PRIZES AND AWARDS EASAS Research Students Award won by Valeria Giampietri (39th cycle) In October 2025, Valeria Giampietri (39th cycle), PhD candidate in Civilizations of Asia and Africa (SIAC curriculum), took part in the ECSAS 2025 – European Conference on South Asian Studies (Heidelberg, 1–4 October 2025). During the conference, she presented her paper “Drawing the Blood: A Participatory Visual Ethnography of Menstrual Taboo in Urban Mumbai” at the EASAS Research Students Awards. Her paper was selected among the four award-winning contributions and received a prize of €300. For more information: https://www.sai.uni-heidelberg.de/en/newsroom/easas-research-student-awards "Dino Buzzetti" research prize awarded to dr Chiara Lepri (36th cycle) In February 2025, Dr. Chiara Lepri (36th cycle), alumna of the PhD Program in Civilizations of Asia and Africa (AO curriculum), was awarded the 2024/2025 "Dino Buzzetti" Research Prize, granted by AIUCD – the Italian Association for Digital Humanities and Digital Culture. Her project, entitled Power and Patriotism in Chinese Cinema. A Lexicometrical Analysis of PRC's Contemporary Propaganda Blockbusters, offers an interdisciplinary analysis of contemporary Chinese cinema, combining digital humanities methodologies, Sinological studies, and film analysis. The research focuses on a lexicometric analysis of the subtitles of a selection of films belonging to the “main melody cinema” genre, a type of propaganda blockbuster that has enjoyed great popularity in China since the 2000s. By applying computational text mining techniques, the project aims to identify recurring keywords in the films and interpret them through filmic and narrative analysis, thus offering a cross-sectional reading of this cinematic phenomenon. For more information: https://www.aiucd.it/assegnazione-del-premio-buzzetti-2024-25/ Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship won by dr Fabio Mangraviti (33rd cycle) with the IMF project In February 2024, Dr Fabio Mangraviti (33rd cycle), alumnus of the PhD programme in Asian and African Civilisations (SIAC curriculum), was awarded a prestigious Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship with the IMF project. The project investigates from an interdisciplinary perspective the functions expressed by 'satire' (vyangya) and 'humour' (hasya) in the Hindi language in the Indian socio-cultural reality. The use of these modes of expression will be analysed both in the literary and performance spheres, as well as in the context of new media. Moving in this theoretical direction, the project will especially investigate the dynamics of agency expressed through satire and humour that are enacted by 'subaltern' and fringe subjects and communities. The aim of the research, which will especially investigate the urban and peri-urban areas of metropolises and second tier cities in North India, is to describe and theorise contemporary Hindi satire as a specific instrument of resilience, activism and empowerment of subaltern subjects and communities. Supervisor: Prof. Giorgio Milanetti. ERC Synergy Grant to dr Carola Lorea (27th cycle) In October 2023 Dr Carola Lorea, alumna of the 27th cycle PhD in Asian and African Civilisations (SIAC curriculum), currently a researcher at the University of Tübingen, has been awarded the prestigious Erc Synergy Grant to the amount of around € 10 million for the project 'Mantrams' (Mantras in Religion, Media, and Society in Global Southern Asia), of which she is PI together with two colleagues from the University of Vienna and Brown University. Dr Lorea discussed her doctoral thesis entitled 'Learning to Swim in the River of Desire: Bhabla Pagla's Songs in Their Performative Context' in 2015 under the guidance of prof. Mario Prayer as supervisor and Prof. Samantak Das (Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India) as co-supervisor. Warm congratulations from the Doctoral College to Dr Lorea and felicitations also to the colleagues who supervised her doctoral training. For more information: https://uni-tuebingen.de/en/university/news-and-publications/attempto-online/newsfullview-attempto-en/article/carola-lorea-receives-erc-synergy-grant-to-study-mantras/ ERC Starting Grant to dr Simona Olivieri (28th cycle) In 2023, Semitic and Arabic Studies researcher Simona Olivieri, an alumna of the Doctorate in Asian and African Civilisations in the 28th cycle with tutor Prof. Giuliano Lancioni, has been selected by the European Research Council (ERC) for an ERC Starting Grant of more than EUR 1.49 million. The fund will finance a five-year research project entitled 'Arabic Linguistic Discourse in the Making' (ALiDiM), aimed at investigating the roots of classical Arabic and its reception. The research will be based at the Freie Universität Berlin, and the original data and sources will subsequently be made freely available to the public. For more information: https://www.fu-berlin.de/en/presse/informationen/fup/2023/fup_23_188-erc-starting-grant-olivieri/index.html Sangalli Institute award for religious history to the thesis of dr Paola Pizzi (34th cycle) In 2023 the thesis of Dr. Paola Pizzi (curriculum SAII, 34th cycle), entitled "La non-violence comme moyen de changement en islam: la contribution de Ǧawdat Saʿīd", was awarded the prestigious 'Sangalli Institute Prize for religious history' (call 2022). The prize is awarded every year to two young Italian and foreign researchers, who are offered the opportunity to publish monographs on religious history from the Middle Ages to the contemporary age, in an inter-disciplinary and inter-religious perspective, in a dedicated series by Florence University Press. The Prize is awarded in collaboration with the University and Research Department of the Municipality of Florence, and with a jury of prestigious Italian and foreign scholars. For more information: https://www.istitutosangalli.it/it/graduatorie/premio-istituto-sangalli-per-la-storia-religiosa-2022-la-graduatoria/ ASAI award for the three-year period 2019-2021 to the doctoral thesis of Alessia Carnevale (34th cycle) Alessia Carnevale's doctoral thesis (34th cycle, curriculum in Arab, Iranian and Islamic Studies), on "The Tunisian Committed Song: History, Ideology and Poetics of a Counterculture (1970s - 1980s)", supervised by prof. Leonardo Capezzone and co-supervised by Prof. Daniela Pioppi, received the ASAI (Association for African Studies in Italy) award as the best doctoral thesis in African studies for the three-year period 2019-2021. To read the award's motivation see the following website: https://www.asaiafrica.org/premio-asai-per-la-miglior-tesi-di-dottorato-in-africanistica-vi-conferenza-asai-2022/