Dr Sonia Pertsinidis ‘Classifying People and Plants: The Extraordinary Works of Theophrastus’

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Thursday, 9 May 2019 - 12:30pm

Sonia, a lecturer at the ANU will introduce Theophrastus, the successor to Aristotle and a pioneering botanist in the fourth century BC.  She will discuss some fascinating similarities between Theophrastus’ classification of plants in his botanic works and his classification of human types in the Characters.

Abstract

The presentation will introduce us to Theophrastus, the successor to Aristotle and a pioneering botanist of the fourth century BC.  Some fascinating similarities between Theophrastus’ classification of plants in his botanical works and his classification of human types in the Characters will be highlighted.

Biography

Dr Sonia Pertsinidis has BA/LLB (ANU), PhD (ANU).  Sonia is a Lecturer from the Centre for Classical Studies at the ANU.  She has recently published a book entitled Theophrastus’ Characters: A New Introduction (Routledge, 2018). She has a longstanding interest in Aristotle and Theophrastus and she is currently supervising a PhD project on Theophrastus’ botanical works.