Sønnesyn, Sigbjørn

Foto: UiB

Phone: (+47) 55 58 30 45
E-mail: sigbjørn.sønnesyn@cms.uib.no


My main research interest is the intellectual history of the earlier and high middle ages, particularly moral thought and its role within intellectual and literary culture. While the ethical emphasis of medieval literature is immediately noticeable as a surface phenomenon, the precise character and implications of this fact on a more fundamental level is only rarely studied. In my doctoral thesis I investigated the extent to which ethics played an integral and constitutive part of the historiography of William of Malmesbury, and my current research focuses on similar approaches to authors like John of Salisbury, Hugh of St Victor, Anselm of Canterbury and Peter Abaelard.

An important part of this study is an investigation of the ways in which classical and patristic thought and literature was appropriated during the 11^th and 12^th centuries. I am particularly interested in how Augustine of Hippo functioned both as an authority in his own right, and as a conduit of a particular understanding of classical philosophy.

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