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.

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

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).