Prof. Graf's Article Wins the American Journal of Philology's Best Article Prize!

“The Pleasures of Flattery and the Hermeneutics of Suspicion in Seneca’s Natural Questions (4a. Praef.)”

Congratulations to Prof. Graf, whose article entitled, “The Pleasures of Flattery and the Hermeneutics of Suspicion in Seneca’s Natural Questions (4a. Praef.),” won the American Journal of Philology's Best Article for 2023.

This paper treats an enigmatic passage in Seneca’s meteorological treatise, the Natural Questions: an extended excursus on the dangerous pleasures elicited by flattery. In this passage, Seneca emphasizes that the pleasures of flattery cannot be eradicated, even when a flatterer is exposed as insincere. Putting this passage in dialogue with modern debates about “paranoid reading” and the “hermeneutics of suspicion,” Prof. Graf argues that Seneca draws our attention to an impasse within systems of thought that put a premium on the ability to see through the deceptive appearances of words and things. Learn more about this article and the award it received here: https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/article/945194.