Curriculum vitae
1986: Master ('licentiaat') in Classical Philology, Ghent University, 1986, summa cum laude
1987: Specialization in Modern Greek Language and Literature, Balkan Institute, Thessaloniki
1987-1993: Doctoral Fellow ('aspirant') of the Research Foundation, Flanders (NFWO)
1993: PhD, Pagan and Biblical Exempla in Gregory Nazianzen. A Study in Rhetoric and Hermeneutics, Ghent University (summa cum laude, supervisor: Edmond Voordeckers)
1993-2001: Post-doctoral Research Fellow of the Research Foundation, Flanders (FWO)
1998: Fellow of Byzantine Studies at Dumbarton Oaks, Research Library of Harvard University, Washington DC
2001: Lecturer in Ancient Greek Literature at Ghent University
2011: 'Professeur invité' at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (section of Byzantine Studies), Paris, 2011.
2018: Election as life-time member of the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Sciences and the Arts.
winter 2019-20: 'Professeur invité' at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (section of Byzantine Studies), Paris.
My research interests are primarily related to the transmission, transformation and adaptation of the ancient literary and cultural tradition, especially in Late Antiquity and the Byzantine period. I have written and edited books on Gregory of Nazianzus (Brepols, 1996), Byzantine Spirituality in Word and Image (Brepols, 1997), the Greek city as a cultural construct from Antiquity to the Present (Peeters, 2001), Philostratus' Apollonius (Brill, 2009), 11th-century Byzantine poetry (Ashgate, 2012) and Greek and Latin biography (CUP, 2016).
My main current personal research project consists of the edition and commentary of the 10th-century Paradeisos, a collection of 99 classicizing monastic epigrams. A substantial part of my research energy and time also goes to the Database of Byzantine Book Epigrams (www.dbbe.ugent.be), of which I am the director.
I am one of the directors of L’Antiquité Classique, member of the editorial board of Byzantion, and former president of the Belgian Society for Byzantine Studies (2010-2016).
From October 2016 until September 2018 I was the chair of the Department of Literary Studies.
Since September 2018, I am the Director of Education of the Faculty of Arts and Philosophy.
