Translation and Discussion Group
For the academic year 2025-26, We will be dedicating the majority of our meetings to the translation and discussion of Aristotle’s Rhetoric.
As usual, we will gather every Wednesday from 4:30 PM to 6:00 PM (location for the fall term: Classics 21).
(For those who haven’t got a chance to join our translation sessions, our format will involve assigning a small portion of the text in advance, and during our meetings, we will read out the Greek first, translate them, and engage in detailed discussions. We welcome participants of all levels of proficiency in Greek, so don’t hesitate to join us, even if you’re more interested in the discussion part with an English translation).
Fall 2025 Speaker Schedule
Oct 15 Gabriel Shapiro (University of Michigan), “Aristotle’s Argument for Essentialism.”
Nov 5 Freya Möbus (Loyola University Chicago) on Socratic insult, title TBD
Nov 19 Kai Fang (UChicago), “Self-Love and Parental Love: Seneca and Stoic Social Oikeiōsis.”
Dec 3 Paskalina Bourbon (UChicago) on Aristotle on analogy and kinds, title TBD
For notifications and reminders, please subscribe to the mailing list ancientphilosophy@lists.uchicago.edu through https://lists.uchicago.edu/web.
If you have any question, please feel free to contact the graduate coordinators 2025-26, Frances Mangina (fmm@uchicago.edu) and Chenxi Zhang (zhangchenxi97@uchicago.edu).
Past Activities
Spring 2025
March 26 Jiakai Zhang (PhD student, Classics, UCLA), “The Use of Logos and the Experience of Philosophy as an Ongoing Process in Plato’s Phaedo.”
April 30 Daniel Kranzelbinder (Postdoctoral Researcher, CHSS, UChicago), “On Treating Lies with Lies: Healing and Wandering in Plato’s Hippias Minor.”
May 7 Nathan Katkin (PhD candidate, Classics, UChicago), “Justice and Good Order in Plato and the Old Oligarch.”
May 14 Charles Massicotte (PhD student, Social Thought, UChicago), “Time in Plato’s Parmenides.”
Winter 2025
January 22 Arnold Brooks, “Substance and logos in Metaphysics ZH”
Feb 12 Huaiyuan “Susanna” Zhang (Penn State, PhD/ Visiting Student at Divinity), “Desiring the Good for the Other—Reading Plato with Levinas”
Feb 19 Lokchun Law (Gus), “Is it Our Nature to Become Good? Conversation with Aristotle and Mengzi”
Feb 26 Frances Mangina, “The Roles of Reciprocal Decision and Recognition in Character Friendship in Aristotle’s Eudemian Ethics”
March 5 Kaicheng Fang, “Seneca on Using Friends: A Roman Interpretation of the Stoic Indifferents”