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This year has seen the publication of seven books. These are:
It has also seen four books sent to press, The Stoic Leader, above, plus:
Many years in the making, my colleague Liz Gloyn and I have finally finished the manuscript for Brill’s Companion to Musonius Rufus. It has now been through peer review, revised, and copyedited. Publication is planned for 2026. The first idea for this book came out of a workshop we ran in 2019. Rather than simply publish a collection of papers from the event, we both thought it would be far more useful to try to offer comprehensive coverage - something that had never been done before. The book has a chapter on each of the 21 longer Discourses, as well as discussion of the shorter fragments and the publication of some newly discovered fragments too. All this is prefaced with some orienting essays.
Here’s the full table of contents: PART ONE: LIFE AND CONTEXT Musonius Rufus: Philosophy as a Way of Life? Sarah Lawrence Musonius’ Philosophical Affiliation Gretchen Reydams-Schils Musonius Rufus’ Social/Political Context Catharine Edwards Texts and Transmission John Sellars PART TWO: THE DISCOURSES Discourse 1 That there is no Need of Giving Many Proofs for One Problem Robert Heller Discourse 2 That we are Born with an Inclination Towards Virtue Benjamin Harriman Discourse 3 That Women too Should Study Philosophy Georgia Tsouni Discourse 4 Should Daughters Receive the Same Education as Sons? Sophia Connell Discourse 5 Which is More Effective, Theory or Practice? Mark Gatten Discourse 6 On Training: A Case Study of Influence in Roman Stoicism Jean-Baptiste Gourinat Discourse 7 That One Should Consider Suffering to be Unimportant Sophie Ngan Discourse 8 Musonius Rufus on Kingship Carol Atack Discourse 9 That Exile is Not an Evil Attila Németh Discourse 10 Will the Philosopher Prosecute Anyone for Personal Injury? Kurt Lampe Discourse 11 What Means of Livelihood is Appropriate for a Philosopher? Tomohiko Kondo Discourse 12 Sexual Indulgence in Musonius Rufus Eva Anagnostou-Laoutides Discourse 13 What is the Chief End of Marriage? Valéry Laurand Discourse 14 Is Marriage a Handicap for the Pursuit of Philosophy? Valéry Laurand Discourse 15 ‘Should Every Child That Is Born Be Raised?’ The Ethics of Infant Exposure and Childrearing in Early Imperial Rome Mairéad McAuley Discourse 16 Must One Obey One’s Parents Under all Circumstances? Liz Gloyn Discourse 17 What is the Best Viaticum for Old Age? Barbara Del Giovani Discourses 18A-B On Food William O Stephens Discourse 19 On Clothing and Shelter Robin Weiss Discourse 20 On Furnishings Will Desmond Discourse 21 On Cutting the Hair William O Stephens PART THREE: THE FRAGMENTS The Fragments Max Bergamo New Fragments Max Bergamo
A new revised edition of my 2006 book Stoicism is now coming out with Routledge; further details here.
So, what’s new about it? What has been changed? In brief, the core of the book - Chapters 2-5 - are largely the same, as I was reasonably happy with them and they had been received well. The largest revisions were to Chapters 1 and 6, which have changed quite a bit. In the original edition I was least happy with Chapter 1. The section on the loss of Stoic texts, which was a bit too speculative, has been dropped, and the introductions to individual Stoics have been expanded, especially in the light of work I’ve done on the Roman Stoics since 2006. The original Chapter 6 was very much my first attempt to sketch out the subsequent influence of Stoic ideas and since then I’ve done quite a bit of work on this topic (see here), as well as editing The Routledge Handbook of the Stoic Tradition. So I’ve rewritten most of this chapter in the light of all this more recent work. Throughout the rest of the text I’ve made a few tweaks and updates here and there. I have replaced ‘non-preferred’ with ‘dis-preferred’ as a translation of apoproegmenon, as that seems better to capture the idea. I have also avoided references to apatheia in the light of recent work that has questioned how helpful this term is in relation to the Stoa (see here). I’ve also taken a more critical stance towards the idea that Epictetus’ three topoi might map onto the three parts of Stoic philosophy (see my change of mind here). In short, I’ve brought everything up to date and in line with my current thinking about Stoicism, which has developed and - I hope - improved over the last two decades. The guide to further reading has also been updated to include references to some of the most important work published since the book first came out. As time went by I became less inclined to recommend the book because I was conscious of a few things I no longer fully agreed with; now I can comfortably say that there's nothing in it I don’t stand by today. I was also conscious that over time the price of the book had increased to a level that I thought was excessive. I’m very pleased that Routledge have managed to re-issue it at a more sensible price.
I have two new books coming out this summer. The first is an edited collection, The Cambridge Companion to Marcus Aurelius' Meditations. The second is a revised and updated edition of my 2006 book Stoicism. Click on the titles for further details or below for the publishers' websites:
This year has also seen translations of Lessons in Stoicism into Japanese and Swedish, and a translation of Stoicism into Russian. The autumn should see Hellenistic Philosophy translated into Spanish and the publication of The Stoic Leader, co-authored with Justin Stead. Some new bits and pieces just out:
Some upcoming events:
1. Seneca and Stoicism workshop, organized with my colleague at Royal Holloway, Liz Gloyn, Wednesday 30 April 2025, London. Free and open to all. Further details at https://sites.google.com/view/csas-rhul/workshops 2. Aurelius Foundation public event, Saturday 31 May 2025, London. Further details and tickets at https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/practical-philosophy-stoicism-with-the-aurelius-foundation-tickets-1113689197369 3. Stoicism in Practice conference, Friday 20 June 2025, London. Free and open to all. This is the second annual conference of our 'Centre for the Study and Application of Stoicism'. First announcement at https://sites.google.com/view/csas-rhul/conference Next month, I and my colleague Liz Gloyn are running a workshop on Seneca and Stoicism, taking place in Bloomsbury, in central London, on Wednesday the 30 April. This will be the fourth workshop that Liz and I have organized since 2019. Full details of the event can be found at https://philevents.org/event/show/130182
The workshop is free and open to all, and there's no need to register. I’ve been working on three book projects in the closing months of 2024.
The first is The Cambridge Companion to Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations. This book was finished and submitted last year but this autumn I’ve been checking proofs and compiling an index. All this is now done and it is scheduled to be published in March 2025. There is further information at the CUP website. The second is a new revised edition of my book Stoicism, which was first published in 2006. I have gone through the whole text and made a variety of minor updates and a few additions. The work for this is now in production and it due to be published by Routledge in June 2025. The third is a new translation of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics by Robin Waterfield. I have written an Introduction, some notes, and a guide to further reading to accompany Robin’s translation. We are submitting the final manuscript to Basic Books shortly. With these now done, I have three new book projects to focus on. Two of these are trade books on Stoicism, one likely to come out at the end of 2025 and the other in the Autumn of 2026. The third is a larger project I have been working on for a few years, an academic monograph on Philosophy as a Way of Life in the Renaissance, contracted with Oxford University Press. A fourth book for 2025 is an edited volume on Musonius Rufus which after a number of years is close to completion. For anyone interested in the influence and reception of Stoic ideas, the follow chapters written for different venues offer a more-or-less continuous overview:
For the influence of Stoicism after 1800, there are multiple chapters by others in my Routledge Handbook of the Stoic Tradition (2016), details at https://www.routledge.com/The-Routledge-Handbook-of-the-Stoic-Tradition/Sellars/p/book/9780415660754 |
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