Research projects (1 - 500 of 2917)

• Kurt Vanhoutte
• Esther Tuypens
Poor relief and community building in the Southern Low Countries, ca. 1300-1600.
University of Antwerp
Abstract: This project will study poor relief in an integrated way in three towns in the Southern Low Countries from circa 1300 to 1600 (Ghent,
Mechelen and Bergues/Sint-Winoksbergen), in order to examine how, through poor relief schemes, urban communities of solidarity were shaped. I
will analyze which communities were implied or shaped when it was regulated and decided who could profit from poor relief, and how this changed
in the long run. Who had access to relief systems (and who did not) and what community thereby served as a frame of reference? Which social
boundaries were created (and by whom)? Was increasing social fragmentation reflected in a fragmentation of poor relief, or was there a shift from
local and particular communities to the whole city in the fifteenth and sixteenth century?
Organisations:
• Centre for Urban History
Researchers:
• Bert De Munck
• Peter Stabel
The Emotions of Rational Agents.
University of Antwerp
Abstract: The project will describe the relation of affective and rational capacities in terms of asymmetrical explanatory relations. This can be done
by thinking of agents as embodied subjects, who through complex selfrepresentational and self-regulative abilities structure their actions in the light
of rational considerations. This approach to the unity of the subject has historical antecedents in Fichte (1794) and Hegel (1830).
Organisations:
• Centre for Philosophical Psychology
Researchers:
• Bence Nanay
'Wo mistus, da Christus'. A micro-perspective on the allocation and recycling of urban waste in the rural economy of early
modern Flanders.
University of Antwerp
Abstract: This project aims to investigate to what extent the contribution of urban waste and manure could overcome the challenge of fundamental
nutrient deficiencies in regions of dense urbanisation and intensive agriculture. In order to reach that goal, the social relations that are at the core of
this project, will be confronted with three other strategic factors affecting the manure allocation: transport improvements, institutional change and
economic growth
Organisations:
• Political History
Researchers:
• Bruno Blondé
• Tim Soens
• Pieter De Graef
Human capital from a household perspective: knowledge investments in early modern Antwerp, Ghent, Lier and Aalst.
University of Antwerp
Abstract: As evidenced by this short state of the art, there is an urgent need for a micro-level approach in which education and the mechanisms
behind human capital formation are analyzed comprehensively. This project aims to fulfill this requirement by 1° introducing a new kind of source to
quantify the investments in various types of education and to identify the different causal factors involved from a household perspective; and 2°
analyzing the situation in four distinct early modern cities in the Southern Low Countries, the first industrializing region on the continent.
Organisations:
• Centre for Urban History
Researchers:
• Bert De Munck
• Jord Hanus
• Annelies De Bie
The commons backstage: the social agro-system of the late medieval Campine area explored.
University of Antwerp
Abstract: The initial goal of this research project was to analyse actors, arguments and outcomes of conflicts regarding common pool regimes and
institutions in the late medieval Campine Area, in order to reveal changing uses and expectations of the commons by different stakeholders.
Organisations:
• Political History
Researchers:
• Tim Soens
• Maïka De Keyzer
Singularity and Responsibility.
University of Antwerp
Abstract: At first glance the question of responsibility seems to be a question of freedom: is one responsible for his/her actions, because she/he has
chosen these actions freely? In a recent philosophical debate that has been inspired by the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas, responsibility is
however understood as the result of a call: as a task that isn¿t the result of any free choice, but that is received in a passive way. This call is
received by a singular person and has to be answered by this person only. Levinas¿ concept of responsibility has been put into question by some
critics as Jean-Luc Marion and Paul Ricoeur, who doubt Levinas¿ claim that ethical responsibility (the call to do the good) can be singular. Ricoeurs
and Marions criticisms point at the fundamental problem of an ethics of responsibility: how is it possible for a call that is addressed at any person, to
ask for an answer that only I can give? This question will be the core of the following research project which goal consists in investigating how
singularity can be considered as a condition of freedom. The project will carefully investigate the following three questions.
1.) Can the call for the good be singular (i.e. unique) so that it is possible to say that it singularizes me?
2.) Can a passive call for responsibility result in concrete ethical practice?
3.) In what sense does freedom depend on singular ethicalacting in practice?
Organisations:
• Centre for Philosophy of Culture