Professor Oliver Primavesi
Oliver Primavesi was born in 1961 in Offenbach, Germany. From 1982-1988, he read Classics at the University of Heidelberg and at Magdalen College, Oxford. In 1994, he was awarded a PhD for a thesis of Aristotle’s Topics by the Goethe-University, Frankfurt. At the same university, he completed his habilitation in 1997 with a thesis on the Strasburg Papyrus of Empedocles’ Physics. Since 2000, he has held the chair of Greek (I) at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University (LMU), Munich. He was a fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg, Berlin (2005-6 ), and at the Einstein Center Chronoi, Berlin (2024-5). He is married and has one daughter.
Select publications
- “Pythagorean Ratios in Empedocles’ Physics“, in: C. C. Harry and J. Habash (ed.), Brill’s Companion to the Reception of Presocratic Natural Philosophy in Later Classical Thought, Leiden 2021, pp. 113–192.
- „Human Nature and Legal Norms: Antiphon the Sophist as Anonymus Target in Plato’s Republic IX“, in: P. Adamson and C. Rapp (ed.), State and Nature. Studies in Ancient and Medieval Philosophy, Berlin 2021, pp. 3–33.
- Aristotle, De motu animalium. A new Critical Edition of the Greek Text by O. Primavesi. With an English Translation by B. Morison and an Introduction by C. Rapp and O. Primavesi, Oxford 2023.
- „Philosophical Variants in Aristotle: The Text of Metaphysics A and Platoʼs Theories of Forms and Principles “, in: G. W. Most (ed.), Variants and Variance in Classical Textual Cultures. Errors, Innovations, Proliferation, Reception?, Berlin 2024, pp. 257–289.
- „Winckelmann on Polychrome and Monochrome Sculptures in Greek Art“, in: S. Hemingway/S. Lepinski/V. Brinkmann (ed.), Chroma. Sculpture in Color from Antiquity to Today, New Haven/London 2025, 191–199.
- „Hesiod and Empedocles on the Decline of Humankind“, in: S.G. Nichols and C. Olk (ed.), Myths of the Golden Age in European Culture, New York/London 2025, pp. 7–22.
- „A Comic Pun on Gender Roles and Making Love. Cratinus 103 K.-A., Aristophanes Lys. 735–737, and the Greek Lexica“, in: J. Maksimczuk and L. Orlandi (ed.), Mesótes – At the Intersection of Textuality and Materiality. Papers on Textual Criticism, Manuscript Studies, and Scholarly Practices, Berlin 2025, pp. 3–52.
- N. Carlig, A. Martin, O. Primavesi (ed.) L’Empédocle du Caire. P. Fouad inv. 218. Introduction, texte, commentaire, (Papyrologica Bruxellensia 44), Leuven 2025.
Select awards
- 2025 – Docteur honoris causa, Sorbonne Université (Paris)
- 2010 – Order of Merit of the Federal Republic
- 2008 – Member of the German Academy (Leopoldina)
- 2007 – Leibniz Prize (German Research Foundation – DFG)
