Title Promoter Affiliations Abstract "The Normativity of the History: Theological Truth and Tradition in the Tension between Church History tematic Theology." "Lieven Boeve" "Research Unit of Systematic Theology and the Study of Religions, Research Unit of History of Church and Theology" "The project is dealing with the normativity of history for theology. Three research groups one embedded in the research department of History of Church and Theology, the two others from Systematic Theology use this thematic framework to focus and structure their research. In order to do so, three joint research avenues specifying the thematic framework have been conceived in which two of the three groups are engaged at any one time. A first research avenue focuses on the way in which the appeal to tradition in the development of tradition happens. The second avenue is engaged in combined theological-epistemological research into the status of tradition-bound truth within a general context of plurality. The third avenue is focused on the evolution and implications of the tradition regarding the churchs attitude towards non-Christians and their religious traditions. The research activities of the avenues are integrated in one research platform. It is from this platform that the different avenues are coordinated, and the general research questions issuing from the thematic framework are dealt with." "This story may provide proof. History and authority in Syriac excerpt collections and beyond" "Peter Van Nuffelen" "Department of History" "Combining intellectual history with material philology, this project studies the authority attributed to histories in Syriac excerpt collections (6-10th c). It uses unstudied material to analyse the intertwining of identity formation and historical narratives, to provide the first cross-cultural study of late antique excerpt collections, and to study the changing status of historical knowledge compared to other types of knowledge." "‘This story may provide proof’. History and authority in Syriac excerpt collections and beyond." "Peter Van Nuffelen" "Department of History" "Combining intellectual history with material philology, this project studies the authority attributed to histories in Syriac excerpt collections (6-10th c). It uses unstudied material to analyse the intertwining of identity formation and historical narratives, to provide the first cross-cultural study of late antique excerpt collections, and to study the changing status of historical knowledge compared to other types of knowledge." "Commissioned history and the confluence of history and jurisdiction. A comparative and meta-historical analysis of four government-appointed historical commissions in Europe after 1989" "Department of History" "Since the end of the Cold War many countries have turned to historical commissions as a way to deal with the past. This project comparatively analyses four post-1989 European government-appointed historical commissions (the German U+2018Enquete-kommisionU+2019, the Swiss U+2018Bergier-commissionU+2019, the Dutch Srebrenica-inquiry, and the Belgian Lumumba-commission) which are from an empirical and a meta-historical perspective. I focus on three sets of research questions: concerning the occasion, timing, purpose, and effects of historical commissions; concerning the relation between these commissions and the field of jurisdiction; and concerning their relation with U+2018traditionalU+2019 historiography." "Time-Travelling Boxes? French History Comics as a New Way of Considering History." "Maaheen Ahmed" "Department of Literary Studies, Department of History" "Lately, the assumption that comics are only made for entertainment and lack historical objectivity has tended to be obscured by a new function: historical fiction and nonfiction comics have established themselves as a laboratory for reflection on practices and meanings of historical writing, and have become both a phenomenon and a symbol. A phenomenon, for in France, since the 1990s, historical comics have been reaching a growing readership from various socio-cultural milieus; and a symbol of historiographic tensions and doubts, as many academics have been reading, commenting, and even creating history comics, in line with a reinvention of the historical discipline, hence opening up to new historiographic practices and to the popular treatment of history. This project analyzes these recent evolutions of representations and uses of history in French-language comics, by combining iconographic and literary analysis, the study of the publishing and reception of comics and interviews with authors, historians and publishers. I argue that history comics respond to a contemporary need to experience history but also to understand and reinvent its making and its functions. Indeed, one of the main effects of history comics today is to underline the current doubts of many historians concerning the capacity of scholarship to reconstruct history convincingly." "The (un)told Mission History of the Sisters of the Society of Jesus Mary Joseph (jmj) in India: A History of Identity Formation of Missionary Generations Shifting between Dutch Legacy and Indian Inculturation (1904 – 1969)" "Dries Bosschaert" "Research Unit of History of Church and Theology" "Since their arrival in India in 1904 the JMJ missionary sisters have continuously advocated for the advancement of young girls and women through education, health care and self-sustainable programs, assisting them in constructing their identities in Andhra Pradesh, India. As with other women in the history of church and theology, their role is, however, often overlooked. This research focusing on the historical identity formation of the JMJ sisters and the centrality of the empowering of women and girls herein will trace (i) the lived experiences of the sisters of Jesus Mary Joseph (JMJ) from Netherlands and Australia who travelled to India in 1904 and 1920, (ii) the native women who joined them as Handmaids of Mary and (iii) the administration shift from Dutch heritage to Indian Inculturation up to the 1960s. The voices and stories of these religious women are generally unknown, and their experiences and identities have not been properly documented. Through textual analysis, archival research, and oral history, this project will evaluate, hear from, and report on these missionary women and thus contribute to the ongoing work of the empowerment of women in India; thus aligning itself with SDG5." "The History of Exegesis and Marginal Books of the New Testament: The Patristic Reception History of 1 Peter" "Joseph Verheyden" "Research Unit of Biblical Studies" "This project is an enquiry into the nature of the authority assigned by the Early Church to 1 Peter, a letter that seems to have had a rather marginal status in the corpus of New Testament writings. Andreas Merkt (Regensburg) has studied the reception history of 1 Peter 1:1-2:10 for the international project Novum Testamentum Patristicum (currently in press). This present proposal should result in a follow-up volume on 1 Peter 2:11-5:14. Only a small number of Patristic commentaries devoted to the Catholic epistles has come down to us. A large part of the evidence for the reception of 1 Peter is to be traced all through Patristic literature. The letter contains a couple of famous cases that have produced a rich and diversified reception history. One such case is 1 Peter 3:19, about Jesus preaching salvation to those in prison. Greek Patristic authors (Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Cyril of Alexandria, Maximus the Confessor) have taken this to refer to Christs descent in hell between his death and resurrection to create an opportunity for a post-mortem conversion of the saints of the Old Testament who had passed away without having known the gospel. Augustine (followed by Beda Venerabilis), however, did not favour this descensus theory, proposing instead that the OT saints had been instructed while still alive by (the pre-incarnated) Christ. The project will offer an exhaustive commentary on the reception history of the second half of the letter in the Greek and Latin tradition and will thereby illustrate the richness of the interpretative traditions and the complex relationships between these, as well as the interplay of exegesis and theology in the ancient Church. In connection with the project a blog will be started (January 2016) where issues regarding the reception history of 1 Peter and related questions will be discussed and information will be posted that may be relevant for a wider readership: Patristicexegesis.comThe Novum Testamentum Patristicum project is coordinated by A. Merkt, T. Nicklas and J. Verheyden; further information is available at http://www.uni-regensburg.de/theology/novum-testamentum-patristicum/index.html" "The Handmaiden’s Balancing Act? The (Re)Presentation of East European Literatures in Weltliteraturgeschichte and Younger ‘World Literary History’" "Ben Dhooge" "Department of Languages and Cultures" "In 1877 the Austro-Hungarian Hugó Meltzl warned his colleagues: “As every unbiased man of letters knows, modern literary history, as generally practiced today, is nothing but an ancilla historiae politicae [‘handmaiden of political history’]”. At the time, Europe was dominated by the five powers of the ‘Vienna System’ (after the 1815 Congress of Vienna): England, France, Prussia, Austria and Russia, whose respective ‘national’ languages, except for Russian – the important exception –, were already then (as they arguably still are) considered to be the languages of world literature.The balance arrangement between these powers more or less survived until World War I, a long period which saw the rise of the subgenre of Weltliteraturgeschichte or world literary history. While literary history about the ‘self’ indeed often served the legitimization of political claims, (world) literary history about the ‘other’ within and outside these herculean books did not function as such. Because the case of Eastern Europe is imperative to prove the legitimacy of, or refute, the idea that historical power relations were the main preoccupation of (world) literary history, this project studies how Weltliteraturgeschichten (re)presented the mostly young literatures of Russia – the newest superpower, victor over Napoleon – and the burgeoning nations of the heterogeneous ‘buffer’ in between: the Balkans and East-Central Europe. Notwithstanding the sometimes dubious introductory remarks, the actual treatment of Eastern Europe’s emerging literary achievements in general reveals respect and – one could say – enlightened hospitality, at least on a (Eurocentric) world cultural level. Apart from studying the obvious German pioneering works of the subgenre (esp. Scherr), the project also takes into account their Russian equivalents (esp. Pypin), with their specific focus on the literatures of the ‘fraternal Slavs’ on the Balkans and in East-Central Europe.The project’s world literature studies scope (cf. the involvement of Theo D’haen) also paves the way for other world-literature-related approaches regarding how East European literatures were and are transnationally (re)presented. In this respect, concepts such as ‘(major vs.) minor literature’, and cultural transfer ‘vehicles’, such as comics adaptations of East European literary classics and (pseudo)translation prove to be useful instruments to probe the evolution of the ‘(market) value(s)’ of Eastern Europe and its literary heritage in the West. A particularly challenging world-literature approach – yet another, albeit politically incorrect manifestation of the handmaiden’s balancing act – of the region’s (previously) ‘retarded’ literatures (at the crossroads with supervisor Ben Dhooge’s scholarly interests in Modernism) is offered by Georgii Gachev’s concept of the accelerated development of Bulgarian and by extension Balkan and other (East European) literatures. An edited volume (by Dhooge & De Dobbeleer; book proposal accepted by Brill) on Gachev’s overlooked concept and its repercussions on the assessment of so-called peripheral East European (and two other) literatures is in preparation.In 1877 the Austro-Hungarian Hugó Meltzl warned his colleagues: “As every unbiased man of letters knows, modern literary history, as generally practiced today, is nothing but an ancilla historiae politicae [‘handmaiden of political history’]”. At the time, Europe was dominated by the five powers of the ‘Vienna System’ (after the 1815 Congress of Vienna): England, France, Prussia, Austria and Russia, whose respective ‘national’ languages, except for Russian – the important exception –, were already then (as they arguably still are) considered to be the languages of world literature.The balance arrangement between these powers more or less survived until World War I, a long period which saw the rise of the subgenre of Weltliteraturgeschichte or world literary history. While literary history about the ‘self’ indeed often served the legitimization of political claims, (world) literary history about the ‘other’ within and outside these herculean books did not function as such. Because the case of Eastern Europe is imperative to prove the legitimacy of, or refute, the idea that historical power relations were the main preoccupation of (world) literary history, this project studies how Weltliteraturgeschichten (re)presented the mostly young literatures of Russia – the newest superpower, victor over Napoleon – and the burgeoning nations of the heterogeneous ‘buffer’ in between: the Balkans and East-Central Europe. Notwithstanding the sometimes dubious introductory remarks, the actual treatment of Eastern Europe’s emerging literary achievements in general reveals respect and – one could say – enlightened hospitality, at least on a (Eurocentric) world cultural level. Apart from studying the obvious German pioneering works of the subgenre (esp. Scherr), the project also takes into account their Russian equivalents (esp. Pypin), with their specific focus on the literatures of the ‘fraternal Slavs’ on the Balkans and in East-Central Europe.The project’s world literature studies scope (cf. the involvement of Theo D’haen) also paves the way for other world-literature-related approaches regarding how East European literatures were and are transnationally (re)presented. In this respect, concepts such as ‘(major vs.) minor literature’, and cultural transfer ‘vehicles’, such as comics adaptations of East European literary classics and (pseudo)translation prove to be useful instruments to probe the evolution of the ‘(market) value(s)’ of Eastern Europe and its literary heritage in the West. A particularly challenging world-literature approach – yet another, albeit politically incorrect manifestation of the handmaiden’s balancing act – of the region’s (previously) ‘retarded’ literatures (at the crossroads with supervisor Ben Dhooge’s scholarly interests in Modernism) is offered by Georgii Gachev’s concept of the accelerated development of Bulgarian and by extension Balkan and other (East European) literatures. An edited volume (by Dhooge & De Dobbeleer; book proposal accepted by Brill) on Gachev’s overlooked concept and its repercussions on the assessment of so-called peripheral East European (and two other) literatures is in preparation." "Sabbatical Violet Soen: Towards Transregional History 2.0" "Violet Soen" "Early Modern History (15th-18th Centuries), Leuven" "Over the past decade, Transregional History: Crossing Borders in Early Modern Times has grown into a thriving research group on the critical role of borders and border areas during the sixteenth-century religious wars between Protestants and Catholics. The second cohort of PhD students is now investigating the role of universities and their printing press in the transregional transfers from the early modern period.  In February 2021 the last part of the planned trilogy Transregional Reformations (Vandenhoeck&Ruprecht, 2019), Transregional Territories (Brepols, Habsburg Worlds, 2020) and Noblesses transrégionales (Brepols, Burgundica, 2021) is released.In the future, Transregional History 2.0 wants to integrate the recent developments in the field of spatial history and explore new horizons in the field of linked places, linked pasts.This sabbatical period will serve to explore new methods (particularly the Harvard open software 'Worldmap') and thereby determine the possible potential for research into the sixteenth century. Central to this is the search for compatible data transfer and visualization for the three current (and largely already online) databases Impressa Catholica Cameracensia, Impressae and Manuale Lovaniense, which now have almost 10,000 records.This sabbatical is not only for looking ahead, but also for deepening. Work will also be done on an English-language monograph, which will provide insights from the various sub-projects. Based on an aristocratic family with cross-border ambitions, this monograph argues how the religious wars in the Netherlands and France often were sent decisively from the border areas. Remaining archival work in Douai and Paris delayed by COVID will be overtaken by short stays during the sabbatical period in France." "Anchoring the past: A history of the practice and discourse of ‘sites of memory’ in the cases of the battlefield of Waterloo and the Berliner Stadtschloss, 1800-2000." "Berber Bevernage" "Department of History" "This research aims to historicize Western European practices and concepts of ‘sites of memory’ as places wherethe memory of a specific historical event is anchored. Through the case studies of the battlefield of Waterloo andthe Berliner Stadtschloss an analysis will be made of dominant ideas about historical sites as establishing aspecial connection with the past."