Project description
Exploring first millennium’s political thought
In political thought, Late Antiquity is often viewed as a period where monarchy supplanted city-states and religious texts began to overshadow philosophical works. This era is typically contrasted with modern republicanism and secularism, but this perspective has received limited scholarly attention and has overlooked non-Western traditions. The ERC-funded New Polities project aims to reinterpret this period as a new beginning for emerging political entities. It explores the first millennium, encompassing the Roman Empire, the Abbasid, Byzantine, and Carolingian empires, and expands the range of source material to include various languages and cultures. The project also investigates underexplored topics such as the relationship between human society and nature, transcending disciplinary boundaries to reveal the development and adaptation of political ideas.
Objective
In the history of political thought, Late Antiquity is usually considered the period when the city-state gave way to monarchy and the Bible and Qur’an took the place of Plato. With a focus on kingship and religion, late antique political thinking – so the story goes – represents the antithesis of modern republicanism and secularism. For far too long, this teleological perspective has directed scholars toward a narrow range of topics and inhibited the recognition of different narratives and integration of non-Western traditions. Instead of seeing this period as the end of the paradigmatic ancient polity (namely the polis), New Polities proposes that it was a beginning: an age of new polities. Indeed, it witnessed the spread and consolidation of new religious, ethnic and political communities. Their use of ancient political language to describe themselves sparked a proliferation of political discourse into new contexts. To uncover the innovation and variety thus generated, New Polities expands the scope of research in a three-fold way. 1) It embraces the first millennium from the Roman Empire to the Abbasid, Byzantine and Carolingian empires, when different traditions crystallised from a common pool of late antique material. 2) It shifts the focus away from classical treatises and languages (e.g. Augustine & Al-Farabi) to a wider array of sources in many more languages from a broader range of cultures (e.g. Syriac, Armenian, Hebrew). This enlarged corpus allows to chart a greater breadth of ideas and possible cross-cultural influences. 3) It introduces little-studied topics, such as oikonomia and the relation between human society and nature. Breaking down disciplinary boundaries, New Polities not only recovers the formation, circulation, and adaptation of political ideas in the first millennium, but also foregrounds the importance of late antique and early medieval societies in the wider history of political thought.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
You need to log in or register to use this function
We are sorry... an unexpected error occurred during execution.
You need to be authenticated. Your session might have expired.
Thank you for your feedback. You will soon receive an email to confirm the submission. If you have selected to be notified about the reporting status, you will also be contacted when the reporting status will change.
Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
-
HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
MAIN PROGRAMME
See all projects funded under this programme
Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC Grants
See all projects funded under this funding scheme
Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2023-ADG
See all projects funded under this callHost institution
Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
9000 GENT
Belgium
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.