Rod Blackhirst, PhD
Dr. Rod Blackhirst (La Trobe University, Victoria, Australia) has over fifteen years experience as a tutor, lecturer and supervisor across the Humanities. The focus of his teaching is in philosophy and religious studies, with deep interests in traditions having their geographical locus in the ancient Levant and Mesopotamia. His doctoral dissertation, Myth in the Timaeus: the Mythological Underpinnings of Plato’s Cosmology, explores the roots of Plato’s cosmology and natural science in Greek mythology and in the religious cults of ancient Athens. His wider research interests encompass the monotheist religions: Judaism, Christianity, Islam (with an especial emphasis on Islamic mysticism and metaphysics); Islamic/West relations; the Gospel of Barnabas; Early Christianity and Biblical texts; Religious art, architecture and iconography; Plato, Platonism, Pythagoreanism and the Timaeus; Ancient Egypt, Hermeticism; the premodern sciences; and the perennialist perspectives in religious studies and comparative religion (Guénon, Coomaraswamy, Schuon, Burckhardt, Nasr et al.) with particular attention to traditional cosmology. His personal interests include organic gardening, old world roses, doves, Mevlevi Sufism and the spirituality, music and culture of Islam. In addition to numerous scholarly articles, Dr Blackhirst is the author of Primordial Alchemy and Traditional Religion (Sophia Perennis, 2008).
Dr. Blackhirst acts in an advisory capacity as peer-reviewer for Rubedo Press.