Severin Kitanov

Born in Varna, Bulgaria and educated at the local French Gymnasium “Frédéric Joliot-Curie,” Dr. Kitanov moved to Finland, where he received his MA and Doctorate of Theology from the University of Helsinki. In addition to serving as full-time Philosophy Department faculty at Salem State University, Dr. Kitanov has also taught philosophy classes at Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA, and Gordon College, Wenham, MA.

Dr. Kitanov’s specialty is Philosophy of Religion and Theological Ethics with a particular focus on medieval scholastic theology and philosophy. Dr. Kitanov is also passionate about paleography (the study of ancient and medieval handwriting), and the critical editing of Medieval Latin theological and philosophical texts.

Monographs:

• Beatific Enjoyment in Medieval Scholastic Debates: The Complex Legacy of Saint Augustine and Peter Lombard(Lanham, Boulder, New York, Toronto, Plymouth, UK: Lexington Books, 2014).

Peer-reviewed articles:

• “Richard FitzRalph on Beatitude,” in A Companion to Richard FitzRalph: Fourteenth-Century Scholar, Bishop, and Polemicist, ed. Michael W. Dunne and Simon Nolan (Leiden, Boston, E.J. Brill, 2023).
• With John Slotemaker, “Belief and the State of Grace: FitzRalph, Wodeham and Holcot on Faith, Theology and Merit,” in A Companion to Richard FitzRalph: Fourteenth-Century Scholar, Bishop, and Polemicist, ed. Michael W. Dunne and Simon Nolan (Leiden, Boston: E.J. Brill 2023), 154–206.
• With Chris Schabel, “Thomas Bradwardine’s Questions on Grace and Merit from his Lectura on the Sentences at Oxford, 1332-1333,” Archives d’histoire doctrinale et littéraire du Moyen Âge 89 (2022), 163–236.
• “John Mair on Beatific Enjoyment: New Wine in Old Wineskins,” in A Companion to the Theology of John Mair, ed. John T. Slotemaker and Jeffrey C. Witt (Leiden-Boston: E.J. Brill, 2015), 141–74.
• With John T. Slotemaker & Jeffrey C. Witt, “John Major’s (Mair’s) Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard: Scholastic Philosophy and Theology in the Early Sixteenth Century,” in Medieval Commentaries on the Sentences of Peter Lombard, Vol. 3, ed. Philipp W. Rosemann (Leiden-Boston: E.J. Brill, 2015), 369–415.
• “The Concept of Beatific Enjoyment (Fruitio Beatifica) in the Sentences Commentaries of Some Pre-Reformation Erfurt Theologians,” in Medieval Commentaries on the Sentences of Peter Lombard, Vol. 3, ed. Philipp W. Rosemann (Leiden-Boston: E.J. Brill, 2015), 315–68.
• “Happiness in a Mechanistic Universe: Thomas Hobbes on the Nature and Attainability of Happiness,” Hobbes Studies 24.2 (2011): 117–36.
• “The Problem of the Relationship between Philosophical and Theological Wisdom in the Scholasticism of the 13th and Early 14th-Centuries,” Analytic Teaching and Philosophical Praxis 31.1 (2011): 89–99. At:http://www.viterbo.edu/uploadedFiles/academics/letters/philosophy/atp/Kitanov%20on%20The%20Problem%20of%20the%20Relationship%20between%20Philosophical%20and%20Theological%20Wisdom.pdf
• “How to Baptize a Monster: The Culture of Debate in the Medieval University,” Sextant: The Journal of Salem State College 18.1 (2010): 2–10.
• “Peter of Candia on Demonstrating that God is the Sole Object of Beatific Enjoyment,” Franciscan Studies67 (2010): 427–89.
• “The Well Ordered Memory: The Historical Origin of Mnemonics and the Place of Mnemonics in Education,” Aspect: A Publication of the School of Arts and Sciences (Spring 2008): 4, 15.
• “Peter of Candia on Beatific Enjoyment: Can One Enjoy the Divine Persons Separately from the Essence?”, Mediaevalia Philosophica Polonorum 35.1 (2006): 145–66.
• “Displeasure in Heaven, Pleasure in Hell: Four Franciscan Masters on the Relationship between Love and Pleasure, and Hatred and Displeasure,” Traditio 58 (2003): 285–340.
• “Bonaventure’s Understanding of Fruitio,” Picenum Seraphicum 20 (2001): 139–91.
• “Bulgarian uskonnollinen tilanne” [The Religious Situation in Bulgaria, in Finnish], Teologinen aikakauskirja 4 (2001): 317–23.