The aim of this project is to determine the functional significance of the peripheral visual field for human perception and its interaction with the motor system. While it is well established that central vision serves to resolve the fine details of the visual world and the objects in it, the reduced spatial resolution in the peripheral part of our visual field suggests that peripheral vision may have a very different role. In this project we will use an innovative combination of Virtual Reality (VR) with physiological recordings and computational modelling to examine the hypothesis that the peripheral visual field acts as a change detection mechanism. Specifically, under conditions resembling those encountered in everyday life, we will explore the presence of serial dependency (SD) effects, i.e., the integration of past with current information during visual processing. These experiments will provide the first evidence that SD strategies are employed during everyday activities in complex environments in daily life, while the nature of the SD effects (i.e. positive vs. negative) will allow us to deduce differences in the functions of the central and peripheral visual system. Importantly, the experiments will also allow us to assess whether peripheral vision is involved in a multisensory and hypersensitive "alarm system", an idea that has recently been proposed in the literature. Finally, by employing computational modelling methods we will attempt to provide a comprehensive theoretical account for experimental findings. Overall, this interdisciplinary project is expected to provide important insight into the basic mechanisms of human vision that are responsible for maintaining the equilibrium between visual stability and change detection over the whole visual field.

Discussions on the relation between gender-forming discursive practices and biological reality inevitably turn to the body where nature and culture intersect. Is the body a mere “canvas” for symbolic practices to inscribe divisions and exclusions or does biological reality dictate divisions and limitations to symbolic practices? Both symbolic practices and biology rely on a temporal dimension that shapes the discussion: Is a historical or a discursive time able to effectuate these radical inscriptions or does biological time generate these practices? Our project will address this issue by synthesizing multiple perspectives. First, we will sketch an innovative framework for addressing embodied temporality by tackling from a phenomenological perspective the complex relation between time, body, and motivation. Our programmatic emphasis on motivation's relation to embodiment will initiate a series of innovative shifts. We will proceed to the dimension of language at the level of narrative. Dismissing recent naturalistic approaches, we will instead revisit Ricoeur’s work searching for a novel perspective that will allow us to reinstate the pertinence of narrativity. We will then address Butler's conception of gender-performativity by first carrying out an investigation of speech-acts and their temporal structure. Ricoeur’s and Butler’s respective critical accounts of speech-acts will serve as our guide. We will claim that non-discursive elements of speech-acts determine their temporal structure and we will thematize their bodily origin. Exploring the bodily involvement of motivation will form a novel framework that will allow our investigation of the embodied nature/culture intersection to move beyond the models of naturalization and performativity. We will be discussing with feminist and gender theorists who have variously thematized the problem of biological materiality.

The aim of this project is an analytical study of one of the most spectacular kinds of Roman cultural performance, namely the gladiatorial games and other associated spectacles, in the eastern Mediterranean. The candidate will use the geographical area of modern Greece as a case-study and will approach the phenomenon of the presence of these new for the Greek-speaking east spectacles, from the point of view of the economic and the cultural dynamics during the Roman period in the cities of this area. The project will address three particular subjects: (a) the geographical and chronological distribution of these spectacles in relation to the total number of cities that were active during the Roman period in the area of modern Greece, (b) the type of venues in which these shows were staged, and (c) the transformations that the gladiatorial and associated spectacles underwent from the late 3rd to the 6th centuries CE. Intention of the candidate is to conduct a synthetic research embracing all the available sources of historical information (literary sources, epigraphic evidence, and archaeological data), the results of which will be quantified and visualized. Ultimate scope of the project is to push forward the knowledge concerning issues of Roman economy, imperialism, cultural influence and identity. The project will be led by Dr. Michail Karambinis, under the supervision of Dr. Athanasios Vionis, Associate Professor (2009-today) and Director of the Archaeological Research Unit at the University of Cyprus (2020-today). Dr. Karambinis is familiar with the historical and archaeological context of modern Greece, and he has a published record concerning the two basic axes of the project: the urban systems and the gladiatorial spectacles in Roman Greece. Dr Vionis has worked extensively on Late Antique and Byzantine urbanism, rural landscapes, material culture and daily life.