Political Science Faculty

Robert C. Bartlett

Behrakis Professor in Hellenic Political Studies

Photo of Robert C. Bartlett

Robert C. Bartlett

Ph.D.

Contact

McGuinn Hall Room 319

Telephone: 617-552-4163

Email: robert.bartlett@bc.edu

ORCID 0000-0002-4468-3486

Education

  • B.A., University of Toronto
  • M.A., Boston College
  • Ph.D., Boston College

Research Interests

Classical Political Philosophy

Expertise

  • Political Philosophy

Office Hours

TH 1:00-2:00pm and by appointment

Curriculum Vitae

Profile

Robert C. Bartlett is the first Behrakis Professor of Hellenic Political Studies at Boston College. His principal area of research is classical political philosophy, with particular attention to the thinkers of ancient Hellas, including Thucydides, Plato, Xenophon, and Aristotle. He has published articles in the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Politics, Journal of Politics, Review of Politics, and other leading scholarly journals. He is the author or editor of eight books, including The Idea of Enlightenment, Plato's Protagoras and Meno, and Xenophon's The Shorter Socratic Writings. He is also the co-translator of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics (University of Chicago Press, 2011), the author of Sophistry and Political Philosophy: Protagoras' Challenge to Socrates (Chicago, 2012), and a new edition of Aristotle's Art of Rhetoric (Chicago, 2019).

Before coming to Boston College, Robert Bartlett served as the Arthur M. Blank/National Endowment for the Humanities Distinguished Teaching Professor at Emory University.

 

Selected Publications

Against Demagogues: What Aristophanes Can Teach us About the Perils of Populism and the Fate of Democracy (University of California, 2020).

“On the Acharnians.” Interpretation: A Journal of Political Philosophy. 45: 3 (Summer 2019): 365-82.

Aristotle’s "Art of Rhetoric". A New Translation with an Interpretive Essay, Notes, and Glossary.  Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 2019.

“On the Supremacy of Contemplation in Aristotle and Plato.” In Mastery of Nature. Ed. Svetozar Minkov and Bernhardt Trout. University of Pennsylvania Press. 2018.

“On Xenophon’s Agesilaus” together with a new translation of the Agesilaus. In Xenophon, The Shorter Writings. Ed. Gregory McBrayer. Cornell University Press. 2018.

Sophistry and Political Philosophy: Protagoras’ Challenge to Socrates. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. September 2016

Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. A New Translation, with an Interpretive Essay, Notes, and Glossary. With Susan D. Collins. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011. Paperback edition 2012

Xenophon, The Shorter Socratic Writings: Apology of Socrates to the Jury, Oeconomicus, and Symposium. Editor and Contributor. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. 1996. Cornell/Agora Paperback edition, 2006

Plato, “Protagoras” and “Meno.” Translations with Interpretive Essays and Notes. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. 2004

The Idea of Enlightenment: A Post-mortem Study. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. 2001. Paperback edition 2011.

Pierre Bayle, Various Thoughts on the Occasion of a Comet. Edited and translated, with Interpretive Essay. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. 2000

Action and Contemplation: Studies in the Moral and Political Thought of Aristotle. Co-editor, with Susan D. Collins, and contributor. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. 1999

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