Peter Forshaw

Peter Forshaw’s research focuses on the confluence of learned magic, science and religion in early modern Europe. He researched his doctorate in Intellectual History at Birkbeck, University of London, investigating the theosophy, alchemy, magic, and Christian Cabala of a significant figure in early modern occult philosophy, Heinrich Khunrath (1560-1609), with a particular consideration of the series of engravings in the Amphitheatrum Sapientiae Aeternae (1609). Following this Peter was then awarded a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship for research into the History of Ritual Magic in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. This was followed by fellowships at the universities of Strathclyde and Cambridge, where he worked on projects related to alchemy and astrology. In 2009 he was appointed Assistant Professor for History of Western Esotericism in the Early Modern Period at the University of Amsterdam.

Peter is elected council member and webmaster of the SRS (Society for Renaissance Studies), SHAC (Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry) and ESSWE (European Society for the Study of Western Esotericism). He is also Editor-in-Chief of Aries: Journal for the Study of Western Esotericism. He is co-editor of The Word and the World: Biblical Exegesis and Early Modern Science (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007) and Laus Platonici Philosophi: Marsilio Ficino and his Influence (Leiden: Brill, forthcoming 2010) and is currently preparing a monograph, The Mage's Images: Occult Theosophy in Heinrich Khunrath's Early Modern Oratory and Laboratory, for Brill's Studies in Intellectual History and a translation of Khunrath's The Amphitheatre of Eternal Wisdom (1609) for Brill's Aries Book Series: Texts and Studies in Western Esotericism.

For more information see Peter Forshaw's personal profile on academia.edu:
http://uva.academia.edu/PeterForshaw