New project funded by the Australian Research Council: Liturgical Texts and Practices in the Ancient World
Australian Research Council – Discovery Project
Funding: AUD 225,000
Project period: 2019-2023.
Chief Investigators:
Professor Iain Gardner, University of Sydney
Dr Gunner Mikkelsen, Macquarie University
Honorary Professor Majella Franzmann, University of Sydney
Partner Investigators:
Emeritus Professor Samuel Lieu, Macquarie University
Emeritus Professor Nicholas Sims-Williams, SOAS, University of London
Associate Professor Nils Pedersen, Aarhus University
Dr Gábor Kósa, Eötvös Loránd University
This project aims to reconstruct the liturgical life of one of the most diverse and influential religious traditions across Eurasia, from Roman Egypt to early modern China: the Manichaeans. It investigates cultural adaptation, chronological development and unity of practice in a deeper manner that helps support the discipline of religious studies more generally. It expects to generate new knowledge through the critical editing of complex texts and the employment of emergent methodologies for an integrated, holistic understanding of community literatures in terms of lived religion. Expected outcomes are advances to methodology and the profiling of one aspect of the ancient world.