Margaret Graver
Professor
Appointments
Aaron Lawrence Professor in Classics
Area of Expertise
Ancient philosophy,
Latin literature
Biography
Margaret Graver is Aaron Lawrence Professor of Classical Studies at Dartmouth College. Educated at the University of North Carolina and at Brown University, she has been a member of Dartmouth's faculty since 1996.
She is a specialist in Hellenistic and Roman philosophy, with an emphasis on Stoic moral psychology. Her most-cited work is Stoicism and Emotion (Chicago, 2007), which treats all aspects of emotional response and emotive traits of character in early Stoicism. She has also written extensively on Seneca's philosophical letters and treatises, especially in Seneca, The Literary Philosopher (Cambridge, 2023). As a translator, she has published a translation of Cicero's Tusculan Disputations with introduction and philosophical commentary (Cicero on the Emotions, Chicago, 2002) and, collaborating with A.A. Long, a complete annotated translation of Seneca's Letters on Ethics (Chicago, 2015), as well as a smaller collection titled Fifty Letters of a Roman Stoic (Chicago, 2021). With Sean McConnell and Nathan Gilbert, she co-edited Power and Persuasion in Cicero's Philosophy (Cambridge, 2023). Special areas of interest in her articles and chapters include Stoic compatibilism, friendship and the doing of favors, honor, and therapeutic strategies in philosophical writing. Her current major project is a monograph on Cicero's lifelong engagement with Stoic ethics.
Education
B.A. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 1982
Ph.D. Brown University 1996
Taught Courses
Publications
Seneca: The Literary Philosopher. Cambridge, 2023.
Power and Persuasion in Cicero's Philosophy. Co-edited with Nathan Gilbert and Sean McConnell. Cambridge, 2023.
Seneca: Letters on Ethics. Translated and with an Introduction and Commentary by Margaret Graver and A.A. Long. Chicago, 2015; paperback 2017.
Stoicism and Emotion. Chicago, 2007; paperback 2009.
Cicero on the Emotions: Tusculan Disputations 3 and 4. Chicago, 2002.
Seneca: Fifty Letters of a Roman Stoic. Chicago, 2021.
"Cramps, Diarrhea, and Fevers: The Dangers of Reading in Seneca and Epictetus." In Dangerous Latin Literature from Antiquity to the Modern Age, ed. Elisa Della Calce and Simone Mollea, 125-40. De Gruyter.
"Does God Have a Choice? Human and Divine Volition in Stoic Philosophy." Praxis - Handeln und Handelnde in antiker Philosophie, ed. F. Buddensiek and S. Odzuck, 349-370. De Gruyter, 2023.
"Seneca and the Stoic Tradition: Managing Anger, Mitigating Grief, Finding Room for Joy." In Seneca and Stoic Apatheia: Ethics, Physics, and the History of Emotions, ed. Fabio Tutrone and Myrto Garani. DeGruyter, 2026.
Speaking Engagements
"The Pathetic Syllogism, Round Two: A Response to Jean-Baptiste Gourinat," March 6, 2026. At Chicago Ancient Philosophy Colloquium, Chicago.
"The Impassivity of Stilpo." At University of Cambridge, September 5, 2025 (Conference on "Loss, grief, and its therapy: philosophical perspectives from ancient Greece, Rome, and Asia." and at University of Crete, Rethymno, March 31, 2025.
"Instruments and Impediments: A Senecan-Aristotelian Debate on the Activation of the Virtues." At Renmin University, Beijing, June 10, 2024.
"Rhetorical Duplicity in Cicero's De Finibus." Yale Later Stoicism Conference, April 5, 2024.
"Honor and Glory in Hellenistic Stoicism." Assos, Turkey, July 5, 2023.
"The Madman's Choice: Plato and Plato's Republic in De Re Publica 1.1-12." At New Sorbonne University, Paris, Sept. 2, 2022.
Contact