Susanne Kathrin Beiweis
Education
- Ph.D. in Philosophy, University of Vienna, Austria (2016) — Dissertation: Saturn and Talisman: The Heterogeneous Concepts of Magic as presented in Marsilio Ficino’s De Vita Libri Tres (written in German)
- Mag. phil. in Philosophy, University of Vienna, Austria (2009)
Areas of Specialization
- History of Philosophy and History of Ideas, with special focus on Renaissance and Early Modern Philosophy (especially Renaissance Platonism, Ficino, and Renaissance magic).
Areas of Competence
- Ancient Greek Philosophy (especially Platonism and Neo-Platonism)
- Medieval Philosophy
- Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art
- History and Philosophy of Science
Biography
Dr. Susanne Kathrin Beiweis has been Assistant Professor of Comparative Humanities at Habib University since 2025. She joins Habib from Mount Allison University, Canada, where she was Adjunct Assistant Professor (2024-2025) and, before that, Visiting Assistant Professor (2023-2024) in the Department of Philosophy. She was also a Visiting Fellow in the Department of Music, Art, and Cultural Studies at the University of Jyvaskyla, Finland (2023), and spent six years as a Research Associate in the Department of Philosophy at Sun Yat-sen University’s Zhuhai campus, China (2017-2023).
Her research centers on the history of philosophy and ideas, with particular expertise in Renaissance Platonism, the philosophy of Marsilio Ficino, and the intellectual history of magic in the early modern period. She completed her Ph.D. and Magister studies in Philosophy at the University of Vienna, and her work has appeared in journals including Rinascimento, Clio, and Verbum – Analecta Neolatina, alongside contributions to edited volumes on consciousness studies and Renaissance magic.
Selected Publications
- Shani, I., and Beiweis, S. (eds.). Cross-Cultural Approaches to Consciousness: Mind, Nature, and Ultimate Reality. Bloomsbury Academics, 2022.
- Procyshyn, A., and Beiweis, S. “The Rationality of Erotic Desire: Sappho, Aristophanes, Diotima, and Heloise on the Nature of Romantic Love.” International Journal of Psychotherapy (Special Issue: Women and Love), 28(2), 2024.
- Beiweis, S., and Ockenstrom, L. “Aged Scholars, Screech-Owls, Sagae and (the Power of) Human Blood in Ficino’s De Vita Longa.” Rinascimento, LXIII, 2023.
- “Fear of the Other: The Ottoman Turk in Machiavelli’s La Mandragola.” Clio: A Journal of Literature, History, and the Philosophy of History, 49(1), 2021.
- Beiweis, S., and Ockenstrom, L. “Memory, Mercury, and Magic in Marsilio Ficino’s De Vita.” Rinascimento, LIX, 2019.
- “‘Naturam ars imitatur’: Magical Images within Marsilio Ficino’s De Vita Libri Tres.” Verbum – Analecta Neolatina, 1-2, 2018.
Selected Public Philosophy
- Beiweis, S., and Briel, H. “On Seeing the Same Image Differently.” The Philosophers’ Magazine, 2024.
- “Gesundheit durch Magie: Marsilio Ficinos’ De vita libri tres.” 1000 Wort Forschung, mittelalter.hypotheses.org, 2014.
- “Als Magie noch Teil der Wissenschaft war.” science.orf.at, 2013.
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