Professor Han Baltussen

Biography/ Background

Han Baltussen was born in Maastricht (the Netherlands), where he was educated at the Henric van Veldeke College (incl. Greek and Latin), going on to study Classics and Ancient Philosophy at the University of Utrecht. His doctoral thesis, written under the supervision of Prof. Jaap Mansfeld (Utrecht) and Dr Hans B. Gottschalk (Leeds), dealt with the role of Theophrastus' De sensu in the transmission of Presocratic thought. Using Aristotle's dialectical method (esp. Topics I and VIII) the thesis analyses the argumentative methodology in this short work which surveys and criticises early theories of perception (Revised version published in 2000 by E.J. Brill, Leiden).

In 1993-96 he was Research Associate to the Early Stoics Project in Utrecht, from 1997-2002 he was a Research Associate with the international translation project of the Neoplatonic Commentators and a Temporary Lecturer and Tutor in ancient Greek philosophy at King's College London (Dept. of Philosophy). Since coming to Adelaide in 2002 he has made significant contributions to teaching and research in Classical studies, setting up new courses in the BA and Honours. He is a member of the Faculty Research Committee (2008-) and was involved in the first national research assessment (ERA) for the core Humanities subjects (Language, Literature and Communication), as member of the University's team responsible for the publication submission (2009-2010), a task he is continuing in 2011-12 for the second ERA round. 

Qualifications

BA 1983, MA & Dip.Ed. 1986, PhD 1988-1993 (Utrecht University)

Awards & Achievements

• 1996-97 Junior Fellow at the Centre for Hellenic Studies (Trustees of Harvard University) in Washington DC 
• 1997-2002 combined Fellowship of the British Academy and the Dutch Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) held at Kings College London (Philosophy Dept.)
• 2006 Fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, NJ (USA) [study leave semester 2]
• 2007-2010 ARC Discovery grant for "Consolation and Psychotherapy" (project)
• 2009 Nominated for the University's inaugural Excellence in Education Awards
  
• 2009 Elected Fellow of the Academy of Humanities in Australia (FAHA)
• 2010 Fellowship at the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium (Centre for Science and the Arts, Brussels) [study leave semester 2]
• 2010 [Dec.] Winner of the Faculty's Award for "Outstanding Research Performance"
  
• 2011-2013 ARC Discovery grant for "The Dynamics of Censorship in Antiquity" with A/Prof. P. Davis (VRF Adelaide)
• 2011 (Sept) appointed to the Hughes Chair of Classics, one of three foundation Chairs at the University of Adelaide
• 2011 (Oct) the Australian Academy of Humanities A.D. Trendall Lecturer (by invitation)

Teaching Interests

Han teaches Classics at all levels of the BA and the Honours program. For 2012 he will be involved in the following courses/activities:

Semester One

• CLAS 1003 (level 1) "Private Lives & Public Spectacles in Greece and Rome" (lecturer/ tutor)
• CLAS 2031 (level 2/3) "Afterlife and Underworld in Antiquity" (coordinator/ lecturer/ tutor)
• CLAS 4401A Honours Classical Studies (2 seminars)
• PG thesis supervision

Semester Two:

• CLAS 1004 (level 1) "Ancient World in Film" (coordinator/lecturer/tutor)
• CLAS 4401B Honours Classical Studies (supervision)
• PG thesis supervision

At Honours level he teaches topics in the history of ideas (intellectual history, history of medicine) exploring the importance and far-reaching influence of ideas on ancient and modern societies (e.g. madness, prejudice, medical ethics, censorship).

PG / Thesis supervision: He welcomes proposals from students who would like to do postgraduate work on topics in Greek and Roman philosophy, ancient medicine and the history of ideas.

Current (co)supervisions: Seventeenth c. relations between physicians and patients (E. Connolly); an analysis of cosmopolitanism from the Stoics to Bentham (R. Loring)

Research Interests

I prefer to work on topics in the history of ideas & intellectual history which often take their starting point in Greek philosophy, science and medicine. Current projects are:

Grief & consolations in the ancient world and beyond (ARC Discovery grant 2007-9). 

Responses to censorship (ARC Discovery grant 2011-13)

• Grief & consolations in the ancient world and beyond (ARC Discovery grant 2007-9). 
• Responses to censorship (ARC Discovery grant 2011-13)
• Transmission of philosophy (schools, commentaries, doxography)

Current work in progress includes (all titles are provisional):  

• (monograph) Ancient Consolation and Care of the Soul. Grief Management in Greek and Roman Consolatory Writings (in progress)

• (commentary) Theophrastus of Eresus. Fragments in Physical Doxography, FHSG 225-45 (commissioned by Theophrastus Project as vol. 3.2.1, for E.J. Brill, Leiden) 
• (monograph) Aristotle's Heirs. A brief History of the Peripatos (322 BC-200 AD) commissioned by Acumen Ltd (UK)
• (book ch.) "Ancient Hippocratic Oaths: A Cross-Cultural Exploration" (invited book chapter Festschrift, 2012) 4,500 words
• (book ch.) "The Aristotelian tradition and the Second Sophistic" (invited book chapter for the Oxford Handbook to the Second Sophistic, ed. by W.A. Johnson & D. Richter, 2013) 6,000 words
• (book ch.) "The commentary tradition (Aristotelian)" (invited book chapter for new Handbook on Neoplatonism, ed. by P. Remes, 2013) 6,000 words
• (book ch.) "Greek Philosophers on the Sense of Smell" (invited book chapter for new series on The Senses in Antiquity, 6 vols, 2013-, ed. by Mark Bradley, Univ. of Nottingham & Shane Butler, UCLA) 6,000 words
• (book ch.) "Understanding Odours: Peripatetic Problems concerning the Elusive Sense of Smell" (invited book chapter for 2014, ed. by Robert Mayhew, Seton Hall University NJ) 6,000 words

In Nov. 2009 he appeared on the talk show "The Philosopher's Zone" to discuss the Aristotelian tradition (ABC Radio National).

Research Funding

2002 Various conference grants (London, UK)
2003 Faculty Small Research Grant
2004-7 Annual conference travel grants (Faculty OCS scheme)
2007 Various conference grants (London, UK)
2007-010 Australian Research Council Discovery Grant for project "Philosophical Consolation and Psychotherapy in Antiquity"
2011-2013 Australian Research Council Discovery Grant for "The Dynamics of Censorship in Antiquity" with A/Prof. P. Davis (VRF Adelaide)

Publications

[A full list is provided in the attached file below]

I. Books

2012 (forthc.) (edited volume) Greek and Roman Consolations. Eight Studies of a Tradition and its Afterlife. (Proceedings of a London colloquium December 2007; Classical Press of Wales)

2012 (in press) Scholarly translation with notes of Simplicius' Commentary on Aristotle's Physics book 1 (with M. Share, W.W.Taylor, and I. Mueller; Duckworth, London) 

2008 (monograph) Philosophy and Exegesis in Simplicius. The Methodology of a Commentator (Duckworth: London, Hb. 292 pp.) ISBN 9780715635001 Click here for additional information. [Review: "In this stimulating book Han Baltussen provides an account of important specific features of the extant Aristotelian commentaries of the Neoplatonist Simplicius." (Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2009.05.19)]

2004 (conference proceedings, 2 vols.) P. Adamson, H. Baltussen, M.W.F. Stone (eds) Philosophy, Science and Exegesis in Greek, Latin and Arabic Commentaries (Supplements to the Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies; London: ICS, 83.1-2) Click here for additional information.

2000 (monograph) Theophrastus Against the Presocratics and Plato. Peripatetic Dialectic in the De sensibus (Brill, Leiden/ xiv & 285 pp) Click here for additional information.

II. Recent /forthcoming articles & book chapters

2012 (forthc.) "The Act of Consolation. Characteristics, Development and Reception" in H. Baltussen (ed.) Introductory Chapter for Greek and Roman Consolations. Nine Studies of a Tradition and its Afterlife.  (submitted to press)

2012 (forthc.) "Cicero's Consolatio ad se: Social and Intellectual Dimensions of Grief in the Late Roman Republic", in H. Baltussen (ed.) Greek and Roman Consolations. Nine Studies of a Tradition and its Afterlife. (submitted to press) 9,000 words

2012 (forthc.) book chapter (invited) on "Early Peripatos" for the new Routledge Companion to Ancient Philosophy (ed. by J. Warren, Cambridge and F. Sheffield, London) [final draft submitted Jan. 2011] 6,500 words

2011 "Cicero's Translation of Greek Philosophy: Personal Mission or Public Service?" in Complicating the History of Western Translation: The Ancient Mediterranean in Perspective, ed. by S. McElduff and E. Sciarrino (St Jerome Press - UK, 2011), 37-47.

2010a "Marcus Aurelius and the therapeutic use of soliloquy" in B. Sidwell & D. Dzino (eds) Emotion, Power and Status. Papers in Honour of R.F. Newbold (conference Univ. of Adelaide, Dec. 2008; Gorgias Press), 39-57.

2010b "Simplicius of Cilicia", ch. 39 in Cambridge History of Philosophy in Late Antiquity, ed. by Lloyd Gerson (Cambridge University Press), 711-32.

2010c [1] "Galen of Pergamon" (vol. 3, 258-60), [2] "Hippocratic Corpus" (vol. 4, 1-4), [3] "Hippocratic Oath" (vol. 4, 4-6), [4] "Perception, Theories of" (vol. 5, 205-8) in Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece and Rome ed. by M. Gagarin (Oxford University Press, USA)

Professional Associations

• Australasian Society for Classical Studies (2002-)
• American Philological Association (1996-)
• Classical Association, UK (1997-)
• Dutch National Graduate School in Classical Studies (Associated member)
• Dutch Research Center for the History of Ancient Philosophy (1996-)
• Society of Ancient Medicine, USA (2000-)

Community Engagement

• Coordinator public lecture: the Annual Constantinos Moraitis Hellenic Lecture (2003-)
• Honorary Treasurer Classical Association South Australia (2006-2010)
• President Classical Association SA (2010-)
• Executive Committee Member of the Australasian Society for Classical Studies (2003-)

Files

• Book cover 04 - Book2004.jpg [13.2K] (image/jpeg)
• Publs_HB (PDF) - PublicationsHB_1989_to_2011.pdf [180.5K] (application/pdf)
• Theophrastus Bk - BookTheoph.jpg [5.2K] (image/jpeg)
• Simplicius - HBALPhilosophy_Exegesis.jpg [37.5K] (image/jpeg)
• Book2004pt2.jpg - BICS_vol2_small.jpg [12.8K] (image/jpeg)

Expertise for Media Contact

Categories	Arts and culture, History
Expertise	the nature, transmission and influence of ancient Greek philosophy and medicine; grief, loss and consolation in the ancient world and beyond
Notes	Fellowship awards from Centre for Hellenic Studies (Washington DC 1996-97) and Institute for Advanced Studies (Princeton 2006) ARC Discovery Grant for project on consolation as psychotherapy (2007-09) Several grants for travel and research support

Entry last updated: Sunday, 5 Feb 2012