Mark Joyal

• CLAS 1270 - Introduction to Ancient Greek Culture
• CLAS 2500 - Education in Ancient Greece and Rome
• CLAS 3710 - Socrates and Athens
• GRK 1010 and 1020 - Introduction to the Reading of Ancient Greek
• GRK 3850/7100 - Plato, Protagoras
• LATN 2800/7200 - Readings in Medieval Latin

I was born and raised in Winnipeg and completed my undergraduate degree at the University of Manitoba. Doctoral study followed at the University of St Andrews, in Scotland. After three years of contractual positions at the University of Calgary and the University of Toronto in the mid-80s, I landed in St. John’s, Newfoundland, where I was Professor of Classics at Memorial University for 15 years, 10 as Head of Department. I returned “home” to UM in 2003, where I took up the position of Department Head for the first 10 years. I teach a wide range of courses in Classical Studies, Greek, and Latin, at all undergraduate levels and at the graduate level. Most of my graduate supervision has been within the large field of “Plato and the Platonic tradition,” but I am happy to supervise theses in all of my research areas (see below under “Research”). Please get in touch if you are interested.
 

• PhD, University of St Andrews, 1988
• BA, University of Manitoba, 1980

Research summary

My PhD, now far in the past, was a comprehensive study of a Platonic dialogue widely considered to be inauthentic (“pseudo-Platonic”). In one way or another it has provided the inspiration and basis for most of the research activities in my career: Platonic and Socratic studies, the Platonic textual and manuscript tradition, Greek prose literature and prose style, Greek and Roman educational practices and theory, and the history of classical scholarship. My current focus is the production of new critical editions of the Greek texts of Plato’s dialogues, to appear in the series Oxford Classical Texts (Oxford University Press) as Platonis Opera (Plato’s Works). Volume 2, a collaborative project, is in press and should appear in 2026. Volume 3, a solo project supported (like vol. 2) by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, is in progress and scheduled for completion around 2030.
 

• “Education,” in Oxford Bibliographies in Classics (2011, third edition 2021 — ca. 200 commented entries), and “Education, Greco-Roman Period,” in Oxford Bibliographies in Biblical Studies (2022 — ca. 160 commented entries).
• “What is Socratic about the pseudo-Platonica?,” in C. Moore, ed., The Brill Companion to the Reception of Socrates. E.J. Brill: Leiden/New York/Köln 2019. 211–36.
• “Education in Greek and Roman Antiquity,” in John L. Rury and Eileen H. Tamura, eds., The Oxford Handbook of the History of Education. Oxford University Press: New York  2019. 83–97.
• “From Parmenius to Paton: 350 years of classical learning in (and about) Newfoundland,” Newfoundland and Labrador Studies 32.2 (2018) 301–53.
• “‘Genuine’ and ‘bastard’ dialogues in the Platonic Corpus: An inquiry into the origins and meaning of a concept,” in Javier Martinez, ed., Ergo Decipiatur: Fakes and Forgers of Classical Literature. Metaforms: Studies in the Reception of Classical Antiquity, vol. 2. Brill: Leiden 2014. 73–93.
• With I. McDougall and J. Yardley, Greek and Roman Education: A Sourcebook. Routledge Publishing: London/New York 2009 (named as an “Outstanding Academic Title, 2009” by Choice, the journal of the American Library Association).
• “Socrates as σοφὸς ἀνήρ in the Axiochus,” in K. Döring et al., eds., Pseudoplatonica. Philosophie der Antike 22. Franz Steiner Verlag: Stuttgart 2005. 97–117.
• “The language and style of the Old Oligarch (pseudo-Xenophon, Ἀθηναίων Πολιτεία),” in R. Egan and M. Joyal, eds., Daimonopylai: Essays in Classics and the Classical Tradition presented to Edmund G. Berry. University of Manitoba Centre for Hellenic Civilization: Winnipeg 2004. 221–39.
• The Platonic Theages. An Introduction, Commentary and Critical Edition. Philosophie der Antike 10. Franz Steiner Verlag: Stuttgart 2000.
• “The textual tradition of [Plato], Theages,” Revue d’Histoire des Textes 28 (1998) 1–54.
• “Tradition and innovation in the transformation of Socrates’ divine sign,” in L. Ayres, ed., The Passionate Intellect: Essays on the Transformation of Classical Traditions Presented to I.G. Kidd. Rutgers University Studies in the Classical Humanities, vol. VII. Rutgers University Press: New Brunswick, NJ 1995. 39–56.
• “A lost Plutarchean philosophical work,” Philologus: Zeitschrift für klassische Philologie 137 (1993) 92–103.
   

• 1989–91, 1996–99, 2024–30: Research Grants (“General” and “Insight”), Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada ((1) The Platonic Theages, (2) Platonis Opera vol. 2, and (3) Platonis Opera vol. 3)
• 2008 - Award of Merit (inaugural), Classical Association of Canada
• 1998 - President’s Award for Outstanding Research, Memorial University of Newfoundland
• 1998 - Publication grant, Karl und Gertrud Abel Stiftung

• 2013–19 - Member of Board, J.W. Dafoe Foundation
• 2016-18 - President, Classical Association of Canada
• 1994-2008 - Editor and co-editor, Mouseion (Journal of the Classical Association of Canada)
• 1990s - Initiated distance-education program for the Department of Classics, Memorial University of Newfoundland, and developed and taught its first six courses