Conference Keynote Speakers
2026
Dominic J. O'Meara is Professor emeritus of philosophy, Université de Fribourg (Switzerland). He studied at Cambridge University and in Paris with Pierre Hadot. He has written about the history of Pythagoreanism and Platonism in Antiquity and in Byzantium. His books include: Cosmology and Politics and Plato's Later Writings (Cambridge 2017); Pythagoras Revived: Mathematics and Philosophy in Late Antiquity (Oxford 1989); Plotinus. An Introduction to the Enneads (Oxford 1995); Platonopolis. Platonic Political Philosophy in Late Antiquity (Oxford 2003); The Ladder of the Sciences in Late Antique Platonism (Cambridge 2026).
Topic: 'Pythagoras in Byzantium'
Catherine Rowett is Professor emerita of Ancient Philosophy at the University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK. In the field of Presocratic philosophy her books include Rethinking Early Greek Philosophy (1987), and Presocratic Philosophy, a very short introduction (2004), and major influential articles include ‘Empedocles Recycled’ (1987), ‘Was verse the default form for Presocratic philosophy?' (1998), 'Was there an Eleatic Revolution in philosophy?' (2006), 'On calling the gods by the right name' (2013), 'Philosophy's numerical turn: why the Pythagoreans' interest in numbers is truly awesome.' (2013), and 'The Pythagorean Society and Politics' (2014). She is currently working mostly on Plato and at the interface of ancient philosophy with critique of contemporary politics and political values.
Topic: 'Pythagorean opposites and the metaphysics of creation in Plato’s Timaeus'
2025
Professor Dmitri Tymoczko is a composer and music theorist who teaches at Princeton University. His book A Geometry of Music (Oxford) has been described as “a tour de force” (The Times Literary Supplement), a “monumental achievement” (Music Theory Online), and, potentially, a modern analogue to Schoenberg’s Harmonielehre (The Musical Times). His two CDs, Beat Therapy (“far reaching yet utterly entertaining,” Newmusicbox) and Crackpot Hymnal (“ebullient … polystylistic … kinetic … vividly orchestrated and vibrantly paced,” Sequenza21), are available from Bridge Records. A third CD, Rube Goldberg Variations, will appear in 2017. The author of the first music-theory article ever published by Science magazine, he has received a Rhodes scholarship, a Guggenheim fellowship, and additional prizes from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Tanglewood, the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, and others. His music, which often draws on jazz and rock, has been performed and commissioned by groups including the Amernet Quartet, the Atlantic Brass Quintet, the Brentano Quartet, the Corigliano Quartet, Flexible Music, Gallicantus, the Gregg Smith Singers, the Illinois Modern Ensemble, Janus Trio, the Kitchener/Waterloo symphony, Network for New Music, Newspeak, Pacifica Quartet, Synergy Vocal Ensemble, Third Coast Percussion Quartet, and Ursula Oppens.
Topic: 'Category Theory as 21-st Century Pythagoreanism'