Professor Michael Allen FBA

Renaissance philosophy, particularly the Platonism of Marsilio Ficino & Pica della Mirandola; Renaissance poetry, magic, mythology, iconography & hermeneutics; Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare.
Fellow type
International Fellow
Year elected
2012
Year of death
2024
Subjects
Literature

Summary

Michael J. B. Allen is a Distinguished Research Professor of English and Italian Renaissance Studies at UCLA where he has taught since 1970. He is the former Director of UCL's Center for Medieval & Renaissance Studies; past Editor of Renaissance Quarterly; and past President of the Renaissance Society of America. His honours include Italy's Commendatore decoration in 2007 and the Premio Internazionale Galileo Galilei in 2008 for his work on Florentine Platonism. His primary interests are in Renaissance philosophy, drama, poetry, magic, mythology, iconography & hermeneutics; and more especially in the Platonism of Marsilio Ficino & Pico della Mirandola.

Principal Publications 1989: Icastes: Marsilio Ficino's Interpretation of Plato's Sophist. University of California Press (UCP) 1994: Nuptial Arithmetic: Marsilio Ficino's Commentary on the Fatal Number in Book VIII of Plato's Republic. UCP 1998: Synoptic Art: Marsilio Ficino on the History of Platonic Interpretation. Olschki Press 2001-2006; Marsilio Ficino: Platonic Theology, 6 vols. with James Hankins. Harvard University Press (HUP). 2008: Marsilio Ficino: Commentaries on the Phaedrus and Ion. HUP 2015: Marsilio Ficino: Commentaries on the Mystical Theology and the Divine Names of Dionysius the Areopagite, 2 vols. HUP.

Last post

University of California, Los Angeles Distinguished Professor Emeritus

Past appointments

University of California, Los Angeles Distinguished Professor Emeritus

2012 -

University of California, Los Angeles Professor

1970 - 2012

Other Fellows of the British Academy

Professor Andrew Hadfield FBA

English Literature, especially of the Renaissance (Nashe, Shakespeare and Spenser); Anglo-Irish literary relations; travel and colonial writing; literature and politics; class; national identity; biography

Professor Andrew Hadfield FBA

Professor Robert Crawford FBA

Scottish literature: T S Eliot; modern & contemporary poetry; creative writing (particularly poetry)

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Professor Jennifer Richards FBA

Renaissance English literature, history of reading and the voice, rhetoric, scholarly editing and book history, digital humanities, and bees

Photo of Jennifer Richards FBA in front of a plain off-white background

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