Willemien Otten
Professor of Theology and History of Christianity in the Divinity School
M.A. (University of Amsterdam)
Ph.D. (University of Amsterdam)
Willemien Otten studies the history of the Christian religion and Christian thought with a focus on the western medieval and the early Christian intellectual tradition, including the continuity of Platonic themes. After her early work on Johannes Scottus Eriugena, her book From Paradise to Paradigm: A Study of Twelfth- Century Humanism (Leiden 2004) offered an interpretation of Abelard and 'Chartrian' authors like Bernard Silvestris and Alan of Lille.
Underlying Otten’s work is an attempt to analyze the open cultural outlook of (early) medieval thought and theology as weaving ancient and patristic influence into an encyclopaedic, humanist tradition. Seeing the treatment of theological questions embedded in broader historical study, Otten is currently involved in a book project on ideas of nature, linking, among others, Eriugena and Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Together with Michael Allen (Classics) she will host the Eleventh International Eriugena conference on Eriugena and Creation in the Marty Center, November 2011.
Together with Karla Pollmann (Editor, St. Andrews), Otten is General Editor of the Reception of Augustine project (430-2000). This project is now completed and scheduled to appear in 2013 with Oxford University Press. Since 2009 Otten has served as one of six Government appointed members on the Dutch National Task Force for Sustainable Humanities.
