Bio-bibliografia (inglese)

Germania/Svizzera

Walter Burkert

Premio Balzan 1990 per le scienze dell'antichità (bacino mediterraneo)

Tra gli studiosi contemporanei, Walter Burkert è il più eminente nel campo della religione antica. In una serie di importanti libri ha saputo unire grandi doti di originalità a una profonda conoscenza di tutti i principali temi, dall’archeologia del Vicino Oriente alla tradizione filosofica greca, e ha dimostrato una profonda conoscenza degli aspetti antropologici, etologici e psicologici della religione.

Walter Burkert  was born in Neuendettelsau (Bavaria) on February 2, 1931 (†2015).
Assistant (1957), then Privatdozent (1961-1966) at the University of Erlangen;
Junior Fellow at the Center for Hellenic Studies, Washington (1965- 1966);
Professor of Classics at the Technische Universität Berlin (1966-1969);
Visiting Professor at the Harvard University (1968);
Professor of Classics at the University of Zurich (1969-1996) and Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy I (1986-1988);
Sather Professor of Classical Literature at the University of California at Berkeley (1977);
Carl Newell Jackson Lectures at the Harvard University (1982);
Gifford Lectures at St. Andrews (Scotland) (1989);
Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy, of the Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften, of the Braunschweigische Wissenschaftliche Gesellschaft, of the Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften and of the Oesterreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften;
Foreign Member of the American Philosophical Society and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; Honorary Member of the Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies, London;
Doctor honoris causa from the Universities of Toronto, Fribourg (Switzerland), Oxford and Chicago.
Orden Pour le mérite für Wissenschaften und Künste 1999.

Among his most important books are:

Weisheit und Wissenschaft. Studien zu Pythagoras, Philolaos und Platon (Nürnberg, Hans Carl Verlag, 1962),
English edition: Lore and Science in Ancient Pythagoreanism (Cambridge, Mass. , Harvard University Press, 1972);

Homo Necans. Interpretationen altgriechischer Opfèrriten und Mythen (Berlin, De Gruyter, 1972),
Italian edition: Homo Necans. Antropologia del Sacrificio Cruento nella Grecia Antica (Torino, Boringhieri, 1981),
English edition: Homo Necans. The Anthropology of Ancient Greek Sacrificial Ritual and Myth (Berkeley, California, University of California Press, 1983);

Griechische Religion der archaischen und klassischen Epoche (Stuttgart, Kohhammer, 1977),
Italian edition: Storia delle Religioni, vol.8: I Greci (Milano, Jaca Book, 1984),
English edition: Greek Religion. Archaic and Classical (Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1985; Oxford, Mac Millan Press, 1985);

Structure and History in Greek Mythology and Ritual (Berkeley, California, University of California Press, 1979),
Italian edition: Mito e Rituale in Grecia. Struttura e Storia (Bari, Laterza, 1987);

Die orientalisierende Epoche in der griechischen Religion und Literatur (Sitzungsberichte der Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-historische Klasse, 1984),
English edition: The Orientalizing Revolution (Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1992);

Ancient Mystery Cults (Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1987),
Italian edition: Antichi Culti Misterici (Bari, Laterza, I 989),
German edition: Antike Mysterien. Eunktionen und Gehalt (München, Beck, 1990);

Creation of the Sacred (Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1996),
German edition: Kulte des Altertums: Biologische Grundlagen der Religion (München, Beck, 1998).

(January 2002)