
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$385,023.00
Summary
Inside Others: Early Christian Protagonists and their Impairments. This project aims to uncover how disability functions in the portraits of key early Christian figures and their receptions over time. Its innovative approach combines disability studies, emotions studies, literary criticism, social history, and reception studies. It expects to generate new knowledge by intervening in disability readings of late antique literature, introducing a new category of impaired protagonists and constructi ....Inside Others: Early Christian Protagonists and their Impairments. This project aims to uncover how disability functions in the portraits of key early Christian figures and their receptions over time. Its innovative approach combines disability studies, emotions studies, literary criticism, social history, and reception studies. It expects to generate new knowledge by intervening in disability readings of late antique literature, introducing a new category of impaired protagonists and constructing the first reception history of disability in early Christianity. It intends to enhance Australia’s capacity in interdisciplinary studies of antiquity and contribute to critical reflection on the nature of impairment in light of urgent questions arising from the Disability Royal Commission and Covid-19 measures.Read moreRead less
Dreams, Prophecy and Violence from Early Christianity to the Rise of Islam. In Classical Greco-Roman society dreams or visions were sometimes understood as vehicles of divine revelation. Early Christians and Muslims developed the religious interpretation of dreams, using it to bolster the religious authority of their leaders, who laid claim to the Jewish tradition of prophets who brought messages from God. This project aims to uncover the development of dream interpretation from Classical Antiqu ....Dreams, Prophecy and Violence from Early Christianity to the Rise of Islam. In Classical Greco-Roman society dreams or visions were sometimes understood as vehicles of divine revelation. Early Christians and Muslims developed the religious interpretation of dreams, using it to bolster the religious authority of their leaders, who laid claim to the Jewish tradition of prophets who brought messages from God. This project aims to uncover the development of dream interpretation from Classical Antiquity through early Christianity to early Islam and give an understanding of how dreams and visions were used as tools of religious control and as justification of violence against other religions.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE190101190
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$350,574.00
Summary
Early Jewish and Christian religious traditions. This project aims to bridge the study of early Jewish–Christian relations during late antiquity by focusing on the analysis of objects, such as amulets. Many of the narratives around surviving artefacts from antiquity conflict with inherited ideas about the boundaries between early Judaism and Christianity and raise questions that challenge assumptions about religious interaction. This project expects to generate new knowledge in the study of reli ....Early Jewish and Christian religious traditions. This project aims to bridge the study of early Jewish–Christian relations during late antiquity by focusing on the analysis of objects, such as amulets. Many of the narratives around surviving artefacts from antiquity conflict with inherited ideas about the boundaries between early Judaism and Christianity and raise questions that challenge assumptions about religious interaction. This project expects to generate new knowledge in the study of religion as it was practiced historically. Bringing together modern theories of comparison and social exchange, the project will offer unique insight into how religious interactions between people of different faiths actually unfold in everyday situations. It will also contribute to the implementation of primary-school curricula on religion in antiquity.Read moreRead less
Liturgical texts and practices in the ancient world. This project aims to reconstruct the liturgical life of one of the most diverse and influential religious traditions across Eurasia, from Roman Egypt to early modern China: the Manichaeans. It investigates cultural adaptation, chronological development and unity of practice in a deeper manner that helps support the discipline of religious studies more generally. It expects to generate new knowledge through the critical editing of complex texts ....Liturgical texts and practices in the ancient world. This project aims to reconstruct the liturgical life of one of the most diverse and influential religious traditions across Eurasia, from Roman Egypt to early modern China: the Manichaeans. It investigates cultural adaptation, chronological development and unity of practice in a deeper manner that helps support the discipline of religious studies more generally. It expects to generate new knowledge through the critical editing of complex texts and the employment of emergent methodologies for an integrated, holistic understanding of community literatures in terms of lived religion. Expected outcomes are advances to methodology and the profiling of one aspect of the ancient world.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE120101854
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$375,000.00
Summary
Whose family values? the Christian right and sexual politics in postsecular Australia. This project will expand knowledge of the relationship between sexuality and religion in 'post-secular Australia'. It will show how connections between religion, sex, love and romance have evolved in the recent historical past and advance cultural understanding of conflicts between religious liberty and sexual discrimination.
Forging antiquity: Authenticity, forgery, and fake papyri. This project aims to situate typology of forged papyri in a historical analysis of the development of forgery, authentication techniques, and public debates over forgeries from the 19th century to the present day. The project will contextualise technical study of fakes within authentication strategies in ancient papyri, traditional and emerging de-authentication practices, and the cultural context of forgery. A typology of forged papyri ....Forging antiquity: Authenticity, forgery, and fake papyri. This project aims to situate typology of forged papyri in a historical analysis of the development of forgery, authentication techniques, and public debates over forgeries from the 19th century to the present day. The project will contextualise technical study of fakes within authentication strategies in ancient papyri, traditional and emerging de-authentication practices, and the cultural context of forgery. A typology of forged papyri will enable collecting institutions to better assess fakes, permit easier detection of forgeries in antiquities markets, and provide a tool for scholars asked to assess the authenticity of papyri offered for sale or donation.Read moreRead less
Unfinished business: on Marxism and religion. 'Unfinished Business' makes a significant contribution to issues that have returned with vigour to public debate: the role of religion in ostensibly secular societies and the relation between theology and political radicalism. It offers a much needed reference work that sets current debates within a rich tradition.
Memories of utopia: Destroying the past to create the future (300-650 CE). This project aims to examine the evidence for competing utopian ideologies in early Christianity, which was a prelude to the later clash with Islam from the seventh century onward. Evidence from pagan-Jewish-Christian conflicts in Late Antiquity (300-650 CE) shows that violent destruction of the past is not exclusive to fringe religious groups. These past conflicts are relevant for understanding the conflict in the Middle ....Memories of utopia: Destroying the past to create the future (300-650 CE). This project aims to examine the evidence for competing utopian ideologies in early Christianity, which was a prelude to the later clash with Islam from the seventh century onward. Evidence from pagan-Jewish-Christian conflicts in Late Antiquity (300-650 CE) shows that violent destruction of the past is not exclusive to fringe religious groups. These past conflicts are relevant for understanding the conflict in the Middle East, precisely because analysis of the sources shows that, in intra- and inter-religious conflicts in Late Antiquity in this same geographic region, violent destruction of the past was a propensity in mainstream religion.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE140100919
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$328,260.00
Summary
How Old are the Oldest Christian Manuscripts? The Modern History of Ancient Christian Papyri and a New Approach to Establishing their Dates. Ancient Greek papyri from Egypt are one of our most important witnesses to the text of the New Testament. The papyri fascinate both scholars and the general public, largely because of the early dates often assigned to them by the analysis of handwriting or palaeography. However, palaeography is an imprecise science that produces only ranges of possible date ....How Old are the Oldest Christian Manuscripts? The Modern History of Ancient Christian Papyri and a New Approach to Establishing their Dates. Ancient Greek papyri from Egypt are one of our most important witnesses to the text of the New Testament. The papyri fascinate both scholars and the general public, largely because of the early dates often assigned to them by the analysis of handwriting or palaeography. However, palaeography is an imprecise science that produces only ranges of possible dates, not the specific dates often assigned to biblical papyri. This project pairs a fresh investigation of the earliest remains of the New Testament, built on a new methodology for dating the texts, with an historiographical analysis of their use in the academic world and popular media. The result will be a thorough revision of what we know about the earliest form of the Christian Bible.Read moreRead less
The history of inebriation and reason from Plato to the Latin Middle Ages. This project aims to uncover the undetected but pervasive dichotomy between spiritual inebriation and physical drunkenness from antiquity to the Middle Ages. While Christian theologians, inspired by Plato, celebrated inebriation as a metaphor for a hyper-rational state in which the soul transcends the limitations of reason, Christian moralists, inspired by Stoic philosophy, condemned physical drunkenness as fall from reas ....The history of inebriation and reason from Plato to the Latin Middle Ages. This project aims to uncover the undetected but pervasive dichotomy between spiritual inebriation and physical drunkenness from antiquity to the Middle Ages. While Christian theologians, inspired by Plato, celebrated inebriation as a metaphor for a hyper-rational state in which the soul transcends the limitations of reason, Christian moralists, inspired by Stoic philosophy, condemned physical drunkenness as fall from reason. The project will analyse the cultural and intellectual history of inebriation with the aim of changing appreciation of how medieval thinkers inherited and transformed pagan classical ideas about drinking. Inebriation provides a hitherto unexplored path to rewriting the history of reason, urging us to consider our culturally-ingrained reactions to drinking.Read moreRead less