International Plutarch Society

Old Sovereign Publishing have launched a playwrighting competition with the theme requiring the work to be based on an episode or biography within the Lives of Plutarch. The requirement is to write one Act for the play with a completed (simple: no more than a paragraph per additional Act) scene plan for the rest of the play. Two finalists will be selected and they will have the Act of their play performed on the London stage by the acting collective The Base. The winner will be chosen on the night by popular acclamation from the audience. The winner will then have until the Spring to complete the play in full for publication. The prize for the winner is $2,500 and a publishing contract. The deadline for submission is Monday 3rd August 2026 , with the event taking place in December. Full details can be found here . Any questions, please feel free to address them directly to George Carter (Director, OSP) .

The International Plutarch Society has learned of the passing of two long longtime and influential members. Sven-Tage Teodorsson (1934–2024) Obituary for Prof. Teodorsson Luc Van der Stockt (1952–2025) Obituary for Prof. Van der Stockt

Transformations, Transfigurations & Alterations in Plutarch University of Córdoba, 6-8 November 2025 This Conference proposes a space for reflection around the work of Plutarch, a fundamental author in ancient literature who explores, through his Parallel Lives and Moralia, concepts of change, identity and alterity. The versatility of his work allows these issues to be addressed from varied perspectives and disciplines, which is why four thematic blocks are proposed: Mythology: This block will analyze how Plutarch transforms and adapts mythical stories, interpreting them in light of moral and philosophical values, which reveal his ethical and pedagogical vision. History: This block will study Plutarch's approach to historical events, observing how biographical narratives are shaped, reinterpreted and adapted to meet moral purposes. Linguistics and Narrative: The stylistic, rhetorical and linguistic resources that Plutarch uses to construct his texts will be explored, observing ...

The International Plutarch Society announces its 13th International Congress, to be held 11-13 June 2025, in Groningen, Netherlands. The theme for the congress is "Plutarch and the Natural World." For more information, please visit  the webpage for the congress . 

The German Section of the International Plutarch Society has issued a call for papers for a conference on Plutarch and Emotions, which will take place at the University of Hamburg on 13th-14th September 2023 . Plutarch and Emotions It has been more than twenty years since classical scholars have turned their attention to the study of the emotions of the Greeks and Romans, resorting to an interdisciplinary methodological framework that combines insights from the more traditional fields of literary studies, textual criticism, ancient history, archaeology, papyrology, with the new impulses provided by the neurosciences, social linguistics, communication theories and psychology. Several studies (e.g. A. Chaniotis, Unveiling Emotions 1, 2 and 3, Stuttgart 2012, 2013, 2021; D. Cairns, A Cultural History of the Emotions. 1, In Antiquity , London/New York 2019; D. Konstan, The Emotions of the Ancient Greeks: Studies in Aristotle and Classical Literature , Toronto 2006) led to a better unders...

July 17-21, 2023 / Online Moderators: Prof. Mallory Monaco Caterine (Tulane Univeristy) and Prof. Scott Farrington (Dickinson College)  Our text for 2023 is Plutarch’s Mulierum Virtutes (“Bravery of Women”). Unlike Thucydides’ Pericles, Plutarch believed that the names of virtuous women ought to be widely known, and he produced this book, he tells us, to prove that womanly virtue and manly virtue are one and the same. Join us and delight in unsurpassed examples of courage and bravery from all over the ancient world. Learn how the Trojan women selected the site of Rome, how the women of Salmantica faced down Hannibal’s thugs, and how Valeria and Cloelia escaped the grip of Tarquin’s sons. For more information, please see the full announcement on the Dickinson Commentaries website.

With great sadness the International Plutarch Society has learned of the passing of one its founding members, Frederick Brenk.  A prolific scholar, Jesuit priest, and friend to several generations of Plutarchans, Fred passed away on December 3, 2022. His full obituary was published by the Midwest Jesuits. Fred belonged to the entire academic community but will be particularly missed by his colleagues in the International Plutarch Society. Over his many years of activity, he attended conferences all over the planet, corresponded and visited many of his Plutarchan colleagues, and was a mentor to many young scholars. He was particularly generous in officiating Sunday mass at Society meetings. We will miss him terribly and send now "ave atque vale" to our dear friend.  The forthcoming issue of Ploutarchos will include our Society's tribute.

Translating Plutarch Coventry, UK 28-30 June 2023 Plutarch is a prolific and varied author whose works, individually and collectively, have often been translated into many languages even before, and certainly since, the Renaissance. Yet his very fecundity presents challenges to the translator and some of his works raise methodological problems as well as linguistic difficulties: for example, what is the effect of splitting up pairs of Parallel Lives and translating them individually? To translate is to interpret: how have Plutarch’s successive translators affected his meaning, and what are the consequences of translation? The International Plutarch Society and Coventry University take pleasure in inviting proposals for papers on every aspect of the translation of Plutarch’s work, Lives as well as Moralia, into any language at any period, and indeed for papers which deal with Plutarch’s own translating. Papers should be no longer than 30 minutes’ duration. The conference will be held in...

The International Society for Socratic Studies announces a call for abstracts for their upcoming conference. Socratica V July 11-14, 2022 Rice University, Houston, TX For more information, please visit the society's webpage .

  Call for Papers: 3. Workshop des AK ‚Philosophie und Religion‘ der Gesellschaft für antike Philosophie in Kooperation mit der Deutschen Sektion der International Plutarch Society Plutarch,  De Iside et Osiride Trier, den 18.-19. 06.2021 Der Arbeitskreis ‚Philosophie und Religion‘ der GanPh unter der Leitung von Dr. Angela Ulacco (Universität Fribourg), JProf. Dr. Diego De Brasi (Universität Trier) sowie PD Dr. Marko J. Fuchs (Universität Bamberg) bietet v.a. Nachwuchswissenschaftler*innen ein Forum, um sich mit dem Verhältnis und wechselseitigen Einfluss von Philosophie, Theologie und Religion in der Antike auseinanderzusetzen und sich damit mit einem Forschungsgebiet zu beschäftigen, das zentral für ein historisch und systematisch angemessenes Verständnis zahlreicher philosophischer Positionen dieser Epoche ist. Hauptziel des AK besteht demnach darin, sich denjenigen Texten zu widmen, die das Verhältnis von Religion, Theologie und Philosophie in der Antike – sei es...

The latest volume (Volume 17) of Ploutarchos is now available. With this volume, the full catalogue of all volumes is now freely available online. Please see the Ploutarchos page for more information.

Following is the call for papers for a panel organized by the USA section of the International Plutarch Society.  The panel will be part of the annual meeting of the Society for Classical Studies, January 5-8, 2022, in San Francisco, California. Greek Tragedy in the Early Empire Sponsored by the International Plutarch Society. Organized by Anna Peterson (The Pennsylvania State University), Zoe Stamatopoulou (Washington University in St. Louis), and Jeffrey Beneker (University of Wisconsin, Madison)   In the final scene of Plutarch’s   Crassus , the Roman general’s decapitated head famously serves as a prop in a tragic actor’s gruesome re-enactment of the climax of Euripides’   Bacchae . This scene, which represents the culmination of a broader comparison of Crassus and Pentheus (Braund 1993; Zadorojnyi 1997), exemplifies Plutarch’s ability to use tragedy to delineate a character for his readers and to help them draw moral lessons (De Lacy 1952; Mossman 1988 and 1992;...

Dear Colleagues, Participants of the IPS Congress in Warsaw, We hope you are safe and well in these difficult times. On behalf of the Organizing Committee I am sorry to inform you that the IPS Congress in Warsaw, scheduled on September 3rd-6th 2020, has to be postponed due to the ongoing health crisis. The decision has been made jointly by the Organizers of the Congress and IPS Officers. The University will be returning conference fees to those of you who have already made a transfer.  The new date for the conference is September 2nd-5th 2021. We hope that by then the situation will stabilize and international travel will resume. Please expect to hear again from us in March next year when we plan to reopen registration.  We very much look forward to seeing you next year in Warsaw.

Call for Papers 3. Workshop des  AK ‚Philosophie und Religion‘  der  Gesellschaft für antike Philosophie in Kooperation mit der Deutschen Sektion der  International Plutarch Society Plutarch,  De Iside et Osiride Marburg, den 19./20.06.2020 Der Arbeitskreis ‚Philosophie und Religion‘ der GanPh unter der Leitung von Dr. Angela Ulacco (Universität Fribourg), Dr. Diego De Brasi (Universität Marburg) sowie PD Dr. Marko J. Fuchs (Universität Bamberg) bietet v.a. Nachwuchswissenschaftler*innen ein Forum, um sich mit dem Verhältnis und wechselseitigen Einfluss von Philosophie, Theologie und Religion in der Antike auseinanderzusetzen und sich damit mit einem Forschungsgebiet zu beschäftigen, das zentral für ein historisch und systematisch angemessenes Verständnis zahlreicher philosophischer Positionen dieser Epoche ist. Hauptziel des AK besteht demnach darin, sich denjenigen Texten zu widmen, die das Verhältnis von Religion, Theologie und Philosop...

Following is the call for papers for a panel organized by the USA section of the International Plutarch Society.  The panel will be part of the annual meeting of the Society for Classical Studies, January 7-10, 2021, in Chicago. The Discourse of Leadership in the Greco-Roman World Sponsored by the International Plutarch Society. Organized by Mallory Monaco Caterine, Tulane University, and Jeffrey Beneker, University of Wisconsin, Madison For better or worse, the vast majority of extant literature from Greco-Roman antiquity was written by individuals who were leaders in their communities and was aimed at an audience of similar, leaderly peers, or at times, at leaders who were even more powerful than the authors themselves. It is unsurprising, then, that the complex concept of leadership is a common theme in ancient literature across genres and time-periods. Plutarch, both in his Moralia and Lives, is preoccupied with examining and constructing models of leadership for his ...

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the upcoming international congress has been postponed to 2021. Please see the new date below. Plutarch and his Contemporaries: Sharing the Roman Empire 2-5 September 2021 , Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski University in Warsaw, Poland The Call for Papers is now available. More information about the conference will be coming soon.

Photos from the undergraduate panel "Lessons in Biography: Plutarch's Parallel Lives of the Ancient Greeks and Romans " held at Wayne State University, March 29, 2019. The panel, which was organized by Sean Oberc with the help of Professor Michele Valerie Ronnick, was part of Wayne State's Rushton Undergraduate Conference. Moderator: Nicholas B. Young (University of Detroit Jesuit High School) Presenters Lindy Lenk, Plutarch's Life of Demosthenes Sean Oberc, Plutarch's Life of Cicero Sierra Jones, Plutarch on Mark Antony Greg Urbiel, Demetrius and Antony: A Synkrysis

Following is the call for papers for a panel organized by the USA section of the International  Plutarch  Society.  The panel will be part of the annual meeting of the Society for Classical Studies, January 2-5, 2020, in Washington, DC. Literary Banquets of the Imperial Era Sponsored by the International Plutarch Society. Organized by Jeffrey Beneker, University of Wisconsin, Madison, and Zoe Stamatopoulou, Washington University in St. Louis. Though its origins date back to Classical Athens, sympotic literature was quite popular during the Roman imperial period and was produced by a diverse group of authors, including Plutarch, Athenaeus, Aulus Gellius, and Lucian, in both Greek and Latin. Several scholarly works published in the past decade, such as   The Philosopher’s Banquet   edited by F. Klotz and K. Oikonomopoulou (OUP 2011), J. König’s   Saints and Symposiasts   (CUP 2012), and Y. Scolan’s   Le convive et le savant   (Les ...

The North American Sections of the International Plutarch Society are delighted to announce our second conference, to be held 15-18 May 2019 in Logan, UT. The Call for Papers is now open. We welcome submissions focusing on the Parallel Lives and/or Moralia individually or collectively. Abstracts can be submitted through the link below, by selecting “Submit an Abstract”. Please plan for a paper that takes no more than 20 minutes to deliver. Abstracts will be judged anonymously by the organizing committee. The deadline for consideration is 30 November 2018. Some subsidized bursaries will be available for graduate students, and contingent, junior, and retired faculty. All presentations will be in English, and publication options remain open. To submit an abstract, please visit our web page .

Following is the call for papers for a panel organized by the USA section of the International Plutarch Society.  The panel will be part of the annual meeting of the Society for Classical Studies, January 3-6, 2019, in San Diego, California. Truth to Power: Literary, Rhetorical, and Philosophical Responses to Autocratic Rule in the Roman Empire Sponsored by the International Plutarch Society. Organized by Mark Beck, University of South Carolina, and Jeffrey Beneker, University of Wisconsin, Madison. If the dedicatory letter to Trajan that serves as preface to Plutarch’s Sayings of Kings and Commanders is genuine, then Plutarch wished the emperor to reap what he called “the first fruits of philosophy” by reading the wise words of “famous leaders, lawmakers, and rulers” selected from the Greek past. Dio of Prusa, rather than send a letter, stood in person before Trajan to deliver four orations on kingship, relying (as did Plutarch) on the sayings of ancient leaders, but also tr...