With doctorates from the Universities of Paris-Nanterre and Montreal (2019), a diploma in Ancient Sciences with a minor in archaeology from the École normale supérieure de la rue d'Ulm (2014) and an agrégation in Classics (2012), Manfred Lesgourgues joined the Religion, History and Society in the Ancient Greek World chair in September 2020 as an attaché temporaire d'enseignement et de recherche (ATER).
As part of his thesis, he studied the practice of divination in the seven best-documented oracular sanctuaries of the Greek world, from the end of the Classical era to the Imperial period. The aim was to gain a better understanding of how the mantic rite constructed a particular kind of knowledge, the oracle, by seeking to reconstruct precisely the context in which it was produced. To this end, he questioned the centrality of an inspired agent whose enthusiasm would have been the alpha and omega of ancient revelation, showing that the oracular ritual mobilized over a long period the collaboration of a large number of agents, all of whom played a crucial role in establishing and shaping the content of communication with the gods. Her current research focuses on the ways in which reference to oracles and oracular rites is mobilized in historical, rhetorical and political discourses.