Overview
Andrew Hicks’ research focuses on the intellectual history of early musical thought from a cross-disciplinary perspective that embraces philosophical, cosmological, scientific and grammatical discourse in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, and spans the linguistic and cultural spheres of Latin, Greek, Persian, and Arabic. His first book, Composing the World: Harmony in the Medieval Platonic Cosmos (Oxford University Press, 2017), won the ASCAP Foundation Deems Taylor/Virgil Thomson book award (2018) and the Society for Music Theory's Emerging Scholar book award (2018). He collaborated with Fr. Édouard Jeauneau on John Scottus Eriugena’s Commentary and Homily on the Gospel of John (CCCM 166, Brepols 2008), and he is currently preparing the first editions of William of Conches’ Glosulae super Priscianum (Brepols) and (with Irene Caiazzo) the Glosae super Macrobium (Brepols). His published essays range across the history of music theory, late ancient and medieval Pythagoreanism, the reception of Martianus Capella, textual criticism, and musical metaphors and modalities in Classical Persian literatures. He won the 2018 Berlin Prize from the American Academy in Berlin for research on his next book titled The Broken Harp: Listening Otherwise in Classical Persian Literature.
Hicks is a member of the Departments of Music and Classics, the Director of the Program in Medieval Studies, and a member of the Graduate Field of Near Eastern Studies, the Religious Studies Program, and the Carl Sagan Institute. He served as the House Professor-Dean of Hans Bethe House on Cornell's West Campus from 2019–2025. He regularly leads graduate seminars in the history of music theory, medieval Latin literature, Latin paleography and codicology, medieval cosmology, philosophical commentaries, and musical thought in medieval Arabo-Persian cultures, and he teaches undergraduate courses in music history and theory. He is an associate editor of the Journal of Medieval Latin, co-editor of the Guillelmi de Conchis Opera Omnia, and was co-editor of the Journal of Musicology (2018–2023). He also serves on the editorial board of TEAMS.
Publications
Books
- Composing the World: The Harmony of the Medieval Platonic Cosmos. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017.
- Iohannis Scotti seu Eriugenae Homilia et Commentarius in Euangelium Iohannis. Ed. Édouard Jeauneau and Andrew Hicks. Corpus christianorum. Continuatio mediaeualis, 166. Turnhout: Brepols, 2008.
- Guillelmi de Conchis Glosae super Macrobium. Ed. Irene Caiazzo and Andrew Hicks. Corpus christianorum. Continuatio mediaeualis. Turnhout: Brepols (in progress).
- Guillelmi de Conchis Glosulae super Priscianum. Ed. Andrew Hicks and Édouard Jeauneau. Corpus christianorum. Continuatio mediaeualis. Turnhout: Brepols (in progress).
- The Broken Harp: Listening Otherwise in Classical Persian Literature (book project in progress).
Articles
- “Boethian Music Theory.” In The Cambridge Companion to Boethius, 2nd edition, ed. John Marenbon (Cambridge, in progress).
- “Nos consentientes Helperico: Contrary Motion in Twelfth-Century Natural Philosophy.” In Le filosofia del XII secolo. Nuovi approcci, diverse prospettive, ed. Luca Bianchi, Irene Caiazzo, et al. (Brepols, in preparation).
- “On the Transmigration of Soul Diagrams.” In Marginal Music: Minuscule Texts and Liturgical Practices in the Early Medieval West, ed. Susan Rankin and Giulio Minniti (Brepols, in preparation).
- (co-authored with Jonathan Morton) “Philosophies: Cosmos and Politics, Harmony and Disharmony.” In A Cultural History of Western Music in the Middle Ages, ed. Helen Deeming and Elizabeth Eva Leach, 55–79 (Bloomsbury Press, 2023).
- "Music and the Pythagorean Tradition from Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages." In Brill's Companion to the Reception of Pythagoras and Pythagoreanism in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance , ed. Aurélien Robert, Irene Caiazzo, and Constantinos Macris, 82–110 (Leiden: Brill, 2022).
- “Reading Texts within Texts: The Special Case of Twelfth-Century Lemmata.” Glossator 12 (2022): 69–92.
- “Power, Nature, Body, Soul, Music” In Powers: A History, ed. Julia Jorati, 49–55. Oxford Philosophical Concepts. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021.
- "Mysticism’s Musical Modalities: Philosophies of Audition in Medieval Persian Sufism." In The Music Road: Coherence and Diversity in Music from the Mediterranean to India, ed. Reinhard Strohm, 103–125. Proceedings of the British Academy 223. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019.
- "The Regulative Power of the Harmony of the Spheres in Medieval Latin, Arabic and Persian Sources.” In The Routledge Companion to Music, Mind and Well-being, ed. Penelope Gouk, James Kennaway, Jacomien Prins, and Wiebke Thormählen, 33–45 (New York: Routledge, 2018).
- “Hisdosus Scholasticus, De anima mundi Platonica: An Edition.” Mediaeval Studies 78 (2016): 1–64.
- “Editing Medieval Commentaries on Martianus Capella’s De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii: A Synopsis Traditionis.” In The Arts of Editing Medieval Greek and Latin: A Casebook, ed. Elisabet Göransson, Gunilla Iversen, et al., 138-159. Toronto: Pontifical Institute for Medieval Studies, 2016.
- “Re-interpreting an Arithmetical Error in Boethius’s De institutione musica.” Music Theory and Analysis 3 (2016): 1–26.
- “Pythagoras and Pythagoreanism in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages.” In A History of Pythagoreanism, ed. Carl Huffman, 416–434. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014.
- “Martianus Capella and the Liberal Arts.” In The Oxford Handbook of Medieval Latin Literature, ed. David Townsend and Ralph Hexter, 307–334. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.
- “Musica speculativa in the Cambridge Commentary on Martianus Capella’s De nuptiis.” Journal of Medieval Latin 18 (2008), 292–305.
Reference works, reviews, and miscellaneous
- “De anima mundi in Timaeo Platonis.” In Thinking Music: Global Sources of the History of Music Theory, ed. Thomas Christensen, Lester Hu, and Carmel Raz (University of Chicago Online Publication Service, in production).
- “In Memoriam Edouard Jeauneau (1924–2019).” Journal of Medieval Latin 30 (2020): ix–xv.
- “Preface” to Iohannis Scotti Eriugenae Carmina et De imagine, ed. Michael W. Herren and Giovanni Mandolino, v–vi. Corpus Christianorum. Continuatio Mediaeualis 167. Turnhout: Brepols, 2020.
- “Bernardus Silvestris.” In The Oxford Guide to the Historical Reception of Augustine, ed. Karla Pollmann, Willemien Otten, et al., 174–176. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.
- Entries on Alypius, Aristides Quintilianus, Bacchius Geron, Barbad, barbat, chang, Gaudentius, huniyagar, music, organ, qayna, surnay, and tanbur for the Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity, ed. Oliver Nicholson and Mark Humpheries (Oxford University Press, 2018).
- “Aribonis De musica,” “Aureliani Reomensis Musica disciplina,” and “Claudii Ptolemaei Harmonicorum libri tres” for Lexikon Schriften über Musik, Band 1: Musiktheorie von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, ed. H. Grimm, M. Fald-Fuhrmann, et al., 35–37, 49–51, and 402–403. Kassel: Baerenreiter, 2017.
- Review of Sinéad O’Sullivan, Glossae aevi Carolini in libros I–II Martiani Capellae de nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii, Corpus Christianorum, Continuatio Mediaevalis 237, Turnhout: Brepols 2010. The Journal of Medieval Latin 22 (2012): 323–328.
- “Editing the Glosulae super Prisciani Librum constructionum of William of Conches.” Ars Edendi Workshop Proceedings.