Dr Dorian Gieseler Greenbaum BA, MA, PhD.

I teach on the MA in Cultural Astronomy and Astrology. I  am co-lead tutor in the module Cosmology, Magic and Divination, and a tutor in the module History of Astrology. I also supervise MA students in the Sophia Centre for the Study of Cosmology in Culture, and PhD students.

• English Teacher at Berlitz School of Languages, 1971 – 1972
• Graduate Assistant, Columbia University, 1974 – 1975
• Composer and Lyricist, musical adaptation of Joan Aiken’s The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, Childrens’ Theatre Workshop, Duxbury, MA, 1991
• Teacher - Latin, Greek and Classical Cultures, Waldorf School of Cape Cod, Bourne, MA, 1993 – 1999
• Writer, 1999-2002: Teachers’ Guides for The World and I; “The English Review” for Newsweek Magazine; Editor, Education texts for National Education Association
• Guest Lecturer, Bath Spa University College, 2003 - 2006
• Guest Lecturer, University of Kent at Canterbury, 2007
• Tutor, University of Wales Trinity Saint David, 2010-present

• American Classical League, 1999-2000
• International Society for Neoplatonic Studies, 2014-15

Academic interests in the history, theory and practice of ancient astrology, focusing on the Mediterranean region from the Hellenistic and Ptolemaic periods through Late Antiquity; also in the history, theory and practice of European Medieval and Renaissance astrology

Interests in ancient and medieval fate and divination, religion, philosophy and myth

Modules taught: History of Astrology; Cosmology, Magic and Divination

 MA Dissertation Supervisor for Jose Luis Belmonte, John Booker, Mauro Fenu, Akindynos Kaniamos, Erica Letzerich, Iva Pellumbi, Jennifer Zahrt

PhD Thesis Advisor/Supervisor for Susan Leybourne

Expert in the history, theory, philosophy and practice of ancient astrology, focusing on the Mediterranean region from the Hellenistic and Ptolemaic periods through Late Antiquity, but also including the European Middle Ages and Renaissance. Interests and expertise in the transmission of theories and practices in astrology, medicine, divination and concepts of fate. Expert on the concept of the daimon in antiquity; divination, especially astral, in Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece and Rome; astronomy, astrology and medicine.

Dorian Gieseler Greenbaum is an expert in the history, philosophy, theory and practice of ancient astrology, focusing on the Mediterranean region from the Hellenistic and Ptolemaic periods through Late Antiquity. She also has expertise in the concept of the daimon in antiquity in the Mediterranean region, and in ancient divination especially as it relates to Mediterranean cultures and ancient medicine. She is a tutor on the MA in Cultural Astronomy and Astrology. Her BA is in Classics (cum laude and with honours in Classics) from Douglass College, Rutgers University. Her MA is in History (Egyptology) from Columbia University. She received her PhD in Combined Historical Studies from the Warburg Institute, University of London in 2009, under the supervision of Charles Burnett, with a thesis entitled ‘The Daimon in Hellenistic Astrology: Origins and Influence’. A monograph based on her thesis was published in 2016 by Brill under the same title. 

Her interests are the history of astrology, including its theories, philosophies and practice; the concept of the daimon in antiquity; astronomy, astrology and medicine; divination and cosmology; and concepts of fate in antiquity. She also has an interest in late Victorian English theatre, 19th and 20th century English feminism and suffrage, and the work of Peggy Webling (her great grand aunt), a 20th century English author who wrote the play of Frankenstein on which the Boris Karloff film was based. She is a skilled amateur genealogist. She uses her skills in archive research, manuscript research and palaeography (Latin, Greek, German, English) in her work. Her languages in addition to English are French, Latin, Greek, some ancient Egyptian (Middle and Late Egyptian, Demotic in transliteration), some Coptic, and reading knowledge of German, Italian and Spanish. 

Among her many published articles are ‘Arrows, Aiming and Divination: Astrology as a Stochastic Art’, in Divination: Perspectives for a New Millennium, edited by Patrick Curry (2010); with Micah Ross, ‘The Role of Egypt in the Development of the Horoscope’ in Egypt in Transition: Social and Religious Development of Egypt in the First Millennium BCE (2010); with Franziska Naether, ‘Astrological Implications in the Lot Oracle PGM 50’, MHNH, 11, 2011, pp. 484-505; with Alexander Jones, ‘P.Berl. 9825: An elaborate horoscope for 319 CE and its significance for Greek astronomical and astrological practice’, ISAW Papers 12 (2017); and ‘Porphyry of Tyre on the Daimon, Birth and the Stars’, in Neoplatonic Demons and Angels, eds L. Brisson, S. O’Neill and A. Timotin (2018). She has edited volumes to do with the history, theory and practice of astrology alone (Kepler’s astrological writings: Culture and Cosmos vol. 14, 2010) and with Nicholas Campion (Astrology in Time and Place) and Charles Burnett (From Māshā’allāh to Kepler: Theory and Practice in Medieval and Renaissance Astrology, 2015). Her most recently published works are ‘The Hellenistic Horoscope’ and ‘Hellenistic Astronomy in Medicine’ in Hellenistic Astronomy: The Science in its Contexts, edited by Alan C. Bowen and Francesca Rochberg in the Brill Companion Series (2020).

Books and Edited Volumes:

The Daimon in Hellenistic Astrology: Origins and Influence, Leiden/Boston, 2016

(edited with Charles Burnett) From Māshā’allāh to Kepler: Theory and Practice in Medieval and Renaissance Astrology, Ceredigion Wales, 2015

(edited with Nicholas Campion) Astrology in Time and Place: Cross-Cultural Questions in the History of Astrology, Newcastle upon Tyne, 2015

(editor, co-translator with Cornelia Linde) Kepler’s Astrology, a special issue of Culture and Cosmos, vol. 14.1 and 2, 2010

Articles:

-  ‘Hellenistic Astronomy in Medicine’, in Hellenistic Astronomy: The Science in Its Contexts, eds Alan C. Bowen and Francesca Rochberg, Leiden/Boston 2020, pp. 350-380

- ‘The Hellenistic Horoscope’, in Hellenistic Astronomy: The Science in Its Contexts, eds Alan C. Bowen and Francesca Rochberg, Leiden/Boston 2020, pp. 443-471

- Book review, ‘Stephan Heilen, Hadriani genitura – Die astrologischen Fragmente des Antigonos von Nikaia, De Gruyter 2015’, in MHNH 19, 2019, pp. 301-10

- ‘A Folio in Greek on Abū Ma‘shar’s Lots: Parisinus graecus 2381, fol. 71^v’, in Plutarco, entre dios y astros. Homenaje al profesor Aurelio Pérez Jimenez de sus discípulos, colegas y amigos, vol. 2, eds J. F. Martos Montiel, C. Macías Villalobos and R. Caballero Sánchez, Zaragoza 2019, pp. 1095-1110

- ‘Dorotheus of Sidon’; ‘Hellenistic Astrology’; ‘Kepler, Johannes’; ‘Lots’; ‘Roman Astrology’; ‘Vettius Valens’ (six entries in toto), in Astrology through History: Interpreting the Stars from Ancient Mesopotamia to the Present, ed. William E. Burns, Santa Barbara/Denver, 2018

- ‘Porphyry of Tyre on the Daimon, Birth and the Stars,’ in Neoplatonic Demons and Angels, eds Luc Brisson, Seamus O’Neill and Andrei Timotin, Leiden/Boston 2018, pp. 102-139

- Book review, ‘Wolfgang Hübner, Athena am Sternhimmel bei Proklus. Astrologie im Dienste neuplatonischer Philosophie, Munich 2017’, in The Classical Review 68, 2018, pp. 289-290.

- (with Alexander Jones), ‘P.Berl. 9825: An elaborate horoscope for 319 CE and its significance for Greek astronomical and astrological practice’, ISAW Papers, 12, 2017, http://dlib.nyu.edu/awdl/isaw/isaw-papers/12/

- (with Stephan Heilen), 'Astrology in the Greco-Roman World', in Time and Cosmos in Greco-Roman Antiquity, ed. Alexander Jones, Princeton 2016, pp. 123-141

- ‘Eternity and Astrology in the Work of Vettius Valens,’ in Eternity: A History, ed. Yitzhak Y. Melamed, Oxford 2016, pp. 56-63

- (with Micah T. Ross), 'Various Renderings of Πίναξ in Greek and Demotic at Medīnet Māḍi', in Astrology in Time and Place, eds Nicholas Campion and Dorian Gieseler Greenbaum, Lampeter, Wales 2016, pp. 109-129

- ‘From Love to Desire: The Lot of Eros in Hellenistic Astrology’, MHNH 15, 2015, pp. 85-116

- ‘Kepler’s Personal Astrology: Two Letters to Michael Maestlin’, in From Māshā’allāh to Kepler: Theory and Practice in Medieval and Renaissance Astrology, eds Charles Burnett and Dorian Gieseler Greenbaum, Ceredigion, Wales 2015, pp. 177-200

- 'Astronomy, Astrology and Medicine', in Handbook of Archaeoastronomy and Ethnoastronomy, 1, ed. Clive L. N. Ruggles, New York/Heidelberg/Dordrecht/London 2014, pp. 117-132.

-  ‘Thrasyllus’; ‘Vettius Valens’; ‘Paulus of Alexandria’; ‘Antiochos of Athens’; ‘Chaldaeans’; ‘Decans’ (six entries in toto), in Encyclopedia of Ancient History, eds Roger Bagnall, Kai Brodersen, Craige Champion, Andrew Erskine and Sabine Huebner, Malden, MA 2013

- (with co-author Micah Ross) ‘Nechepso and Petosiris’, in Encyclopedia of Ancient History, eds Roger Bagnall, Kai Brodersen, Craige Champion, Andrew Erskine and Sabine Huebner, Malden,MA 2013

- (with co-author Franziska Naether) ‘Astrological Implications in the “Lot Oracle” PGM 50’, MHNH, 11, 2011, pp. 484-505

- ‘Arrows, Aiming and Divination: Astrology as a Stochastic Art’, in Divination – Perspectives for a New Millennium, ed. Patrick Curry, Farnham, Surrey 2010, pp. 179-209

- (with Micah T. Ross) ‘The Role of Egypt in the Development of the Horoscope’, in Egypt in Transition: Social and Religious Development of Egypt in the First Millennium BCE, eds Ladislav Bareš, Filip Coppens and Květa Smolárikova, Prague 2010, pp. 146-182

- Co-organiser, with Charles Burnett: ‘Ancient Astrology Workshop’, Workshop at the Warburg Institute, London, 16-17 Feb 2007

- Co-organiser, with Charles Burnett: conference ‘From Masha’allah to Kepler: The Theory and Practice of Astrology in the Middle Ages and Renaissance’, Conference at the Warburg Institute, London, 13-15 November 2008

- Co-organiser, with Nicholas Campion: ‘Astrology in Time and Place’, 10^th Sophia Centre Conference, 23-24 June 2012 

- Presenter, ‘Kepler and Astrology’, television documentary on the history of science, BBC Science, Naomi Law, producer, aired 2010

 - Invited speaker, ‘Astro-Medicine East and West’, Conference at the Warburg Institute, London, May 2005

- Invited speaker, ‘Sky and Symbol’, Sophia Conference 4-5 June 2011

- Invited speaker, ‘Astrology in Time and Place, Sophia Conference 23-24 June 2012

- Invited speaker, ‘Ad Astra per Corpora: Astrología y sexualidad en el mundo antiguo’, International conference in Málaga, Spain, 19-21 Feb 2015

- Invited speaker, ‘Horoscopy across Civilizations – Comparative Approaches to Western, Indian, and Chinese Astrology and Chronomancy’, Conference in Erlangen, Germany , 29-30 June 2016

- Invited speaker, ‘Abū Maʿshar al-Balkhī: a “philosophus” in Ninth-Century Baghdad, Conference at the Warburg Institute, London, 27 Oct 2018