Stephen Halliwell (classicist)
Francis Stephen Halliwell,, known as Stephen Halliwell, is a British classicist and academic. From 1995 he was Professor of Greek at the University of St Andrews and Wardlaw Professor of Classics from 2014; having retired in October 2020, he is now emeritus professor. He was President of the Classical Association for 2024-25.
Early life and education
Halliwell was born in Wigan, Lancashire, England. He was educated at St Francis Xavier's College, an all-boys Catholic school in Liverpool. He studied Literae humaniores at Worcester College, Oxford, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree, first class, in 1976. He remained at Oxford to undertake a Doctor of Philosophy degree, which he was awarded in 1981. His doctoral thesis, supervised by Sir Kenneth Dover, was titled "Personal jokes in Aristophanes".Academic career
Halliwell 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 many topics in ancient Greek literature and philosophy, from Homer to Neoplatonism, Halliwell has worked most extensively on Ancient Greek comedy, especially Aristophanes, and Greek philosophical poetics and aesthetics, especially in the writings of Plato and Aristotle. 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’.
Two of his books have won international prizes: The Aesthetics of Mimesis, described in The Times Literary Supplement as 'formidable' and 'an outstanding example of taking ideas seriously', won the Premio Europeo di Estetica 2008; and Greek Laughter, which one reviewer called 'monumental' and 'an extraordinary resource', won the Criticos Prize 2008.
Halliwell has given two hundred invited research papers in eighteen 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 nine languages.