Ruth Gornandt

Research Associate

Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies

ruth.gornandt@ames.ox.ac.uk

Position(s) held:

Marie Curie Fellow at the Faculty of Theology and Religion (Oct 2019 – Sept 2022)

Research interests:

Late medieval Armenian thought.
Mystical and apophatic theology in the East and West.
Scholastic theology, especially Thomas Aquinas, between Aristotelian and Neoplatonic-apophatic traditions.
Natural theology, natural belief, and the relation between theology and science in Eastern and Western theology.
Monasticism in Western and Eastern Christianity, including in the Lutheran Church.

Current projects:

Late Medieval Armenian thought in its relations to Hellenistic philosophy, Greek patristics, Eastern monasticism, Armenian orthodoxy, and Latin Scholasticism, particularly in the Armenian vardapet Gregory of Tatev (c. 1346–1409/10).
Neoplatonic apophatic theology in the East (Dionysius Areopagita) and its influence on Scholastic theology (Thomas Aquinas).
The metaphorical-analogical character of religious language in theology and its literal understanding in science.

Courses taught:

Tutorial Early Modern Christianity (in Theology and Religion, HT 2022)

Biography:

After completing my studies in Theology and Romance languages and literature, I entered the training for ministry at the Lutheran Abbey of Loccum (North Germany). I subsequently worked for the Lutheran female Abbeys in Lower Saxony as a lecturer in theology, art history, history, and pedagogy for guided tours through the historical buildings. At the same time, I began writing a doctoral dissertation on Scholastic metaphysics in 19th and 20th-century Protestant theology. Having received my doctorate, I was awarded a research scholarship and then secured a Marie Curie fellowship, both at the Faculty of Theology and Religion. I worked on the potential of Christian traditions (Scholastic thought, mystical theology) to address modern challenges posed by the Cognitive Science of Religion (CSR). During that time, I intensified my studies of Gregory of Tatev to understand the relation of rational and mystical theology in his work. This led me to further investigate the influence of different traditions – Greek and Hellenistic philosophy, Greek patristics, Eastern monasticism, Armenian thought, and most notably Western Scholasticism – on his thought. I am currently studying the autograph of his Book of Questions (Գիրք Հարցմանց) from 1397, a dense and often cryptic text, which can be illuminated by understanding its intertextual relations.

Educational background:

Studies in Theology and Romance languages and literature in Frankfurt/Main, Marburg, and Göttingen; First Theological Exam, Evangelical-Lutheran Church of Hannover; Diploma, University of Göttingen.
Training for Lutheran ministry, Lutheran abbey of Loccum; Second Theological Exam, Evangelical-Lutheran Church of Hannover.
Dr. theol. (magna cum laude), Humboldt University of Berlin, supervisor: Prof. Johannes Zachhuber, Faculty of Theology and Religion/Trinity College, Oxford; advisor in Berlin: Prof. Notger Slenczka.

Full publications:

ORCID 0000-0002-8168-1068