In this episode we speak with Godefroid de Callataÿ, Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies at the Oriental Institute of the University of Louvain. His PhD research was on the Platonic Great Year and its expression throughout history and culture. He published it in his monograph: Annus Platonicus. A Study of World Cycles in Greek, Latin and Arabic Sources (Peeters, 1996). For some years his research has been focused on the writings of The Brethren of Purity, the Ikhwān al-Ṣafā’ a group of anonymous philosophers who wrote on a number of topics, among them astrology. He is currently heading the Advanced Grant ERC project, PhilAnd, with the purpose of studying the origin and early development of philosophy in tenth-century al-Andalus: https://sites.uclouvain.be/erc-philand/

For more information on Godefroid de Callataÿ’s work, see: https://uclouvain.academia.edu/GodefroiddeCallatay or https://alfresco.uclouvain.be/share/s/abf8k5kNSYaotxnsbq1FFg

A series of Godefroid’s lectures on the Great Year can be accessed here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLkqlBL5O0QWelhPP7id6rCbZH-q7EBJaI

A 2015 lecture on the astrological views of the Ikhwān al-Ṣafā’ can be seen at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bSH6v0A5pc