Ancient Philosophy at CU
We have at CU-Boulder a number of faculty members who specialize in or have strong interests in ancient philosophy: Mitzi Lee (Philosophy), Dominic Bailey (Philosophy), Robert Pasnau (Philosophy), and John Gibert (Classics). Current grad students specializing in ancient Greek philosophy include Thomas Bonn, Dawn Jacob, Wen Xu, and Matthew Wennemann (who specializes in medieval). We offer graduate courses in ancient philosophy each year, including graduate seminars, and graduate-level survey courses (such as Phil 5010 Advanced Topics in Aristotle, Advanced Topics in Plato, or PHIL 5020 Hellenistic Philosophy). For current offerings, please visit the Department webpage here. The University of Colorado Classics Department offers beginning and intermediate Greek and Latin, as well as graduate-level instruction in Greek, Latin and Classics. They offer summer Latin and online summer Greek, which is often the best time for graduate students to take beginning Latin or Greek. The summer Greek course is an online course. The Benson Center for Western Civilization offers language-study grants for students who wish to take summer language courses needed for their area of specialization. These grants can be used to significantly defray the cost of summer language study. Some graduate students have used these to hire a tutor to help them design a private tutorial in intensive Greek or Latin. We have both Greek and Latin reading groups that meet weekly throughout the year. Bob Pasnau runs the Latin reading group which typically reads medieval Latin texts; Mitzi Lee runs the Greek reading group. Currently we're reading Aristotle's De Memoria; before that, we read Plato's Alcibiades, We regularly invite specialists in ancient Greek philosophy to give talks and colloquia here at Boulder. Speakers for 2023-24: • Melissa Lane (Princeton), Wednesday 4/24/2024 at 3:30pm, LBB 155 - History of Philosophy Group Workshop: 'To Know is to Act; to Act is to Know': Plato’s Republic on how to educate true rulers • Jessica Gelber (Toronto), Department talk "Aristotle on interspecies relations" (2/16/2024), plus a class presentation on "Teleology and Understanding" (2/20/2024) • Rusty Jones (Oklahoma), Department talk "Thrasymachus' Conception of Justice" (3/18/2024), and a Workshop talk on "Xenophon’s Socrates on Teaching and Learning" (3/19/2024) • Emily Austin (Wake Forest), colloquium talk "Laughing at Tyrants: Plato on What Makes Vice Amusing", 10/27/2023, plus a Workshop talk "Hellenistic Philosophy and Modern Sensibilities" • Christopher Shields (UCSan Diego), keynote talk for the Rocky Mountain Philosophy Conference (grad conference) in April 2023. • Monte Ransome Johnson, "Political and Personal Autonomy in Democritus, Plato, and Aristotle", plus workshop on the Anonymous Iamblichi, March 23-24, 2023; . • Clerk Shaw (Tennessee), 'The incredible vanishing measure doctrine (Tht. 170a-171c)', History of Philosophy Group workshop, 6/22/22. • Jessica Moss (NYU): 'Aristotle on Knowledge, Understanding, and the Goal of Inquiry' (colloquium talk 11/12/2021), 'Knowledge and the Knowable (gnôsis and the gnôrimon) in Aristotle' (History of Philosophy Group Workshop, 11/13/2021) • Eric Brown (Washington University): 'Meno on the Value of Wisdom' (Colloquium talk); 'Eudaimonia in Plato's Republic' (class visit) 4/1, 4/16/21 • Christopher Moore (Penn State), "Plato on sôphrosunê as rational agency", 5/13/2020 (Front Range Ancient Philosophy Workshop, hosted by CU Boulder) • Rachana Kamtekar (Cornell), "Experience and Preconception in Epicurus' Refutation of Determinism: The Arguments of On Nature", 2/21/2020 • Rachel Barney (Toronto), "Becoming Bad: Aristotle on Vice and Moral Habituation", 4/12/2019 (Colloquium talk); "Technê as a Model for Virtue in Ancient Philosophy" on 4/11/2019 (History of Philosophy Group Workshop) • Susan Sauvé Meyer (Penn), "Raw Virtue and its Refinements: The Ranking of Divine Goods in Plato's Laws", January 2018 • Daniel Wolt (Sao Paolo), "Two Conceptions of Voluntary Action in Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics", April 2017 (History of Philosophy Group Workshop) • Paula Gottlieb (Wisconsin-Madison), "Aristotelian Choice", March 2017 • Rachel Singpurwalla (Maryland), "Political Friendship and Virtue in the Republic”, September 2015 • Sarah Broadie (St. Andrews), "Virtue and the Natural Goods: An Aristotelian Perspective", Spring 2015 • Mary Louise Gill (Brown), "Two Versions of Hylomorphism in Aristotle's Metaphysics", November 2013 • Richard Kraut (Northwestern), 'An Aesthetic Reading of Aristotle's Ethics' (Fall 2012) • Gisela Striker (Harvard), 'Epicurus' Epistemology' (Fall 2011) • Christopher Shields (Oxford, CU FIRST Scholar visitor), 'Aristotle's Metaphysics Theta 6" (Summer 2011) • Uri Leibowitz (UMass Amherst PhD, CU visiting instructor), 'Particularism in Aristotle's Ethics' (Fall 2008) • Stephen Menn (McGill), 'On Socrates' First Criticisms of the Physicists (Phaedo 95e8-97b7)" (Summer 2008) • Emily Katz (Duquesne PhD) 'What's in a Number? Aristotle's Critique of Platonic Form-Numbers' (April 2008) • Verity Harte (Yale), (February 2008) We have ongoing Greek and Latin reading groups, in which we read philosophy texts in Greek (PHIL 5030) or Latin (PHIL 5040). Students can enroll each semester in PHIL 5030 and PHIL 5040 for 1 credit hour each, which can count (with the DGS' permission) toward their total course requirements. To join the Latin group, contact Prof. Bob Pasnau ([email protected]); to join the Greek group, contact Prof. Mitzi Lee ([email protected]). We also have an ongoing History of Philosophy Group, in which faculty, students, and guests present work in progress in ancient philosophy, medieval philosophy and early modern philosophy. Most summers, we run a Summer Research Group, in which students in the ancient philosophy program and faculty present work in progress, or lead the group in close study of a Greek text. Current students in the program include: • Thomas Bonn, PhD program • Dawn Jacob, PhD program • Wen Xu, PhD program Graduates of the program include: • Gagan Sapkota (2022 PhD), "The Voluntary in Aristotle's Eudemian Ethics" (left academia) • Daniel Coren (2019 PhD), "Aristotle on Animal Self-Motion", Visiting Assistant Professor at McMaster University (2019-2022); Visiting Assistant Professor at Skidmore (2022-23); Assistant Professor (TT) at Seattle University (2023-) • Tyler Huismann (2017 PhD), thesis on accidental causation in Aristotle with Prof. Dom Bailey, currently Visiting Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Oklahoma (2017-present) • John Helsel (2015 MA), went on to do an MA in Transportation Engineering at UT Austin, and is now a Data Scientist at WSP USA. • Van Tu (2013 MA), PhD at the University of Michigan, Philosophy Department, Program in ancient philosophy • Mary Krizan (2010 PhD), Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin, La Crosse; now Associate Professor of Philosophy at Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey • Ricardo Morsella (MA), Adjunct Professor at Broward College and Miami Dade College, Miami, FL (And, from an earlier era, graduates of the philosophy program who wrote dissertations on ancient philosophy with Chris Shields include Rachel Singpurwalla (Maryland) and Paul Studtmann (Davidson).) We are also members of the Front Range Ancient Philosophy Workshop, which hosts annual meetings to discuss works-in-progress and research by grad students and faculty members in ancient philosophy. This group includes members from University of Colorado at Boulder, University of Colorado at Denver, Colorado State University at Fort Collins, Colorado College, University of Denver, Metro State, and University of Wyoming. Contact [email protected] if you would like to be added to the mailing list. |
Daniel Coren presenting a chapter of his dissertation to the History of Philosophy Workshop, Spring 2018
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