Alexandros Adamopoulos

Born in 1953, Alexander studied law, stage direction, and classical guitar in Athens, and sociology of law in Paris. He has worked for television, was a founding member of the Society of Friends of Yannis Christos, the Greek composer, worked closely with the Museum of Folk Instruments, and was a director of the National Theatre. In 1996, Alexander got to know Bharat Gupt, who was researching Greek theater in Athens. The latter sent Twelve and One Lies to Prof. V.Y. Kantak, who then invited Alexander to speak in 1998 to the Sahitya Akademi (Indian 'Literary Academy') in New Delhi, where he also contributed a paper on "The mask in the classical Hellenic theatre" to the international conference on "Man, Mind, and Mask" at the India International Center. The Sahitya Akademi published his book the following year. I began corresponding with Alexander after we were introduced in March 2005 by Bharat prior to my first visit to Greece. Elizabeth and I met him in person immediately upon our arrival in Athens on 28th April 05, and I was pleasantly surprised to learn that he is the nephew of Eliki Zanna, the Greek scholar of Indian art history, whom I had got to know not long after my arrival in Benares. Alexander kindly presented us with a copy of the English (re-) rendering of his play The Spiceman.

Bharat Gupt

Trained both in modern European and traditional Indian educational systems, Bharat has worked in classical studies, theatre, music, culture and media studies and researched as Senior Onassis Fellow (1996) in Greece on the revival of ancient Greek theatre. On the visiting faculty at the National School of Drama (Delhi) and the Bhartendu Academy for Dramatic Arts, Lucknow, Bharat has lectured on theatre and music at various Universities in India, North America, and Greece. Among his published books is Dramatic Concepts Greek and Indian (1994).  His forthcoming books include Modern Greek Productions of Ancient Greek Plays and the first edition of the Sanskrit-English-Greek Dictionary of Demitrios Galanos, the eighteenth century Greek Indologist. Bharat had kindly introduced us in March 2005 to his Greek friendsLida Shantala,  Irene Maradei, and Alexandros Adamopouloswhom we had the pleasure of getting to know personally immediately upon our arrival on 28th April in Athens.

Dmitry V. Shlapentokh

Edward Moore

Edward studied philosophy at New York University and theology at Columbia University before beginning his doctoral program at St. Elias School of Orthodox Theology. He is currently working on his dissertation, "Origen of Alexandria and St. Maximus Confessor: A Critical Comparison of their Eschatological Doctrines." In addition to his interest in Orthodox theology, Edward is a scholar of Late Hellenistic Philosophy, and has published and lectured widely on topics and figures such as Gnosticism, Neoplatonism, Origen of Alexandria, Plotinus, and St. Maximus Confessor. Edward also serves as Area Editor of Late Hellenistic Philosophy for the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, and is an active member of the International Society for Neoplatonic Studies.  

Joseph Martin

Having discovered Joe 'Pomonomo' on the Ontological Ethics (devoted to Plato, Nietzsche and Heidegger) forum soon after joining, in Nov 2001, the Abhinavagupta group that had been launched, also by Gary, as its sister site for comparative Indo-Western philosophy, I was immediately struck by the 'dialogical' skill with which he made complex thoughts readily accessible to those not yet schooled in the seminal texts of the Western tradition, even while remaining ever focused on the development of a particular insight and train of reasoning. He joined the Abhinava forum the following month, and eventually began contributing to raising the level of discourse by injecting those qualities that have already endeared him to Ontological Ethics. For example, his timely post on Emmanuel Todd's 'anthropological' approach to the impending 'conflict of civilization' (25 Sep 02) resulted not only in a better appreciation of the 'familial' underpinnings of the problematic of acculturation, but also in Elizabeth and I listening to and meeting Todd just a couple of weeks later, after having read his latest book on American imperialism.

Nick J. Allen

After studying classics and medicine, Nick Allen qualified in social anthropology at Oxford.  He then lectured at Durham and, from 1976 to 2001, at Oxford, where he  became Reader in the Social Anthropology of South Asia at the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology.  His D.Phil. thesis was on the mythology and oral traditions of a Tibeto-Burman speaking community in East Nepal.  Apart from Himalayan comparativism, he has written on the macro-history of kinship systems and on the French tradition in sociological thought (Categories and classifications: Maussian reflections on the social, Oxford, Berghahn, 2000).  His major research at present is on Indo-European cultural comparativism, and in particular on the common origin of Sanskrit and ancient Greek epic. [G. Schaufelberger's French translations in PDF format of these essays are freely accessible, but you have to register for free at the Carcara Editions website to download them]

Sumi Sivaratnam

My niece SUMI left Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) to resettle in Australia. She completed her doctorate in the classics on Plotinus in June 2004 and obtained her degree in October of the same year. She has taught Sanskrit and enjoys playing the sitar. The following 2 articles were published in Dirk Baltzly, Douglas Blyth and Harold Tarrant, eds., Power and Pleasure, Virtues and Vices (Prudentia, Supplement 2001, ISBN: 0-9582211-5-4).