Stephen Halliwell

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 (since renamed the London Hellenic 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’.

Francis Stephen Halliwell, FBA, FRSE (born 1953), 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 (where he was a Fellow of Corpus Christi College), and Birmingham. He has also held visiting positions at the University of Chicago, the Center for Ideas and Society (University of California, Riverside), Roma Tre University, McMaster University (H. L. Hooker Distinguished Visiting Professor), the Université catholique de Louvain (Chaire Cardinal Mercier), and Cornell University (Townsend Visiting Professor, Department of Classics). He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2011 and a Fellow of the British Academy in 2014.