Daniel Makoto Keyes
About
I am a queer nonbinary Japanese Seattleite person. I completed my BA in Classics at the University of Washington.
Currently, I am a Master’s student in Ancient Culture, Religion, and Ethnicity, intending to hone in on intersections of my various interests. My work here likely will centralize on identity in the ancient world – particularly in the Hellenistic and early Roman eras of the Near East – and consider how language, symbolism, myth, religion, philosophy, learning, practical livelihood, “ethnicity”, and other matters may provide insight into what we now could call identity formation and application. This includes social structures and exchanges, as well as their enactment in physical spacetime. These of course are many and amorphous subjects, and while I will not be able to integrate all of them cohesively into my work, they will nonetheless all be inspirations to my consideration.
I am also deeply interested in a so-called “ancient” symbol called the enneagram that in the past half century or so has been popularized as a personality typology system. The modern commercialized mutation appears to be the result of various public figures and organizations appropriating an esoteric tradition which up until the last century was entirely unknown to the global public. I study the enneagram’s mystic implications, its applications for inner work and spirituality, and the elements and themes it’s composed of – many of which seem to have at least existed in some form in the ancient world (ancient Egyptian philosophy, spiritualism, Ennead; ancient Greek numerology, philosophy, Monad, Four Elements, archetypes in mythology; Christian mysticism, Trinity). I offer re-education to the public (and to individuals or groups by request) on the enneagram.
Research
Research Interests
- Ancient Greek Linguistics (Morphology, Semantics, Phonetics)
- Ancient Geography (Primarily from Greece to Central Asia)
- Hellenistic Interaction
- Identity
- Semiotics
- Mystery
- Roots