Contact Information

Biography

Kelly Arenson works on the history of ancient ethics, particularly the development of the notions of pleasure and happiness in Plato, Epicurus, and Aristotle. Her other interests include philosophy of death, philosophy of technology/robotics, and personal identity. She is the author of Health and Hedonism in Plato and Epicurus (2019) and the editor of The Routledge Handbook of Hellenistic Philosophy (2020).

In addition, Dr. Arenson is the founder and president of the (HPS), an international organization centered on the study of Stoicism, Epicureanism, and Skepticism. The HPS convenes at the American Philosophical Association鈥檚 annual meetings.

Education

Ph.D., Philosophy, Emory University, 2009
M.A., Philosophy, Emory University, 2007
B.A., Philosophy, Boston College, 2002

School

Undergraduate

  • Philosophy of Death and Living
  • Philosophical Ethics
  • Ancient Philosophy
  • Philosophy of Science
  • Epistemology
  • Logic
  • Honors Philosophy
  • New course in development: Are Robots People?

Graduate:

  • Epicurean Ethics
  • Plato on the Body and the Non-Rational
  • Virtue Ethics
  • Aristotle鈥檚 Ethics;
  • Individual Platonic dialogues (particularly the Philebus, Timaeus, Phaedrus, and Republic)
  • Ancient Hedonism and Anti-hedonism.

Publications

Sole editor, The Routledge Handbook of Hellenistic Philosophy (2020).

Health and Hedonism in Plato and Epicurus (Bloomsbury, 2019).

鈥淓picureans on Pity, Slavery, and Autonomy.鈥� Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy 34.1 (2019): 119鈥�36.

鈥淓picureans on Marriage as Sexual Therapy,鈥� Polis 33 (2016): 291鈥�311.

鈥淚mpure Intellectual Pleasure and the Phaedrus,鈥� Epoch茅: A Journal for the History of Philosophy 21.1 (2016): 21鈥�45.

Review of The Birth of Hedonism: The Cyrenaic Philosophers and Pleasure as a Way of Life, by Kurt Lampe (Princeton University Press). Polis 33.1 (2016): 205鈥�9.

Review of The Pleasures of Reason in Plato, Aristotle, and the Hellenistic Hedonists, by James Warren (Cambridge University Press). The Classical Review 66.1 (2016): 60鈥�2.

鈥淎ugustine鈥檚 Defense and Redemption of the Body.鈥� Studia Patristica LXX (Peeters, 2013): 529鈥�37. Also translated by Jos茅 Anoz into Spanish as 鈥淒efense y vindicaci贸n agustinianas del cuerpo,鈥� Augustinus LX (2015): 5鈥�14.

鈥淣atural and Neutral States in Plato鈥檚 Philebus,鈥� Apeiron 44.2 (2011): 191鈥�209.

鈥淧leasure,鈥� in the Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece and Rome, ed. M. Gagarin et al. (Oxford University Press, 2009).

Grants/Awards

Excellence in Teaching Award, National Society for Leadership and Success, Duquesne Chapter, Spring 2017.

Duquesne Presidential Scholarship: grant to support revisions to book manuscript during summer 2016.

NEH Endowment Grant to host three-speaker symposium, 鈥淭he Body and the Non-Rational in Ancient Greek Thought,鈥� at 麻豆直播, March 2013. Speakers: Emily Austin (Wake Forest), Cristina Ionescu (Catholic University of America), Rachel Singpurwalla (Maryland).

Andrew W. Mellon Foundation/American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) Dissertation Completion Fellowship, 2008鈥�2009 (899 applicants for 65 awards).

George W. Woodruff Fellowship, Emory University, 2003鈥�2008 (only 15 such awards in each entering class of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences).

United States Fulbright Grant, 2002鈥�2003, Albert-Ludwigs Universit盲t, Freiburg, Germany.