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
Counter-Radical Revival: Indonesia's New-Style Islamic Prayer Rallies. This project is the first systematic investigation of a new type of counter-radical religious mobilisation in Muslim Southeast Asia: mass prayer rallies attended by tens of thousands of people and led by charismatic preachers of Hadhrami Arab descent. While transnational Islamist movements promoting an Islamic state have identified 'true Islam' with Arab practices, Hadhrami leaders of the new-style prayer rallies publicly res ....Counter-Radical Revival: Indonesia's New-Style Islamic Prayer Rallies. This project is the first systematic investigation of a new type of counter-radical religious mobilisation in Muslim Southeast Asia: mass prayer rallies attended by tens of thousands of people and led by charismatic preachers of Hadhrami Arab descent. While transnational Islamist movements promoting an Islamic state have identified 'true Islam' with Arab practices, Hadhrami leaders of the new-style prayer rallies publicly resist such claims, promoting religious rituals beloved in Indonesian local Islam. This project seeks to document the scope and impact of the new-style prayer rallies and understand them as new religious forms responsive to the late-modern social changes affecting not just the West, but also Islamic Southeast Asia.Read moreRead less
The function of images in magical papyri and artefacts of ritual power from Late Antiquity. A study of images in magical papyri and related artefacts from Late Antiquity, drawn for the purpose of healing and protection or to achieve success in personal relations and business. The research outcome will be a new holistic understanding of the design and use of such objects, and the transmission of traditions of knowledge in ancient society.
Kingship, art and cult practice: decoding symbolism in an ancient Central Asian royal city. Hidden in the elaborate imagery of the richly ornamented 'Ceremonial Complex' recently uncovered at the ancient 'Royal City' of Kazakly-yatkan in Uzbekistan is a wealth of symbolism relating to cult, kingship and the divine. The study of this magnificent corpus has broad relevance for the history of all the lands across the ancient Persian world.