Projects
Religious difference and deviance: re-appraising toleration in Greco-Roman Antiquity Ghent University
Whereas toleration and intolerance are often studied for more recent periods of history, there is little scholarship on toleration in Classical Antiquity. This is due to the widespread assumption that Greco-Roman religions were essentially tolerant and that intolerance set in with the rise of Christianity. Alternatively, it is argued that toleration is a modern concept without emic equivalent in Antiquity and hence that there is no subject ...
Religious Nihilism: Meaninglessness and Subversion in the Monotheistic Traditions KU Leuven
Nihilism is almost always considered to be a secular and atheistic phenomenon. Traditionally, the nihilistic loss of meaning is associated with Nietzsche’s death of God. Nonetheless, this project aims to show that there can also be religious reasons for being nihilistic. Surprisingly, there are religious motivations for rejecting the meaning of life or for resisting moral, political and indeed even religious authority. Such religious ...
Manichaean and Christian? A contested religious identity in the debate between the Manichaean Felix and Augustine of Hippo KU Leuven
The project encompasses an interdisciplinary study of the historical debate between Augustine, bishop of Hippo, and Felix, leader of a Manichaean community in the same city. The minutes of this debate have been preserved in Augustine’s Contra Felicem. Augustine challenges the Manichaean Felix to defend his claim to an authentic Christian identity. Manichaeism was an illicit religion in the Roman Empire since the end of the third century. The ...
Remember Africa? The effects of twice-migration on the religious and cultural lives of British ‘East African’ Jains Ghent University
The project "Remember Africa?” uses different types of contemporary memorial projects and narratives of individual Jains in the UK to address the experience of twice-migration and its impact upon religious and cultural praxis. It comprises two distinct levels of inquiry.
First, it will approach memory as a source, and construct a continuous history of Jainism as it moved spatially from India to East-Africa to the UK, and temporally ...
Redeveloping the city. Urban transformation and heritagization after the secularization of religious houses in Belgian towns at the dawn of the modern age (1773/1796-1860). KU Leuven
Recovering a Neglected Critical Tradition: The Victorian and Modernist Critique of Newman's Religious Apologetic and its Contemporary Significance. KU Leuven
John Henry Newman (1801-1890) was one of the most important and original religious thinkers of the nineteenth century. He rose to fame in the early 1830s, as one of the leaders of the Tractarian Movement, a lastingly influential campaign to revitalize the Church of England. After he converted to the Church of Rome in 1845, he became one of the most renowned – even notorious – Catholics of the Victorian era. He was created Cardinal in 1879, ...
The end of secularization? Charles Taylor and Marcel Gauchet on the significance of the religious in a secularized world. KU Leuven
Multiculturalism in Healthcare: Rights and Duties of Healthcare Providers and Patients When Manifesting Their Religious and Cultural Preferences in the Healthcare Setting. University of Antwerp
Female genital cutting as a religious identity marker among Coptic and Muslim women in Egypt. Ghent University
This proposal wants to contribute to our understanding of female religious agency concerning female genital cutting through analysis of religious discourse and ethnographic research among Coptic and Muslim women in Egypt. It focuses on women's negotiation with both internal societal religious and Westernized forces. The project wants to contribute to theorizing of the interplay of gender, religion and agency.