{"id":2,"date":"2024-11-18T09:23:15","date_gmt":"2024-11-18T09:23:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.unimi.it\/human\/?page_id=2"},"modified":"2025-03-05T17:50:52","modified_gmt":"2025-03-05T16:50:52","slug":"sample-page","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/sites.unimi.it\/human\/","title":{"rendered":"The research project"},"content":{"rendered":"
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CC0 – The Digital Walters<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

“Christianity is the most anthropocentric religion the world has seen”. This famous statement by Lynn White succinctly explains how Christianity has been blamed for promoting an anthropocentric (as opposed to ecocentric) view of the world, which, according to the Book of Genesis, would support the concept of human dominion over nature and thus lay the foundations for humanity’s unbalanced and unjust interaction with and exploitation of other-than-humans, leading to the current ecological crisis. 
Researchers involved in the project ‘HUMAN’ (= ‘HUMAns in Nature. New Insights into Late Ancient Latin Texts in light of an Ecocritical Approach’) aim to shed light on the ecological views that emerge in late Latin – mainly Christian – texts (4th-6th century AD). These ‘ecological views’ suggest both the representation and negotiation of interactions and boundaries between humans and non-humans. Although these late ancient ‘ecological views’ are, as might be expected, strongly anthropocentric, they often portray and negotiate a more nuanced human attitude towards other-than-humans: on the one hand, they cannot be described as one-sidedly supporting the inferiority, exploitation, etc. of other-than-humans; on the other hand, they sometimes reveal the boundaries between them to be somewhat blurred. A wide range of texts belonging to different literary genres will be examined, mostly (though not exclusively) focusing on the creation of the world. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The project involves two research units: the first, based at the State University of Milan, is made up of Prof. Paola Francesca Moretti (PI), Prof. Massimo Gioseffi and Dr. Andrea Pizzotti and Giovanna Tirrasi (PhD); the second, based at the State University of L’Aquila, is made up of Prof. Stefania Filosini (Vice PI) and Dr. Alessia Prontera and Ilaria Ponti (both contract researchers). The Milan team will work mainly on prose texts, while the L’Aquila team will work on poetry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To the literary reflection is added the aspect of technological innovation. This involves the development of a database of “digitally annotated ecological texts”, which will be implemented in collaboration with Dr. Federico Boschetti (Cnr-Istituto di Linguistica Computazionale “Antonio Zampolli”). So far, the Alethia of Marius Victorius, the Homilies of Ambrose on the Exameron and the Mosella of Ausonius have been digitally marked up. Other texts will follow. The digital tool will be open to the academic community as well as to secondary school teachers and students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two international conferences are held as part of the project:<\/p>\n\n\n\n