Bio-bibliographie (anglais)

Allemagne/Suisse

Walter Burkert

Prix Balzan 1990 pour les sciences de l’antiquité

Walter Burkert est l’un des plus éminents spécialistes de religion antique. Il a su allier dans ses nombreux ouvrages l’originalité de son approche et une maîtrise absolue des principales disciplines, de l’archéologie du Proche-Orient à la tradition philosophique de la Grèce, embrassant dans ses recherches les aspects anthropologiques, éthologiques et psychologiques de la religion.

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)