Congratulations to U of T Classics Professor George Boys-Stones, who has been awarded a SSHRC Connection Grant with a total value of $15K; matching funding of $5K from the Office of the Vice-President (International) and $3K from CSAMP.
The grant supports a workshop addressing a historiographical question: how to write a history of Mediterranean philosophy in the first two centuries CE. The question arises because most philosophical movements in this period are widely diffused, without obvious centers or hierarchies. These movements have not been well served by the traditional focus on ‘headline’ figures who come to our attention because of the literary quality of their work as much as its philosophical content, or on the city of Rome, although Rome was a long way from the most lively areas of philosophical innovation. Our workshop brings together a team of international scholars with expertise in reconstructing, describing and mapping the interactions of diasporate intellectual communities. It is the initial step in a longer-term project led by George Boys-Stones (ancient philosophy, Toronto) in partnership with Matthias Haake (epigraphy and history, Münster) to write a comprehensive history of post-Hellenistic philosophy, intended to plug a gap in the Cambridge History of Philosophy series.
The workshop, "Philosophy in the Roman Mediterranean: Towards a History" will be held December 8-10, 2022 in Toronto.
For more information regarding the workshop, please visit www.posthellenistic.net.