Zlatko Pleše received his PhD in Classics at Yale University, where he specialized in ancient philosophy and medicine, early Christianity, Hellenistic rhetoric and Coptic language. He taught at various universities in Europe and the US, including Yale and Wesleyan University, and is currently Professor of Ancient Mediterranean religions (Greco-Roman world, early Christianity and late antiquity) at Carolina. He has published monographs and articles on Platonist philosophers of the Roman imperial period, ancient Gnostic and Hermetic writings, apocryphal gospels, and early modern theories of nationhood in South-Eastern Europe.