Индивидуални проекти

„Митът и музиката на Скрябин“ изследва наследството на композитора Александър Скрябин в руската култура през ХХ век. Проектът разглежда създаването на мита за Скрябин като луд и месия през първото десетилетие на ХХ век и преминава към съветското присвояване на творчеството на Скрябин през 20-те години на ХХ век, когато то се слива с култа към електричеството и се тълкува като пророчество за революцията. По-нататък ръкописът разглежда посмъртното влияние на творчеството на Скрябин върху поетиката на шестима големи руски автори (Иванов, Замятин, Манделщам, Пастернак, Шаров) и изследва влиянието на Скрябин върху руските емигрантски общности в Берлин и Париж (Бели, Кандински, Обухов, Вишнеградски). След това изследването проследява как идеите на Скрябин са вдъхновили съветските мултимедийни технологии и изкуство, свързани с космическите изследвания, като например фотоелектронния синтезатор ANS от 1957 г., използван за предизвикване на звука на чуждата планета във филма на Андрей Тарковски „Соларис“, и светлинно-звуковото изкуство за съветските космонавти, разработено от инженера-художник Булат Галеев в Казанския институт „Прометей“.

Необходимостта от реформа на политиката на разширяване на ЕС под натиска на геополитическите обстоятелства е ясно призната както от изследователите, така и от експертите (Börzel 2023; Schimmelfennig 2023a; Schimmelfennig 2023b; Sydow & Kreilinger 2023; Nizhnikau & Moshes 2024). Това усилие изисква промяна в познавателната перспектива, тъй като повечето от изследванията в тази област са ограничени от рамката на доминиращия рационалистичен подход, който: а) е разработен преди началото на Източното разширяване и б) е насочен към универсално теоретично разбиране (Sedelmeier 1996; Schimmelfennig 1996; Sedelmeier 2011). Спецификите на посткомунистическите общества, възприемани от основните участници в това разширяване като „съвсем различен звяр“ (Landaburu 2007), бяха пропуснати. Целта ни е да променим менталната карта в мисленето за разширяването на ЕС, като подчертаем фундаменталната логика на методологията на разширяването чрез практическото ѝ проявление в пакетите за разширяване на ЕС. Ще приложим сложна качествено-количествена аналитична методология, за да отидем отвъд официалните изявления в докладите за страните и да достигнем до систематична структура на ключовите характеристики на политиката. Това познание ще позволи да се направят някои фундаментални промени в подхода на ЕС към бъдещите разширявания, като се цели постигането на качествено различни резултати в много по-успешното европеизиране на страните кандидатки.

В България няма полицейско насилие. Това изглежда е консенсусът, постигнат сред широк набор от политици, журналисти и дори потребители на социалните медии. Въпреки това в Европейския съд по правата на човека бяха спечелени множество съдебни дела срещу България; психолог от Министерството на вътрешните работи признава по телевизията, че проблемът с полицейското насилие може да се превърне в системен; а веднъж на няколко години избухва скандал заради предполагаема злоупотреба с власт от страна на полицейски служители. Макар че шепа активисти и неправителствени организации се опитват да следят полицейското насилие в страната, това остава трудна битка, тъй като няма официална статистика и не е прието определение на ключови понятия като „полицейско насилие“ или „полицейски тормоз“. Този проект се стреми да разбере значенията, които различни заинтересовани страни - журналисти, жертви, адвокати и полицейски служители - приписват на „полицейското насилие“, и какви са стратегиите, чрез които тези заинтересовани страни разбират самата категория „полицейско насилие“. За тази цел проектът използва комбинация от количествени и качествени методи, включително интервюта, анализ на дискурси и текстове, както и основни статистически данни.

Ibn Taymiyya (1263-1328) was a Muslim theologian and jurist, one of the most influential representatives of the Hanbalite theological and legal school in Sunni Islam. As such, his work has been extensively studied in the context of Islamic theology and the Islamic religious law Sharī a. This project aims to examine Ibn Taymiyya’s work from a different andʽ previously unexplored perspective: that of translation studies. To this end, it will identify the texts from his works in which the main elements of his understanding of translation are presented. Critical analysis of the texts will reveal Ibn Taymiyya’s place in the history of Arabic translation discourse and facilitate the presentation of his understanding of translation. He perceives it both as a historical process of interlinguistic transfer and as an analytical category that enables the exploration of divergences within the Islamic culture and identifies differences between Islam and other epistemological and religious traditions.

The project aims at analyzing and synthesizing the evidence for critique of religion and rulers from Ancient Mesopotamia cuneiform sources (ca. 2600-500 BC), which has often been neglected in Ancient Near Eastern Studies themselves and as a consequence also in neighboring fields. The Enlightenment, is an intellectual movement of utmost importance for the development of the history of the modern world. Enlightenment fostered a democratic development as well as the liberation of sciences and humanities from the control of the church and other authorities. Therefore, historians and philosophers intensively studied the European Enlightenment and its forerunners. For our understanding of intellectual history and Enlightenment phenomena the Mesopotamian evidence is of utmost importance, as it precedes the Greek developments and provides an intellectual context for them. In a series of articles, I have demonstrated that such phenomena, as the critique of the king or even critique of the gods, exist in cuneiform sources and during my stay at CAS I will refine and extend these findings and publish them in the form of a short monograph.

Based on a detailed historical analysis of the emergence of the contemporary concept of equality in international human rights law the project paints a comprehensive picture of the structural deficiencies of this concept and proposes an alternative. The research on equality is a burgeoning field. However, as highlighted by many scholars, the processes of globalisation require a re-articulation of the traditional vision of equality and in particular alternatives to both the welfare state and neo-liberal thinking. I argue that to achieve this re-articulation a deeper historical understanding of the structural elements and presuppositions underlying the current equality thinking in international human rights law is required. Systemic and systematic analysis of this deficiencies can only emerge from a careful historical analysis of institutionalisation of equality in the League of Nations and the United Nations. Insights gained from this historical examination are then complemented by philosophical and broader theoretical reflections on difference and identity by Deleuze, Derrida, Nishida, and queer theory to propose a novel approach to equality. This approach is expected to be more adapted to the conditions of globalisation. Examples from arts to be created in cooperation between the scholar and the artists are used as illustrations.

The project seeks to explore the history of mercenary employment in Muscovy during the Smolensk War with Poland-Lithuania from 1632 to 1634 within a broader historical context. This period represents the most extensively documented case in Muscovite history where large military units, comprised entirely of foreigners (primarily Germans, Englishmen, and Scotsmen), were recruited abroad under fixed mercenary contracts. Through this case study, I investigate the dynamics of interaction with foreign private military entrepreneurs in Muscovy and present this evidence within the framework of state-building processes and mercenary service in Early Modern Europe. While recent research has highlighted the significance of private military actors in Central and Western Europe from the 15th to the 18th centuries, the narrative surrounding Russian military history during this period has predominantly remained state-centered. My objective is to challenge this narrative by applying methodological frameworks developed for studies on European military entrepreneurship to 17th-century Muscovy. The research is primarily based on unpublished sources from Russian, British, Swedish, and German archives, which I have already collected. During my time in Sofia, I intend to finalize my prosopography database on mercenary officers in Muscovite service and complete the draft of the monograph on this subject.

The purpose of this comparative research is to analyze similarities of modernist literatures of two port cities – Odesa and Tel Aviv, both in terms of direct influence and in broader typological terms. By pointing to these cities’ seaport aspect, the project foregrounds the common denominator of this research – the hybrid nature of port cities, evidenced in their literary output, which transgresses assumed ethno-linguistic boundaries. While the hybrid characteristics of port cities are well researched in general and in particular with regard to their Levantine and Black Sea examples, scholars have confined their research predominantly to urban and sociocultural intra-contextual analysis, whereas Dr. Waysband's project combines intra- and inter-textual analysis of their literature, drawing upon interdisciplinary Levantine studies with an emphasis on the concept of hybridity. The project foregrounds a reciprocal process of cultural transmission between Mediterranean/Levantine and Black Sea cultural areas, (1) highlighting the Ukrainian constituent of Hebrew modernist poetry and (2) analyzing thematic and linguistic forms of expression of the Levantine self-perception of Odesa’s modernist writers. By pointing to the interconnectedness of these processes, the project aims at cross-fertilization of  Mediterranean/Levantine, Black Sea, and Ukrainian cultural studies.

This comparative study, the first of its kind, will answer several questions: how do disputes over history and identity in international politics unfold and what actions are taken by states? Can historians work simultaneously as servants to nation-states and as independent trans-national professionals? What are the roles of history professionals in domestic politics and identity formation in the “age of memory”? Having surveyed twenty-plus joint historians’ commissions created in Europe and Asia since the 1990s, I plan to spend three months at CAS in Sofia in 2025 to fill the only remaining gap: an in-depth examination of N. Macedonia’s JHCs with Bulgaria and Greece. By including these two little-studied JHCs, my book will be truly comprehensive, and will be a significant and original contribution to the growing literature on the entanglement of history and identity in international politics.

This project delves into the understudied realm of late Soviet photography, particularly focusing on the phenomenon of fotografika, a term encompassing various manipulative techniques employed by amateur photographers to transform their images into the likeness of graphic pieces. Despite its prevalence, it remains largely unexplored in scholarly discourse, presenting an opportunity to unravel its significance within the Eastern Bloc and on an international scale. Drawing upon a diverse range of sources, including periodicals and exhibition catalogues, the project aims to analyse the reception of fotografika in Soviet critical literature, shedding light on its dual existence within both official and non-official spheres. By examining the material gathered from the Museum of the Kharkiv School of Photography and similar collections, supplemented by materials from other ex-socialist countries and FIAP salons, the project seeks to construct a comprehensive understanding of fotografika's role in amateur photo club movement of the 1960s-1980s.