Members of the CEU Center for Religious Studies have joined their Austrian colleages in planning the "EurAsian Transformations" Cluster of Excellence and are working on its realization in leadership positions.
Endowed with funding for a five-year period (2023-2028) from the Austrian Science Fund (FWF), the "EurAsian Transformations" Cluster of Excellence involves about 100 researchers from four academic institutions: the Austrian Academy of Sciences, the University of Vienna, Central European University, and the University of Innsbruck. Major contemporary issues, such as diversity, mobility, identity, are explored in a historical perspective across the entire landmass of Europe and Asia, from antiquity to the present. Reserchers are using original sources in dozens of languages, which they analyse comparatively to discover connections of all kinds - cultural and religious, economic and political. A central concern of the Cluster is the dissemination of research results through a range of innovative and traditional media, the transfer of research methods, and the training of advanced students and young researchers at home and abroad.
The research groups are working on three main themes. "Geographies of Power" compares Eurasian continental empires and transregional power alliances. “Communication and Mobility" focuses on communication networks and the circulation of knowledge, explores multilingualism and literate cultures. "Identities and Religions" examines culture communications, constructions of identity, and perceptions of the other.
See the CoE website here.
Four CRS faculty members collaborate in the Cluster of Excellence.
On the Board of Directors, Tijana Krstic devotes her research to two case studies: “Political and Religious Imagination of the Ottoman Slavs in the Confessional Age” and “Entangled Histories of Community- and Confession-Building in the Early Modern Ottoman Period.”
As Key Researcher, Istvan Perczel pursues a case study “Ancient Christian Communities in South India - Manuscripts and Inscriptions.” He has also raised funding for a research work package “Cultural Symbiosis and Conflict in South India (6th to 18th centuries),” jointly
financed by the "EurAsian Transformations" Cluster of Excellence and the Mar Chrysostom Chair of Mahatma Gandhi University in Kottayam, Kerala, India.
As Key Researcher, Daniel Ziemann realizes research on two case studies, “Migration and Competing Power Structures in the Eurasian Early Middle Ages” and “Cross-reading Narratives of Origins in early Medieval Eurasia.”
As Affiliated Member, Carsten Wilke works on a project “Hebrew Inscriptions in South India.”
Kateryna Kovalchuk (kovalchukk@ceu.edu) is the "EurAsian Transformations" Coordinator at CEU.