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Late Antique Philosophy and Religion
Ilinca Tanaseanu-Doebler received her PhD in the History of Religions 2005 from the University of Bayreuth. After working as assistant professor at the University of Bayreuth and at the University of Göttingen in the interdisciplinary research group on ancient religion and philosophy 'Ratio religionis', she received a two-year scholarship from the German Research Foundation which has allowed her to come to the Center for the Study of Religion as a Visiting Scholar to work on her current project on theurgy.
In her first book 'Konversion zur Philosophie in der Spätantike' Dr. Tanaseanu-Doebler concentrated on conversion to philosophy in Late Antiquity. Since A. D. Nock there had been no systematic treatment of the subject, and Nock himself analysed normative accounts of conversion rather than considering 'real' people. Applying modern conversion theories to the sources she has traced the decisive role of philosophy in shaping the social and religious identity of two figures who shared a commitment to Neoplatonism while becoming engaged with different religious traditions: the emperor Julian, who converted from Christianity to paganism, and Synesius of Cyrene, who eventually became a Christian bishop. The identity of the philosopher proved to be pervasive in both authors, determining their worldview and the mode of their respective relationship to other aspects of Late Antique religion and society.
Currently she is mainly working on a book on the late antique religious system known as theurgy, focusing diachronically on its invention and subsequent constant refashioning, from late antiquity through the Florentine Renaissance. Her interest lies in determining the exact mechanisms through which existing rituals were combined to form a new tradition, the strategies used to promote and legitimize those rituals and the adaptation of the emerging distinctive ritual tradition to different philosophical and religious needs in different religious systems like paganism or Christianity.
Dr. Tanaseanu-Doebler's research interests also include the criticism of religion, early Christianity and its philosophical background as well as the comparatively neglected issue of religious education in pre-modern times. A volume that she co-edited with Ulrich Berner (Bayreuth) on religion and critique will appear this fall; in it she analysed Porphryry's criticism of rituals and its implications for the ongoing scholarly debate about the meaning of ritual. As a guest member of 'Ratio religionis' at the University of Göttingen she works on Christian ritual and its philosophical interpretation in Origen's works, viewing him against the background of other Middle Platonic interpretations of religious practice. Together with Marvin Doebler (Bayreuth), she is also co-editing a volume on religious education in Antiquity and the Middle Ages. Her own article in this collection discusses the role of religious education in pagan circles after Constantine's accession to power and the implications for the eventual demise of pagan religious traditions.
