Skip Navigation

Professor Stephen Halliwell, FRSE

Research Interests

Greek comedy, especially Aristophanes; Greek attitudes to laughter; Greek tragedy and the theory of tragedy, both ancient and modern; Greek theatre practice, including masks; Plato, especially the Republic and Platonic attitudes to poetry and art; Aristotle, especially the Poetics and Rhetoric; fourth-century BC Greek oratory and rhetoric; Greek literary criticism and aesthetics; Classical Tradition, especially in the fields of aesthetics and poetry.

Select Publications

A more extensive list of publications is available via the Research Portal.

Books

Aristotle's Poetics (1986, reissued in paperback with a new Introduction, 1998) more

The Poetics of Aristotle: Translation and Commentary (1987) more

Plato Republic Book 10: With Introduction, Translation, and Commentary (1988) more

Plato Republic Book 5: With Introduction, Translation, and Commentary (1993) more

Aristotle's Poetics (Loeb Library, 1996; volume also includes Demetrius and Longinus) more

The Comedies of Aristophanes: A New Verse Translation, vol. 1 (1997), paperback published in World's Classics series, 1998. more

The Aesthetics of Mimesis: Ancient Texts and Modern Problems (2002) more
Awarded the Premio Europeo d'Estetica 2008 by the Società Italiana d'Estetica; Italian translation, 2009

Greek Laughter: a Study of Cultural Psychology from Homer to Early Christianity (2008) more
Awarded Criticos Prize 2008. For a podcast discussion of the book, go to http://podularity.com/2009/10/12/32-what-made-greeks-laugh/

Between Ecstasy and Truth: Interpretations of Greek Poetics from Homer to Longinus
http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780199570560.do?keyword=Halliwell+ecstasy&sortby=bestMatches

Also editor, with others, of Tragedy, Comedy and the Polis (1993). more

Articles

Over ninety articles in British, American, Belgian, Canadian, Dutch, French, German, Greek and Italian journals/books on topics in Greek literature and philosophy, including the cultural context and status of Aristophanic comedy; religious aspects of Greek tragedy; tragic masks; tragic rhetoric; Greek conceptions of character; Greek attitudes to laughter; the relationship between Greek rhetoric and philosophy (in Plato, Aristotle and Isocrates); Platonic myth; Plato's treatment of poetry, painting, and theatre; Aristotle's views on catharsis, mimesis, and music; and Nietzsche's adaptation of ancient ideas about tragedy. (Please view my list of publications in the Research Expertise database.)

Doctoral Student Interests

Any of the fields indicated under research interests, and any mainstream areas of archaic, classical and later Greek literature. Among authors and topics on which I have supervised research theses (Ph.D./ M.Phil.) are: Divine Speeches in the Odyssey; Aristophanic comedy (including the symposium and komos in Old Comedy); attitudes to women in Greek literature; Xenophon's Apology; Plato's Laws; Aristotle's Rhetoric; Demosthenes 23; Greek fictional letters; narrative themes/techniques in Heliodoros Aithiopika; the treatment of plague and disease in Greek literature; ancient conceptions of death; Plato and music; Greek attitudes to beauty.

Teaching

My teaching covers most periods of Greek language and literature from Homer to late antiquity, as well as wider aspects of Greek culture, certain areas of early and classical Greek philosophy, and selected topics in Classical Tradition and the reception of ancient literature. In most years my teaching includes: (a) language classes and set texts of Homer, Theocritus and Lucian in subhonours Greek; (b) lectures on archaic lyric poetry and Classical Athenian culture for subhonours Classical Studies; (c) Honours modules in both Classical Studies (e.g. a module on the Presocratics) and Greek (e.g. a module on the poetry and prose of the symposium); and (d) postgraduate classes on 'The Invention of Altertumswissenschaft' and 'Nietzsche and the Greeks'.

 

Academic Career

Previous posts in the Universities of Oxford, London, Cambridge, and Birmingham. Visiting professorship in the University of Chicago (1990), visiting research fellowship in the University of California at Riverside (1993), visiting professorship in Philosophy in the University of Rome (1998), Hooker Distinguished Visiting Professor, McMaster University (2009), Chaire Cardinal Mercier, Catholic University of Louvain (2010). I have given more than 140 invited research papers (including lectures in French, German and Italian) at international conferences and to university departments in Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Switzerland, the UK and USA.