Stephen Halliwell (academic)


Francis Stephen Halliwell, , known as Stephen Halliwell, is a British classicist and academic. Since 1995 he has been Professor of Greek at the University of St Andrews and Wardlaw Professor of Classics since 2014. Prior to that he taught at the universities of Oxford, London, Cambridge, and Birmingham. He has also held visiting positions at the University of Chicago, the Center for Ideas and Society, Roma Tre University, McMaster University, the Université catholique de Louvain, and Cornell University. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2011 and a Fellow of the British Academy in 2014.
Although his publications cover a large span of topics in ancient Greek literature and philosophy, from Homer to Neoplatonism, Halliwell is best known for his extensive work on Ancient Greek comedy, especially Aristophanes, and on Greek philosophical poetics and aesthetics, especially in the writings of Plato and Aristotle. Two of his books have won international prizes: The Aesthetics of Mimesis, which was described in The Times Literary Supplement as 'formidable' and 'an outstanding example of taking ideas seriously', won the Premio Europeo di Estetica 2008; Greek Laughter, which one reviewer called 'monumental' and 'an extraordinary resource', won the Criticos Prize for 2008. Halliwell’s characteristic style of tackling large issues of cultural significance through the fine-grained interpretation of texts led David Konstan, in reviewing Between Ecstasy and Truth, to call him ‘the ideal close reader’, whose arguments are ‘detailed, learned, and nuanced’.
Halliwell is an experienced lecturer who has given some two hundred invited research papers in nineteen countries. He has also made a number of appearances in broadcast media, including the BBC radio programme In Our Time. His work has been translated into seven languages.

Books