Christosemitism is a multifaceted research project, sponsored by the European Research Council. Its aim is to analyze the role of Christian agents, ideas, and initiatives in the creation of an anti-antisemitic consensus in Europe and beyond between 1945 and 2020, and to explore the intersection between the question of antisemitism and the extensive processes which took place within the Christian world at the same time, including secularization, liberalization, and the globalization of Christianity. Led by Dr. Karma Ben Johanan, our team of eight researchers, ranging from graduate students to post-doctoral scholars, employs diverse methodologies from fields including religious studies, intellectual history, cultural studies, anthropology, and philosophy, as well as traditional methods of archival research.

Textual Microcosms, a five-year ERC-funded project, run by Prof. Ronit Ricci:

Interlinear translation – a bilingual genre that includes a text and its word-for-word ‘equivalents’ in translation written in alternating lines on a single page – has been practiced in diverse societies over many centuries, yet has been little studied. Because it prioritizes detail and precision, the interlinear translation paradigm tells us more than any other about the workings of translation and the unavoidable choices inherent in every translation act.

The study’s focus is on interlinear translations produced between the late 16th and 20th centuries in the Indonesian-Malay world, a historically and culturally linked region now encompassing Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei, Singapore, southern Thailand and the southern Philippines. One of the world’s most linguistically diverse regions, it has seen Hindu, Buddhist, Confucian, Christian, and Islamic textual traditions locally adopted and adapted over the centuries, often through the interlinear model.

Bringing together scholars and students from the fields of literature, translation studies, Islamic studies, Asian studies, anthropology and linguistics this project employs the interlinear text as a theoretical and methodological framework to study inter- and intra-cultural contacts, intersections and divergences. Approaching such texts as “textual microcosms,” it explores a host of religious, intellectual, literary, artistic and linguistic processes and encounters as expressed and reflected on the interlinear page.

VISIONIS is a five-year ERC-funded project (2021–2026), run by Dr. Hannelies Koloska, researching the cultural history of vision in Early Islam. It explores how early Muslims perceived sight, visuality, and images, challenging widespread assumptions about Islam’s relationship to visual culture. Through close study of the Qur’an and early Islamic writings, VISIONIS wants to present a new, holistic perspective on visual practices and meanings in the formative centuries of Islam.