With the International Graduate School, the Universities of Erfurt and Graz plan to foster collaborative research in the fields of contemporary Sociology and Ancient Cultural Studies. The aim is to provide an institutional base for studies comparing the self—world relations that are established or reflected and sustained in social, and especially religious practices in Mediterranean antiquity, with those in the contemporary (late) modern period. Combining and confronting different methodological traditions and different periods offers new perspectives for research as well as in the training of doctoral students.