Visiting Scholars
Dr Petra Schierl
Petra Schierl is assistant professor of Latin at the University of Basel. She received her B.A. in Classics from Oxford University in 1999 and her Dr. phil. from LMU Munich in 2004. She is currently working on the role and transformation of the deus in Latin bucolic poetry as a research project for her Habilitation, examining the deus in Vergil's Eclogues and in the subsequent bucolic tradition including Christian experiments with bucolic poetry in Late Antiquity. The figure of the deus draws attention to different aspects of the interplay between panegyric and religion. A fellowship from the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) allows her to conduct research for this project at the universities of Princeton and St Andrews in 2009-2010.
Leverhulme Visiting Fellow 2011
Dr Alexandra Pârvan
Alexandra Pârvan holds a first degree in psychology from the University of Bucharest and a PhD in philosophy from the Romanian Academy, with a dissertation on ‘The Problem of Evil in Augustine’. She also has a license for independent practice in experiential psychotherapy, and works as assistant professor at the University of Pitesti, in the Department of Psychology. Her current research interest is to integrate Augustine’s ideas about possibilities of recovering from evil and suffering into the psychotherapeutic practice, developing a personal approach to therapy.
Her collaboration with the After Augustine project began in 2009, when she offered to write the lemma on “Psychotherapy” for the forthcoming Oxford Guide to the Historical Reception of Augustine.
On 5 May 2010, Dr Pârvan gave a paper at the St Andrews School of Classics on “The Presence of Augustine in Modern Psychotherapy”.
Leverhulme Visiting Fellow 2007
Dr Vladimir Cvetkovic
Email: vc10@st-andrews.ac.uk
Vladimir Cvetkovic was born in Nis (ancient Naissus) in Serbia. After obtaining a BA in Philosophy at the University of Belgrade (Serbia), he continued his studies at the University of Durham (England). Under the supervision of Professor Andrew Louth, he completed his thesis Ontologies of Freedom and Necessities, and received an MA degree in Theology. From 2001 onwards, he has worked as a teaching fellow at the Department of Philosophy, University of Nis (Serbia), where he taught the History of Medieval Philosophy, Aesthetics, Ethics and Introduction to Philosophy.
During the winter semester 2005, he was a visiting scholar at the University of Oslo (Norway) with a fellowship from the Research Council of Norway, where he worked with Professor Torstein Tollefsen on the philosophy of St Gregory of Nyssa and St Maximus the Confessor. He continued his research in the UK, where he finished his doctoral thesis The teaching of time in the works of St Gregory of Nyssa and St Maximus Confessor. The PhD thesis was submitted at the Department of Philosophy, University of Belgrade in June 2006 and successfully defended in May 2007. He spent the summer semester 2007 at the Faculty of Theology, University of Aarhus (Denmark) where he took part in the ongoing project ‘Religion and Normativity’ and especially in the research group on Early Christianity.
Dr Cvetkovic is one of the founders and the member of the Centre of Church Studies (Nis, Serbia), where he is editor of the books in the series ‘Modern Orthodox Theology’ and co-editor of the international journal Crkvene Studije (‘Church Studies’). He is involved, with a group of scholars from the University of Nis, in founding a Theological Faculty there.
From October 2007 Dr Cvetkovic has commenced his Postdoctoral Research
on the topic ‘Time and Eternity in Church Fathers and in the Iconographic
Tradition’ at the Department of Theology and Religion, Durham University,
under the mentorship of Professor Louth. As Leverhulme Visiting Fellow
at the University of St Andrews he is working on the topic ‘Augustine
in the Orthodox Church after 1453’ as part of the Leverhulme project
‘After Augustine’, exploring the reception of Augustine in
both Orthodox theology and Orthodox iconography.
He is currently revising his PhD thesis for publication as a book. His
other research interests focus on Nicetas of Remesiana, on Methodius of
Olympus’ critique of Origen, and on Augustine’s Trinitarian
Theology and its reception by the modern Orthodox theologians Bulgakov
and Zizioulas.
To mark Augustine’s biological birthday, Dr Cvetkovic delivered
on 13 November 2007 at 4 pm in Swallowgate 11, a lecture entitled 'Icon
and Trinity: The Reception of St Augustine of Hippo in Orthodox Iconography
and Orthodox Triadology'.
Leverhulme Visiting Fellow 2006
Diana Stanciu
Diana Stanciu was born in Câmpulung, Romania, in November 1967. PhD obtained with Magna cum laude from the University of Bucharest. Associate Professor at the University of Bucharest, Department of Political Science. Courses taught: History of Political Thought, Political Philosophy, British Political Thought.
Email: diana.stanciu@fspub.ro or diana.stanciu@gmail.com
Visiting Research Fellow at the University of St Andrews, School of Classics, in November and December 2006. Her contribution to the project on the reception of Augustine, directed by Prof. Karla Pollmann and sponsored by the Leverhulme Trust, is to write the lemmata on "Grace", "Predestination", "Cambridge Platonism" and "Arminianism" for the envisaged Oxford Guide to the Historical Reception of Augustine.
In 2006, Dr Stanciu was a Mellon Fellow at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences (NIAS) and a Visiting Research Fellow at The Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities (IASH), Edinburgh.
She is currently writing a book on Cambridge Platonism, Rational Religion and Toleration in which she aims to explain how the eclectic philosophy of the Cambridge Platonists, combining Neoplatonic, Renaissance and rationalist ideas, can be interpreted as premises for toleration.
On 5 December 2006, Dr Stanciu gave a lecture at St Mary's College, St Andrews:
"Re-interpreting Augustine: Cambridge Platonists and Dutch Arminians on Grace and Free Will".