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FORSKSKOLE-Forskerskoler

Authoritative Texts and Their Reception: National Research School on Textual Interpretation

Alternative title: Autoritative tekster og deres resepsjon: Nasjonal forskerkole for tekstfortolkning

Awarded: NOK 22.3 mill.

ATTR has been an interdisciplinary and cross-institutional national research school for PhD-fellows who in their research engage with texts that are considered to have some sense of authority or significance. These may be laws or religious or cultural texts that are, or have been, regarded as in some sense authoritative by a community. The PhD school has had a focus on issues of theory and method in the interpretation of such texts and their reception and use. Textual interpretation is fundamental to research in the humanities, law, and theology. Whether texts are studied for their own sake, utilized as sources in historical studies, or applied in juridical contexts, there are common challenges and overlapping approaches across academic disciplines. The same applies to the study of reception and processes where texts are imbued with authority. Due to the authority bestowed upon such texts, their interpretation is, and has always been, of fundamental importance to the practice and development of law, religion, and culture. Yet there has been no truly interdisciplinary venue or exploring methods and perspectives across the humanities, law, and theology. We have also been lacking a cross-disciplinary view of how this intellectual landscape is affected by the ongoing digitization of sources as well as of the research activity. The objective of ATTR has been to form a venue where interpretive methodologies can be critically discussed, evaluated, and developed, so as to broaden the PhD-candidates' perspectives, strengthen their scholarly networks, heighten the quality of their analyses, and prepare them for life after the dissertation. In our first phase, we established networks and patterns of research and cooperation across our three main areas: law, humanities, and theology. In our final phase we have occastionally expanded the horizon and invited voices both from the social and the natural sciences. By offering seminars, writing courses, guest lectures, workshops, and mobility grants the aim has been to create a vibrant interdisciplinary network that will enable PhDs to engage with frontier research on textual interpretation of authoritative texts. By bringing together the fields of humanities, law, and theology around this topic, ATTR has represented an unprecedented initiative in Norwegian academia. In the wake of the covid-19 pandemic ATTR has worked to explore and improve upon formats for digital and hybrid cooperation. We have sought to better understand the role of these formats in a research ecology that is critically dependent upon internationalization and yet needs to leave a smaller ecological footprint. Also in this regard we have contributed to establishing important working competencies for the next generation of researchers.

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ATTR is a national research school that brings together all the faculties of Law, the humanities faculties of the four largest universities, and the two major academic theological institutions in Norway, around the topic of the interpretation of authoritative texts. As such it represents an unprecedented initiative in Norwegian academia. The focus of ATTR is on the interpretation of texts that are, or have been, regarded as authoritative by a community or group of people in one way or another. Religious and legal texts, such as scripture, creeds, rules, laws, and treaties, are prime examples of such texts, but historiographical texts, policy documents, and influential works of literature are also included. The research school will deal not only with the interpretation of these texts as such, but also with their historical reception and impact through time, and in different cultural and geographical contexts. ATTR aims to give PhD-candidates the background and tools necessary to critically engage with relevant theories and methods by organizing seminars, guest lectures and international network activities related to topics relevant to the scholarly interpretation of texts, both historical and contemporary. By doing so it also aims to provide the scattered and often isolated groups of PhD-students at various faculties and institutes with a much needed scholarly community both within the leading Norwegian institutions and the Nordic and international partners. It will thus provide what the separate and discipline-specific PhD-programs cannot provide on their own. Creating such a network and bringing together PhD-students from the humanities, law, and theology has the potential to provide highly fruitful cross-pollination across the disciplines involved, thus heightening the quality of the PhD-candidates' research and leaving them better prepared for life after their PhD degrees, whether inside or outside academia.

Funding scheme:

FORSKSKOLE-Forskerskoler

Funding Sources