News and events

The organizers of two upcoming Beierwaltes seminars in Cambridge (July 6 and October 19, 2019) revolving around Origen and Christian Platonism invite for papers. Find a description of the topics below as well as contact information if you want to join, with or without a paper.

In February, Prof. Dr. Alfons Fürst went to Egypt to give a series of guest lectures on "Exegesis, Philosophy, and Spirituality in Early Christianity" in which Origen of Alexandria plays a significant role. The lectures were recorded and are now available for watching, seeing and learning - in English and Arabic.

Prof. Lenka Karfíková from Universita Karlova in Prague has recently published a book entitled Duše, prozřetelnost a svoboda podle Origena - The soul, providence, and freedom according to Origen. It contains six studies centering on this topic and includes discussions of Origen’s place among other authors. The book is in Hungarian, but if you are not fluent in this language, it also contains a lengthy summary in English, which we are happy to bring in this article.

In mid-February, the ESRs at the University of Bristol, Ilaria Scarponi and Sara Contini, received a visit from Dr. Olga Alieva from the National Research University HSE in Moscow. This was a very fruitful experience for the fellows - read their report to learn why.

On April 9 from 14:15, the Faculty of Arts at the University of Bristol and the Theologische Fakultät Fulda invites everyone to attend a one-day International Conference for Early Career Researchers in Early Christianity in Fulda, Germany.

Within the last year, two of our ITN members have published new books, one on Origen’s homilies on Jeremiah by A. Fürst, and one on Adrian's Introduction to the Divine Scriptures by P. Martens. A second book by Martens and Hornblower (The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Biblical Interpretation) will appear in May 2019. Read introductions to all the books here.

If you missed the two workshops on Origen in October and November 2018, you can read about them here. The first workshop was entitled "Freedom as Key Category in Origen and in Modern Theology" while the November workshop focused on the condemnation of Origen in Late Antiquity. You can also find the program for the upcoming workshop "Origen in Egypt of Late Antiquity: Schenute's Anti-Origenist Treatise".

We have been fortunate enough to establish a collaboration with Benedict Ryan, head of research of the British think tank Theos. This article introduces the work of Ryan and Theos and illustrates why this collaboration is valuable to the ITN and our ESRs.

In April 2019, the ITN and Aarhus University will host a seminar on Origen and political theology with both contemporary and ancient perspectives. Everyone interested in attending and/or giving a short paper is welcome.

In August 2018, the final ITN network-wide seminar took place in Münster. The seminar focused on papers and presentations by the ITN ESRs and other PhD fellows of their latest research.