Project description
Exploring radical religious commitment in ancient faiths
Radical religion remains a pressing issue in contemporary society, with research often focusing on Islam and its connection to radicalisation since 9/11. However, individual commitment to radical beliefs, especially in historical contexts, has been largely overlooked. In this context, the ERC-funded RADHEART project seeks to fill this gap by exploring the expression and cultivation of strong individual religious commitment in ancient Judaism and Christianity. By combining religious aesthetics and experience-oriented anthropology, RADHEART delves into the emotional intensity of religious commitment in ancient poetry and narratives. It aims to compare radical religious practices across these two faiths, providing insights into how strong commitment shaped and was conveyed through ancient media.
Objective
More than two decades of intense radical religion research since 9/11 has brought attention to radicalisation, violence, and radical beliefs, and a strong emphasis on Islam in the contemporary era. Yet, radical religion is as burning an issue for societies today as ever, and individuals persist in staying committed. Strong, individual commitment shapes any form of radical religion, but it is rarely studied empirically, let alone historically. RADHEART ambitiously proposes to analyse how strong individual commitment is expressed and cultivated in ancient forms of Judaism and Christianity. Strong, religious commitment is approached as radical habits of the heart, i.e. emic models of the self’s felt experience of strong commitment. With an innovative theoretical framework that combines the aesthetics of religion and experience-oriented anthropology, RADHEART focuses on how an emotionally intense, strong religious commitment is expressed in and cultivated by ancient media. RADHEART offers high-gain insights by 1) comparing radical habits of the heart across the two ancient religions that were most seminal for later formations, 2) reframing the study of radical ancient religion by tackling the pervasive vocabulary of interior organs and the body in ancient poetry and narratives about strong commitment, and 3) instead of focusing on beliefs, terms, and conceptual reflections, RADHEART scrutinises the roles of the embodied self and emotionality in radical religion. Research has focused on the collective character of ancient religions, disregarding the crucial role of individual strong commitment and it has seen ancient emotions as lacking in affectivity. RADHEART breaks with these trends and enquires into strong, individual religious commitment in two media forms: poetry and narrative. RADHEART asks how they express and model strong commitment and how they affect their audiences across the axes of textuality, mediality, and practice.
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.
- humanities philosophy, ethics and religion religions islam
- social sciences sociology anthropology
- humanities philosophy, ethics and religion religions judaism
- humanities philosophy, ethics and religion religions christianity
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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.
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HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
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Topic(s)
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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
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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
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Call for proposal
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Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2024-COG
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5020 Bergen
Norway
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