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Philip van der Eijk (1962) was born in Delft, the Netherlands, and received his secondary education at the Christelijk Lyceum in Delft. He read Classics at Leiden University, where he received his doctorate in 1991. He subsequently held a Fellowship of the Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NWO) at Leiden University. In 1994, he moved to Newcastle University to take up a Wellcome Trust University Award in the History of Medicine in the Classical World. At Newcastle, he was appointed (Personal) Professor of Greek in 1998, and Research Professor of Greek in 2005, and he was Director of the Northern Centre for the History of Medicine from its foundation in 2003 until 2009. As of January 2010, he is Alexander von Humboldt Professor of Classics and History of Science at the Humboldt University in Berlin.

For more information about the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation please click here.

Honours and Awards
Research Interests
Postgraduate Research Supervision
Membership of editorial boards, panels etc.
Recent Media Coverage

Honours and Awards

Professor van der Eijk held Fellowships at All Souls College, Oxford (2009), the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study (NIAS) (2000–2001) and was a member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton (2006). He was awarded the Ausonius Prize from the University of Trier for outstanding achievements in classical scholarship (2006). He is a corresponding member of the Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen (Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences) and Correspondant Étranger de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres, Institut de France.

Research Interests

Ancient Medicine and Science, esp. the Hippocratic writings, Diocles of Carystus, Aristotle and the Aristotelian tradition, Galen and ancient Methodism; the history of medical historiography; the communication and dissemination of medical ideas in antiquity; the comparative history of medicine in the Eastern Mediterranean; the history of melancholy and mental illness.

Main publications:

Medicine and Philosophy in Classical Antiquity. Doctors and Philosophers on Nature, Soul, Health and Disease, (Cambridge: CUP, 2005)
Diocles of Carystus. A Collection of the Fragments with Translation and Commentary, 2 Vols. (Leiden: Brill, 2000-1)
Ancient Histories of Medicine. Essays in Medical Doxography and Historiography in Classical Antiquity (Leiden: Brill, 1999)
Hippocrates in Context (Leiden: Brill, 2005)
Ancient Medicine in its Socio-Cultural Context (with H.F.J. Horstmanshoff and P.H. Schrijvers, 2 Vols. (Amsterdam-Atlanta: Rodopi, 1995).

Ancient Philosophy, in particular Aristotelian philosophy and Neoplatonism (esp. John Philoponus); philosophy of mind; philosophical theology; ethics.

Main publications:

Philoponus On Aristotle On the Soul 1.1-2 and 1.3-5, 2 Vols. (London: Duckworth, 2005-6)
Aristoteles. De insomniis. De divinatione per somnum (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1994)

Early Christian Literature and Thought, especially Nemesius of Emesa, John Philoponus and Origen.

Main publication:

Nemesius of Emesa. On the Nature of Man (with R.W. Sharples), (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2008).

Comparative Literature, especially German literature of the late 19th and early 20th century.

Main publications:

Translations (with introductory essays and notes) of Rainer Maria Rilke, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Georg Trakl, Gottfried Benn and Novalis.

Among his current research projects are the following:

Aristotle, Aristotelianism and Medical History
The Rhetoric of Ancient Scientific Discourse
Towards a Galen in English
Historiography and Canonisation in Ancient Science
Ancient Concepts of Mental Illness

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Postgraduate Research Supervision

Current PhD projects:

Galen, De locis affectis I-II: Kritische Ausgabe mit Übersetzung und Kommentar (Florian Gärtner)
Rhétorique et thérapeutique dans le De Medicina de Celse (Aurélien Gautherie, co-supervised with Prof. Yves Lehmann, Université de Strasbourg)
Aristotle’s Concept of Perception as a Mean (Roberto Grasso, co-supervised with Prof. Theodore Scaltsas, Edinburgh)
Passions et troubles mentaux: l’âme chez Galien. Étude sur une rencontre entre médecine et philosophie (Julien Devinant, co-supervised with Prof. André Laks, Paris-Sorbonne)
Alexander von Aphrodisias und die antike Debatte über die körperliche Lokalisation des herrschenden Seelenteiles (Jakub Krajczynski, co-supervised with Prof. Dominik Perler, HU Berlin)
Hippokrates, De medico, De decenti habitu, Praeceptiones. Eine kritische Edition mit Übersetzung und Kommentar (Giulia Ecca)
Die Theorien des Praxagoras von Cos und ihr Beitrag zur Entwicklung der antiken Medizin (Orly Lewis)
Pathê tês Psychês in Aristotle: A physiological and psychological investigation in context (Wei Cheng)
Aristotle's moral agent from the perspective of his biology (Frank de Jonge)
Between medicine, physics, and psychology: Galen's Concepts of Krasis and Mixis in Galen's thought (Claudia Mirrione)
Spätantike Vorstellungen von Körper, Heil und Heilung (Wolfgang Häfele)

PhD projects completed:

Medicine, Science and Spin: Rhetorical Strategies and Generic Constraints in the Galenic Corpus (Todd Curtis) (completed 2009)
Thales von Milet im Kontext. Zur Geschichte seiner Darstellungen in den lateinischen und griechischen Textzeugnissen christlicher Autoren des 2.-6. Jh. n. Chr. (Andreas Schwab, co-supervised with Georg Wöhrle, University of Trier) (completed 2009)
Concepts and Treatments of Phrenitis in Ancient Medicine (Glenda McDonald) (completed 2009)
Sleep and Dreams in Ancient Medical Diagnosis and Prognosis (Maithe Hulskamp) (completed 2008)
Aisthesis polytropos. Teorie e rappresentazioni della percezione sensoriale e della cognizione negli scritti della Collezione Ippocratica (Roberto Lo Presti, co-supervised with Valeria Andò, University of Palermo) (completed 2008)
Aristotle on the Role of Nature in Human Ethical Development (Sarah Francis) (completed 2006)
Prudentius, Contra Symmachum, Book II: Introduction, Translation, Commentary (Michael Brown) (completed 2003)
Medical Care for the Roman Army on the Rhine, Danube and British Frontiers in the First, Second and Early Third Centuries AD (Patricia Baker) (completed 2001)

Membership of editorial boards, panels etc.

General Editor of the 'Cambridge Galen Translations' (CUP)
Editorial Board of the 'Studies in Ancient Medicine' (Brill)
Advisory Board ('Beirat') of the Project "Galen als Vermittler, Interpret und Vollender der antiken Medizin", Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften (2011-)
Editorial Board of 'Aristoteles in Nederlandse vertaling' (Historische Uitgeverij)
Member of the 'Vorstand' of the Excellence Cluster TOPOI - Concepts of Space and Knowledge in the Ancient World, Berlin (2011-)
Member of the Committee 'Grundlagenforschung der alten Welt', Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften (2011-)
Member of the 'Zentrumsrat' of the August-Boeckh-Antikezentrum, Humboldt University Berlin (2010-)
Member of the Advisory Board ('Beirat') of the of the Project "Die alexandrinische und antiochenische Bibelexegese in der Spätantike" (Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften) (2011-)
Member of the European Research Council, Social Sciences and Humanities Panel (2011-)
Editorial Board of 'Medical History'
Editorial Board of 'Collana Pleiadi'