The underlying aim of this network is to gather scholars across disciplines to foster conversations around identity, ethnicity, and nationalism, considering in particular the constantly shifting definitions and uses of racial discourses, their intersection with religious identities, and the gendered dynamics of national and imperial discourses across cultural contexts. Our research network brings together scholars of History, Oriental Studies, Linguistics, Classics, Philosophy, Religion, Archaeology, and Visual Culture. Their expertise covers a wide range of topics both chronologically (from Antiquity to the early modern period) and geographically (Western Europe, Scandinavia, the Mediterranean, Byzantium, Caucasia, North Africa, the Volga region, Iran and Kurdistan, and South Asia).