NOSTER Starting Grant for Major Project on Embodied Imaginations of Sustainable Futures in Religious Communities

NOSTER has recently awarded a grant of €10,000 to a team of scholars led by Professor dr. Peter-Ben Smit (UU/VU) to enable them to prepare a competitive application for an NWO, ERC or other major research grant. This Research Starting Grant has been made available for a project that will make an innovative contribution to the field of theology and religious studies.

The project, titled “Stairways to Heaven: Embodied Imaginations of Sustainable Futures in Religious Communities”, will investigate the meaning and potential of prefigurative religious communities for the imagination of sustainable futures and the creation of conditions for good future life. It aims to highlight the potential of religious communities in societal change and to make an innovative contribution to philosophical and theological thinking about prefigurative politics.

The team consists of three senior members of NOSTER – Peter-Ben Smit (VU/UU), Mariecke van den Berg (VU/RU) and Suzan Sierksma-Agteres (PThU) – as well as scholars from other disciplines – Elco van Burg (VU), Mathijs van de Sande (RU), Klazina Staat (VU), and Dinah Wouters (UU/RUG).