Autumn 2021-Spring 2022 Courses 

Cursuri în limba română aici 

The Dan Slușanschi School for Classical and Oriental Languages is pleased to offer its sixth session of courses, beginning in November 2021.

Courses are being offered in the following language disciplines: Ancient Greek, Latin, Old Slavonic, Biblical Hebrew and Coptic.

The Autumn 2021-Spring 2022 ”Extensive” course program offers 40 hours of language instruction by qualified teachers via online videoconferencing, set once a week, two hours a week for a total of 20 courses.  Courses will begin in November and end in late April/early May, with a break for Christmas/New Years (Gregorian Calendar) and Easter/Pascha (late April, both calendar dates).

All courses will be instructed online via videoconferencing.  The English language is the default language of instruction and communication for the courses, although Latin courses may employ the “learning Latin through Latin” methodology.  A Romanian-language track for Ancient Greek at the Beginners, Lower Intermediate and Intermediate levels are offered.

Participants who complete the course will receive a certificate that will provide a course description and denote the total number of hours.

Registration and Payment. To register for courses, please send an email to our course registration coordinator, Mr. Dan Koski, at ccesiofh@gmail.com. Please identify which course or courses you wish to register for, your country and time zone. Registrations must send in their vocational and/or academic CV plus a one-paragraph letter of interest in their selected course or courses in PDF form to be formally admitted to each course, but can send these documents in at a later date. Each course costs 190 Euros, plus wire transfer fees. Payment is made by wire transfer via bank to bank or by select digital transfer services (please note: we can not accept Paypal). Open registration is from October 15 to November 15 for all classes excepting Ancient Greek Advanced, with late-arrival registration for confirmed classes pending availability of space and pre-set day of the week selected for the course by the instructor and those who registered by the 15th.

Deadline for registration: November 15.

The following courses are being offered for the 2021 Autumn-2022 Spring session:

Latin

Beginners: This course is designed for beginners, though previous knowledge of the language is welcomed. It is based on the direct method of Hans Orberg, developed in his textbook – Familia Romana. The direct method implies that Latin will be the language used at the course almost exclusively, ensuring a complete immersion in the Latin language and realities. The purpose of the lessons is to cover the very basic level of Latin – the first three declinations of the Latin noun and adjective; indicative, imperative and infinitive of the verb in the present tense. The lessons will also cover interrogative particles; enclitic particles; personal, interrogative, demonstrative, and relative pronouns; interrogative sentences; prepositions; locative; active and passive voice of the verb etc.

Instructor: Georgi Mitov

Course date, time and length: November (starting third week) until May (ending first or second week).  Exact date and time to be determined pending instructor and participant availability.

Lower Intermediate: This course is designed for students who have already gone through the basic grammatical structure of the language covered in the course for beginners. It is based on the direct method of Hans Orberg, developed in his textbook – Familia Romana. During the course will be covered all the five declensions of the Latin noun, the following constructions: Accusativus cum infinitivo, Ablativus absolutus, Nominativus cum infinitivo, and most of the pronouns. The intermediate course continues with the past tense of the verb, covering all the verb forms in Indicativus, Imperativus, Infinitivus, Participium and makes introduction to Coniunctivus. Students will be familiarised with extensive vocabulary, fixed expressions, compound verbs, synonymous ways of expressing different grammatical and stylistic structures. After this course, some easier original texts will be accessible with the help of the dictionary.

Instructor: Georgi Mitov

Course date, time and length: November (starting third week) until May (ending first or second week).  Exact date and time to be determined pending instructor and participant availability.

Ecclesiastical Beginners:  This course designed for beginners, though previous knowledge of the language is welcomed. It is based on the book Evagrius magister by Miran Sajovic who closely follows the direct method of Hans Orberg, developed in his textbook – Familia Romana. The vocabulary is very carefully chosen so that it provides a direct approach to many Ecclesiastical Latin texts. The purpose of the lessons is to cover the very basic level of Latin – the first three declinations of the Latin noun and adjective; the four conjugations of the Latin verb in indicative, imperative and infinitive in the present tense. The lessons will also cover active and passive voice of the verb; numbers; interrogative and enclitic particles; personal, interrogative, demonstrative, and relative pronouns; interrogative sentences; prepositions; locative etc.

Instructor: Georgi Mitov

Course date, time and length:  November (starting third week) until May (ending first or second week).  Exact date and time to be determined pending instructor and participant availability.

Ancient Greek

Latin

Georgi Mitov is a postgraduate student at KU Leuven (Belgium) and a junior researcher at the Institute of Balkan Studies at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (Bulgaria). In 2015 he graduated from the National high school for ancient languages and cultures “St. Constantine Cyril the Philosopher” (Sofia, Bulgaria). He holds a BA in History (Mediaeval History) from Sofia University, and a MA in Paleoslavic studies from the same university. Currently, he is pursuing his MPhil in Theology and Religious studies at KU Leuven. Georgi specialised in Classical philology at Accademia ‘Vivarium Novum’ (Frascati-Roma, Italy, 2016-2017), and subsequently in Mediaeval history and Byzantine theology at Durham University (UK, 2019-2020). Since 2017 he has been teaching Latin as a part-time teacher at several high schools in Sofia and also during Scholae aestivae linguarum antiquarum in Bulgaria habitae. His main research interests focus on Byzantine cultural studies, Mediaeval Greek and South Slavic literatures (in particular homiletic, hymnographic and patristic texts) and intellectual exchange between Byzantium and the West.

Ancient Greek

Stefan Colceriu studied Classics and is a researcher at the Institute of Linguistics of the Romanian Academy in Bucharest. As a Ph.D. student he benefitted from the scholarship of the Swiss Confederation and that of the New Europe College, Institute of Advanced Study (NEC Bucharest). During his stays at the University of Leuven, Fribourg, Leiden and Zürich he specialized in late ancient thought and early Christianity. He was a member of the Septuagint translation project at New Europe College, Bucharest, a co-founder of the first non-confessional M.A. program of Religious Studies at the University of Bucharest, and the organizer of the focus groups for Biblical Hebrew and Coptic at NEC. Colceriu teaches Ancient Greek, Greek history and civilization, and history of Romanian at the Faculty of Catholic Theology in Bucharest. Stefan is highly interested in Homer, archaic/classical Greek poetry, and Thucydides.

Mircea Gratian Dulus graduated from Classical Philology and History and Archaeology. He holds an MA in Ancient Christianity at the University of Naples L’ ‘Orientale’ and a master degree in Medieval Studies from Central European University, Budapest. His PhD dissertation title: “Rhetoric, Exegesis and Florilegic Structure in Philagathos of Cerami: An Investigation of the Homilies and of the Allegorical Exegesis of Heliodorus’ Aethiopika,” (forthcoming in the Bibliothèque de Byzantion at Peeters, Leuven). He has experience with translating Greek texts into English. Recently, he has contributed English translations, commentaries and notes (55 pages) to a new major publication project, Byzantine Texts on Art and Aesthetics, edited by Foteini Spingou (University of Edinburgh) and Charles Barber (Princeton University) and published by the Cambridge University Press. Mircea has been also trained in Greek Palaeography, first at Central European University with Prof. Niels Gaul, then at the Kapodistrian University of Athens where he was an Erasmus student, and thereafter at the Lincoln College Summer School of Greek Palaeography.

Cristian Ioan Dumitru is a PhD candidate in Byzantine Studies at the University of Bucharest. He holds a double BA in Orthodox Theology (2019) and Classics (2020), as well as a MA in Church History (2021), and has taken part in numerous national and international Ancient and Byzantine Greek summer schools. He is mainly interested in secular culture and theological controversies in Byzantium and has worked on several texts of Photius of Constantinople. His PhD research project entails the textual editing and commentary of three polemical works of the Byzantine author Joseph Bryennios.

Andra Jugănaru graduated bachelor and master studies in History and Computer Sciences at the University of Bucharest as well as a master program in Medieval Studies at Central European University in Budapest. At CEU she defended her PhD dissertation titled “Family Double Monasteries in the Fourth and the Fifth Century. An Inquiry into the Theological Roots, Social Context and Early Evolution of an Old Practice” under the supervision of †Marianne Sághy and István Perczel. Now, as a postdoctoral researcher at the Aristotle University in Thessaloniki, she is studying the Cappadocian Fathers’ letter collections using the network theory. She has benefitted from several scholarships, research fellowships and summer schools in Europe (Lyon, Rome, Vienna, Paris, Louvain la Neuve, Dresden, Lund) and at Dumbarton Oaks. She is a member of the Patristic Committee and she is working at the translation of Gregory of Nyssa’s letters to Romanian.

Michail Konstantinou-Rizos is a tutor of Classical, Byzantine and Modern Greek and of Classical and Medieval Latin. He holds a PhD in Byzantine studies from Royal Holloway, University of London, and has recently produced a critical edition of Prochoros Cydones’ (ca. 1330-1369/71) Greek translation of Thomas Aquinas’ Quaestiones disputatae de potentia and Quaestio disputata de spiritualibus creaturis, to be published by the Corpus Christianorum – Series Graeca, Thomas de Aquino Byzantinus (Brepols: Turnhout). He also holds a MA in Late Antique and Byzantine Studies from the University of London and a BA in History and Archaeology from the University of Athens. He has participated in a number of research projects transcribing and editing Byzantine and post-Byzantine texts from manuscripts. Since 2016, he is a member of the International Research Project Thomas de Aquino Byzantinus, run by the University of Patras and the University of London.

Gheorghe Ovidiu Sferlea holds a BA in Classics (Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca) and Philosophy (Université Paris IV-Sorbonne). Currently Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Orthodox Theology, University of Oradea, he is a former fellow of the École Normale Supérieure – rue d’Ulm, Paris, and New Europe College, Bucharest. He earned a PhD in Patristics at École Pratique des Hautes Études-Sorbonne (2010). He was part of the project Monumenta Linguae Daco-Romanorum (the Bible of 1688) and he published a Romanian version of Gregory of Nyssa’s  Against Eunomius I as well as several other shorter patristic translations. He is mainly interested in fourth century theological controversies and Gregory of Nyssa’s Byzantine and post-Byzantine Nachleben.

Old Slavonic

Mihail-George Hâncu is a Scientific Researcher at the Institute for South-East European Studies of the Romanian Academy. He defended his PhD thesis in Philology in 2018, (University of Bucharest/University of Hamburg) with the thesis The Terminology of Ancient Greek Cosmogonies, published in 2019. He has a BA in Classical Philology (2011), a BA in Serbian and Romanian Philology (2019), an MA in Classical Philology (2013), and an MA in Balkan Cultural Studies (2015). As he became a researcher at the Institute for South-East European Studies in September 2015, he expanded his area of research to South Slavic languages, in particular Serbian and Bulgarian. He currently teaches Old Church Slavonic at the “Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” Institute of Linguistics and Serbian at the Institute for South-East European Studies. Following the completion of his first project at the Institute for South-East European Studies (The Origins and Meaning of the Image of Military Saints Fighting Against a Dragon), he started a new project in 2020, “The Historical Palaea in the Byzantine-Slav Space”, in which he will be comparing the Romanian tradition of this apocryphal text with the South Slavic tradition. He has published various articles (in Romanian, English, Serbian and Bulgarian) on subjects concerning Slavic philology.

Biblical Hebrew

Alex Mihăilă is associate professor for Old Testament and Biblical Hebrew at the Faculty of Orthodox Theology, University of Bucharest. He is part of a translating team of the Old Testament (New Europe College and Humanitas Publishing House) and the New Testament (Vatopedi Monastery) and published in co-authorship a Biblical Hebrew-Romanian dictionary (2017) and a Hebrew grammar for beginners in Romanian (2020). He earned his PhD in Theology at the University of Iasi (Romania), with a scholarship of EKD in Erlangen and participation in archaeological diggings in Israel. His main interest is the history of the biblical Israel.

Coptic

Alin Suciu was awarded an M.A. title in Ancient and Medieval Philosophy (University of Cluj-Napoca), Ph.D. in Religious Studies (Université Laval, Québec), docent in Early Christian Literature and Coptic Christianity (University of Helsinki). Suciu is a Senior Researcher at the Göttingen Academy and a docent of the Faculty of Theology, University of Helsinki. He is a specialist in the literature and history of the Egyptian Church. Author of The Berlin-Strasbourg Apocryphon: A Coptic Apostolic Memoir (WUNT I, 370; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017).

School Staff  

Florin George Calian studied Classics and Philosophy at the University of Bucharest. He holds a PhD on Plato’s philosophy from Central European University. He has also a MA in Medieval Studies (CEU, Budapest), and one in Greek and Roman Archeology (University of Bucharest). He had the opportunity through several scholarships to study and conduct research at the Departement für Philosophie of Université Fribourg (Switzerland), Trinity College (University of Oxford), Plato Center (Trinity College Dublin), Tübinger Stift (Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen), New Europe College (Bucharest), Robarts Library (Toronto), Department of Incunabula, Old and Precious Books, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek (Wien). He is currently a research fellow of the Institute of Ecumenical Research, Philosophy and Religious Studies Unit. He is a co-founder of the Dan Slusanschi School for Classical and Oriental Languages.

Antoaneta Sabău is a research fellow of the Institute of Ecumenical Research, Lucian Blaga University, Sibiu. She has studied classical philology at the University of Bucharest and Medieval Studies at Central European University, Budapest. She has had research stays at Centre Sevres (Paris), University College Dublin, and Pontifical Institute for Medieval Studies, Toronto and has pursued training in Latin palaeography with an Andrew W. Mellon scholarship for the Diploma Program in Manuscript Studies (at the American Academy in Rome and the Pontifical Institute for Medieval Studies, Toronto). She holds a PIMS Certificate of Proficiency in Medieval Latin. She has been studying the Latin textual tradition of the Exercitia Spiritualia by Ignatius of Loyola, has been involved in various translation projects and is currently working on Johannes Scotus Eriugena’s translations of Greek fathers. She is preparing the first Romanian translations of Eriugena’s Periphyseon and De praedestinatione. Antoaneta is also a co-founder of the Dan Slusanschi School for Classical and Oriental Languages.

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