The Global Network in action

At the last Global Network (GN) conference in Stellenbosch in January 2023, members were encouraged to activate existing bilateral agreements between institutions and/or other funding sources to strengthen the contact with the Network. Colleagues from one of the members of the GN, the MF Norwegian School of Theology, Religion and Society (MF) in Oslo, took this encouragement to heart. Profs Kristin Joachimsen and Jan-Olav Henriksen who attended the Stellenbosch conference, together with another colleague from MF, prof Gard Granerød, nominated prof Louis Jonker from Stellenbosch University as the Global Fellow of the Center for the Advanced Study of Religion (CASR) based at MF in Oslo. The nomination was successful (https://mf.no/nyheter/mf-casr/2024-mf-casr-global-fellow-announced) and the Norwegian colleagues welcomed their South African counterpart in Oslo during October 2024. This exchange not only gave the opportunity to prof Jonker to participate in and contribute at a workshop on Perception and Reception of Persia among Jews in Antiquity, from Achaemenid to Sassanian times (PERSIAS – https://mf.no/research/persias-research-group) – a research field in which he specializes – but it also strengthens the GN through a bilateral exchange. He could also present his research interests in accessible form to MF colleagues at a lunch hour meeting.

In the photo appears from left to right profs Gard Granerød, Kristin Joachimsen, Louis Jonker, and Liv Ingeborg Lied (the director of CASR at MF). (Prof Jan-Olav Henriksen was absent during the photo-taking.)