Rate My Professor George Boys-Stones

George Boys-Stones serves as Professor of Classics and Philosophy in the Faculty of Arts & Science at the University of Toronto's St. George campus. Since July 1, 2023, he has been Chair and Graduate Chair of the Department of Classics. His academic background includes a BA in Classics from Christ’s College, University of Cambridge (1992), a DPhil from St John’s College, University of Oxford on Plutarch, and a LittD from the University of Cambridge. Following his doctoral studies, he held a Junior Research Fellowship in Classics at Corpus Christi College, Oxford from 1995 to 1998. He then served as a teaching fellow in the Classics Department at the University of Bristol for one year. Subsequently, he spent 20 years at Durham University in the Department of Classics and Ancient History as Professor of Ancient Philosophy, during which he was Department Chair from 2009 to 2012, assumed leadership roles in national subject bodies for Classics, and served twice on the Research Excellence Framework (REF) panel for Classics. In 2019, Boys-Stones joined the University of Toronto. Additionally, since 2012, he has been the Managing Editor of Phronesis, a premier journal in ancient philosophy.

A leading scholar of ancient philosophy, Boys-Stones specializes in Hellenistic and post-Hellenistic thought, including Middle Platonism, Stoicism (such as Panaetius and Cornutus), their influences on Cicero, Plutarch, and early Christian philosophers Athenagoras and Clement. He is the author or co-author of several influential books, including Post-Hellenistic Philosophy: A Study of its Development from the Stoics to Origen (Oxford University Press, 2001); Platonist Philosophy 80 BC to AD 250: An Introduction and Collection of Sources in Translation (Cambridge University Press, 2018), providing a comprehensive sourcebook for Middle Platonism; L. Annaeus Cornutus: Greek Theology, Fragments and Testimonia (SBL Press, 2018), the first complete edition; Plotinus: The Enneads (Cambridge University Press, 2018, co-edited); The Circle of Socrates: Readings in the First-Generation Socratics (Hackett Publishing, 2013, with C. J. Rowe); Plato and Hesiod (Oxford University Press, 2010); The Oxford Handbook of Hellenic Studies (Oxford University Press, 2009); and Metaphor, Allegory, and the Classical Tradition: Ancient Thought and Modern Revisions (Oxford University Press, 2003). He has published numerous articles in leading venues such as Phronesis, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, and edited volumes.