When the early Christian hermit Saint Anthony the Great withdrew into the Egyptian desert, he was, according to ancient legends, tempted by the demons via simulacra, fantastic phantoms, and creatures. As he resisted all temptations, Anthony was named the »father of the monks« and the »saint of imagination.« Whereas demonic phantasms were considered projections of subjective desires and fears in modernity, premodern hagiographers and theologians stressed their objectivity and autonomy. The project investigates historical shifts of the conception of the demonic through the motif of Saint Anthony in late antique theology, early modern iconography, and modern literature. The aim is to pursue to a comprehensive ontological, aesthetic, and ethic history of simulacra.

Jakob Moser is a philosopher and scholar in cultural studies. He obtained his Ph.D. with a thesis on Lucretius and wrote a book on Descartes. He is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Austrian Academy of Sciences and Researcher at the Institute of Philosophy, University of Vienna. He studied and pursued his research in Innsbruck, Lecce, Vienna, Konstanz, Berkeley and Florence. Currently, he is Research Fellow at the IFK.