Dr. Michiel Meeusen

I received my PhD in Literature from KU Leuven in 2013 with a dissertation on Plutarch’s Natural Questions. The 2016 monograph resulting from this research was awarded the Jan Gillis Prize from the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium (2018). I also co-edited the same text for the Collection des universités de France (2018), which received the Prix Raymond Weil from the Association pour l’encouragement des études grecques en France (2019), and the Prix Joseph Gantrelle from the Académie royale de Belgique (2021).

I have held a number of competitive fellowships and scholarships in the past and have also received several grants and awards: most notably, of the British Academy, Harvard’s Center for Hellenic Studies, Gerda Henkel Stiftung, SPHS, Research Foundation Flanders, Fondation Hardt, the Belgian Chair at the University of London, etc.; my academic achievements were awarded the Alumni Award in Human Sciences from the Belgian American Educational Foundation in 2021.

My primary research interests are situated at the junction of ancient science, medicine and technology, and the literature and culture of the High Roman Empire (1st–2nd c. CE), with a particular focus on the fascinating interaction between ancient ‘scientific’ and ‘literary’ cultures broadly defined. I have produced numerous research outputs in these fields (e.g., here and there, and here etc.) and have been affiliated with several institutions across the globe (in the UK, EU, and US).

Among my current collaborations are a thematic volume, under contract with Peter Lang, resulting from the international conference "The Healing Classics: Medical Humanities and the Graeco-Roman Tradition" (King’s College London, 7–8 Sept. 2022); a new, commissioned text and translation of the Aristotelian Physiognomics for the Loeb, by invitation of Robert Mayhew (Seton Hall University); and a commissioned essay, co-authored with Liba Taub (Cambridge), for ‘The Art of Medicine’ section of The Lancet.

My current project, generously funded by the Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung, explores literary expressions of health anxiety in the High Roman Imperial era, a period often contemptuously called an ‘Age of Hypochondria’. My aim is to contextualise this phenomenon and to situate it within the thought-provoking interaction between medical culture and learned society more generally in this time, which is the main topic of the second monograph that I hope to publish some day (the benevolent daimones of Academia allowing).

I have given numerous (ca. 65) presentations at conferences and colloquia (ca. 25 of which by invitation), and also regularly reach out to the general public via talks and social media. Please do get in touch if you have further questions (or an interesting job offer).