Alastair Hamilton
Senior Research Fellow
M.A. and PhD from Cambridge University
Research Interests: The history of Arabic studies and, more generally, of orientalism in Europe in the early modern period, with a special emphasis on the Arabic-speaking Christians; and religious non-conformism in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europe (especially in Spain, Italy and the Low Countries). A theme which has always fascinated him and which he introduces into most of his work is the fluctuating process of gathering and transmitting knowledge, the different means of evaluating sources (especially forgeries and apocrypha), and the illusions resulting from misinterpretation.
Alastair.Hamilton@sas.ac.uk
Profile
Alastair Hamilton has been attached to the Warburg Institute since 2003. A Fellow of the British Academy, former Dr C. Louise Thijssen-Schoute Professor of the History of Ideas at the University of Leiden and Emeritus Professor of the History of the Radical Reformation at the University of Amsterdam, he received his M.A. and PhD from Cambridge University. He is the general editor of the Arcadian Series published by the Arcadian Library in London and by Oxford University Press, and of Brill’s series ‘History of Oriental Studies’, as well as being on the editorial board of Brill’s Series in Church History, of the journals Religious Culture and Church History and Erudition and the Republic of Letters, and of Studi e testi per la storia religiosa del Cinquecento published by Olschki in Florence. He is also on the advisory board of the Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes and co-director of the Centre for the History of Arabic Studies in Europe (CHASE) at the Warburg Institute.