My research project investigates top-down strategies—a series of measures initiated by President Vladimir Putin and implemented by the state apparatus—in which Russia’s literary heritage was utilized both as an instrument ...read more
"Typologies of Text and Image Relations (Cliffs/Caves)" is Research Cluster 3.4 of the project "From the Ground Up: Buddhism & East Asian Religions" (Cluster leader: Christoph Anderl) [CONCLUDED PROJECT]
This research project will study how political order and historical truth were jointly constructed in the late medieval Middle East. It will look in particular at how contemporary Islamic scholars/historians ...read more
This project investigates the nature of the Latin verb stems, based on the analysis of a corpus consisting of Classical and Late Latin historiographical texts. It examines their basic value: ...read more
Between 1996 and 2002 I was involved in a postdoctoral project on Angola, studying the life histories of refugees living in Namibia as they recounted how political legitimacy had been ...read more
“Encounter dialogue” is perhaps the most recognizable of all (Zen) Buddhist genres. Better known under their abbreviated form as kōan, these texts portray mysterious verbal sparring bouts between Zen masters ...read more
A striking feature of Ptolemaic rule in Egypt (305–30 BC) is the apparent extent of state controland intervention in industry and trade. A multitude of state-imposed rules and regulations can ...read more
Today’s ecological crisis prompts us to rethink our attitude towards physical and natural realities that have traditionally been seen as opposed to human subjectivity and agency. What emerges from this ...read more
Although wallpaper defines the living environment of so many people, this type of wall finish is often criticised. During the interwar period, when ‘the art of living’ became an important ...read more
The practice of divination in Buddhism traces its roots to India. However, the mutual engagements between medieval Chinese Buddhism and the practice of divination were deeper than the case in ...read more