The Indian Ocean World (IOW) has long facilitated cultural exchange and maritime trade, yet the contributions of Indigenous and non-elite communities remain largely overlooked. This project explores the roles of ...read more
This project approaches oceanic worlds in South Asia as entangled seascapes: relational assemblages shaped through long-term interactions between human communities, marine ecologies, and monsoonal temporalities. Moving beyond land-centred and state-focused historiographies, it investigates how oceans ...read more
Charles Darwin’s proposition that humanity constitutes one species among many implies a shared, primordial foundation of cognition and existence with other life forms. This premise inevitably raises a central question: ...read more
This research project concerns the formation of Buddhist initiation ritual practices in medieval China, focusing primarily on images on murals and in manuscripts that have been discovered in the region ...read more
Throughout Chinese history, mountain worship has shaped the spatial order of ancient cities as a cultural and spiritual anchor, forming a unique "city-mountain" landscape imbued with regional identity and philosophical/religious ...read more
Fuel was an essential element for both domestic activities (e.g. cooking and heating, artisanal and (proto-)industrial production) and cremation rituals. Fuel use in the Low Counties has been studied for ...read more
This research project aims at addressing a gap in scholarly literature on Hellenistic poetry by looking at Hellenistic verse inscriptions, and more specifically the ones coming from the ‘Greek East’, ...read more
Medieval cities were more than centers of trade and governance—they were imagined, shaped, and contested through literature. This project examines how Bruges, Ghent, and Ypres were represented in Middle Dutch ...read more
The Anyue Buddhist 安岳 sites can be mainly dated between the Tang (618–907) and the Ming (1368–1644) dynasties and consist of locations of great importance when studying Buddhism in the Sichuan ...read more
What you eat is who you are—or perhaps more accurately, ‘what you eat is who you aspire to be.’ Food consumption is inherently a social act, conveying messages of status, ...read more