List of Contributors
Nilufer Akcay Holds a Ph.D. in Classics from the University of Dublin, Trinity College (November 2016). Her dissertation is the analysis of Porphyry’s On the Cave of the Nymphs against the backdrop of his wider philosophical oeuvre. She was educated at Istanbul University where she translated Ovid’s Heroides into Turkish during her M.A. degree. Her aim is to continue to work in the field of Neoplatonism and ancient allegorical interpretation.
Luc Brisson Directeur de Recherche (1e classe) at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris, a member of the Centre Jean Pépin (UPR 76 du CNRS). His works include How Philosophers Saved Myths (Chicago, 2004); Plato the Myth Maker (Chicago, 1999); Inventing the Universe, with W. Meyerstein (New York, 1995); Sexual Ambivalence: Androgyny and Hermaphroditism in Graeco-Roman Antiquity (Berkeley, 2002), among others, and numerous translations and commentaries on the Sophists, Plato, Plotinus, Proclus, and Iamblichus, including (with A.Ph. Segonds) Jamblique, Vie de Pythagore (Paris, 1996).
Ghislain Casas Currently lecturer in philosophy at the Sorbonne, Paris. He completed his Ph.D. at the École Pratique des Hautes Études and the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris on medieval angelology. He has published papers on neoplatonic and medieval philosophy, including “Le néoplatonisme sans platonisme du ps.-Denys l’ Aréopagite,” in Les chrétiens et l’ hellénisme. Identités religieuses et culture grecque dans l’ Antiquité tardive, ed. Arnaud Perrot (Paris, 2012); “Les statues vivent aussi. Théorie néoplatonicienne de l’ objet rituel”, Revue de l’ histoire des religions, 231/4 (2014); “Language without voice: locutio angelica as a political issue,” in Voice and Voicelessness in Medieval Europe, ed. I.R. Kleiman (Houndmills, 2015).
Dorian Gieseler Greenbaum Tutor at the University of Wales Trinity St David. Her Ph.D. from the Warburg Institute formed the basis of her book, The Daimon in Hellenistic Astrology: Origins and Influence (Brill, 2016). She has written articles for Blackwell’s Encyclopedia of Ancient History and Springer’s Handbook of Archaeoastronomy and Ethnoastronomy, and edited/co-translated the volume, Kepler’s Astrology (Lampeter, 2010). Recent publications include (with co-editor Charles Burnett) From Māshāʾallāh to Kepler: Theory and Practice in Medieval and Renaissance Astrology (Lampeter, 2015); and “Eternity in the Astrology of Vettius Valens,” in Eternity: A History, ed. Yitzhak Melamed (Oxford, 2016).
Seamus O’Neill Associate Professor of Philosophy at The Memorial University of Newfoundland. He completed his Ph.D. in Classics at Dalhousie University on St. Augustine’s Platonism. Recent publications include: “ ‘Aequales angelis sunt’: Demonology, Angelology, and the Resurrection of the Body in Augustine and Anselm,” The Saint Anselm Journal, 12/1 (2016); “ ‘How does the body depart?: A Neoplatonic Reading of Dante’s Suicides,” Dante Studies, 132 (2014); and “The Demonic Body: Demonic Ontology and the Domicile of the Demons in Apuleius and Augustine,” in Philosophical Approaches to Demonology, ed. R. Arp and B. McCraw (Routledge, 2017). He is currently completing a monograph on St. Augustine’s demonology, the culmination of a research project entitled Reconstructing the Demonology of St. Augustine, funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
Madeleine Scopello Correspondant of the Institut de France (Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres), Corresponding Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities (FAHA), Directeur de recherche (1st class) at Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris (UMR 8167), Paris, Directeur d’ études at the École Pratique des Hautes Études, Paris (chair of “Gnosis and Manichaeism”). Her works include L’ Exégèse de l’ âme (Nag Hammadi II, 6): introduction, traduction, commentaire (Leiden, 1985); Les Gnostiques (Paris, 1991, translated in Italian, Japanese and Corean); L’ Allogène (Nag Hammadi XI, 3), with W.-P. Funk, P.-H. Poirier, J.D. Turner (Québec-Louvain, 2004); Femme, Gnose et Manichéisme. De l’ espace mythique au territoire du réel (Leiden, 2005); Saint Augustin, Sur la Genèse contre les Manichéens. Sur la Genèse au sens littéral, Livre inachevé, with A.-I. Bouton, M. Dulaey, P. Monat (Paris, 2005); and Les Évangiles apocryphes (Paris, 2007 and 2016).
Helmut Seng Associate Professor at the Universities of Konstanz and Frankfurt am Main. In 2010, he was also directeur d’ études invité at the École Pratique des Hautes Études (Paris). He is also series editor of the Bibliotheca Chaldaica. His works include Untersuchungen zum Vokabular und zur Metrik in den Hymnen des Synesios (Frankfurt am Main, 1996); Vergils Eklogenbuch. Aufbau, Chronologie und Zahlenverhältnisse (Hildesheim, 1999); ΚΟΣΜΑΓΟΙ, ΑΖΩΝΟΙ, ΖΩΝΑΙΟΙ. Drei Begriffe chaldaeischer Kosmologie und ihr Fortleben (Heidelberg, 2009); Un livre sacré de l’ Antiquité tardive: Les Oracles Chaldaïques (Brepols, 2016, Médaille Le Fèvre-Deumier de Pons 2018 of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres); as well as numerous articles, mainly on late antique topics, in particular on the Chaldaean Oracles.
Andrei Timotin Senior researcher at the Romanian Academy (ISEES), Associate Professor at the University of Bucharest, Ph.D. in History (École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris), Ph.D. in Ancient Philosophy (École Pratique des Hautes Études, Paris). His publications on the Platonic tradition include La démonologie platonicienne. Histoire de la notion de daimōn de Platon aux derniers néoplatoniciens (Brill, 2012, Reinach Prize of the Association des Études Grecques, Paris); Platonic Theories of Prayer, with John Dillon (Brill, 2016); and La prière dans la tradition platonicienne, de Platon à Proclus (Brepols, 2017).
Thomas Vidart Teacher of Philosophy in Classes Préparatoires aux Grandes Écoles (Khâgne) at the Lycée Champollion (Grenoble, France). He currently also teaches at the University of Grenoble. He has translated Plotinus’ treatise, On Well-Being: Plotin, Traité 46, in L. Brisson et J.-F. Pradeau (eds.), Plotin, Traités 45–50 (Paris, 2009).
Marilena Vlad Holds a Ph.D. in sciences religieuses from École Pratique des Hautes Études, Paris (2011). She coordinates a research project at the Institute for Philosophy “Al. Dragomir” (Bucharest), is assistant professor at the University of Bucharest, and member of the editorial board of Chôra. Revue d’ études anciennes et médiévales. She translated into Romanian the first part of Damascius’ De principiis, and several treatises of Plotinus’ Enneads. Recent publications include: Damascius et l’ aporétique de l’ ineffable (Paris, forthcoming); “Stepping into the Void: Proclus and Damascius on Approaching the First Principle,” International Journal of the Platonic Tradition 11.1 (2017); “Denys l’ Aréopagite et l’ image divine: symbole, empreinte, statue,” in L’ icône dans la pensée et dans l’ art, ed. by K. Mitalaité and A. Vasiliu (Brepols, 2017); and “Damascius and Dionysius on prayer and silence,” in Platonic Theories of Prayer, ed. by J. Dillon and A. Timotin (Brill, 2016).