AB 2002 Princeton University
MPhil 2003 University of Cambridge
PhD 2009 University of Cambridge
Dr. Kelli Rudolph is a leading international expert in the history of philosophy. She is currently Senior Lecturer (equivalent to Associate Professor) in Classics and Philosophy in the School of Classics, English and History.
Before being jointly appointed to Philosophy and Classical and Archaeological Studies at the University of Kent, Kelli was an Assistant Professor (tenure-track) at Grand Valley State University and concurrently held a postdoctoral research fellowship in the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Oxford.
Kelli served as Head of Classical and Archaeological Studies from 2020-2023 and sits on the Advisory Board for the Institute of Classical Studies.
Dr. Rudolph is a fellow of the Harvard Center for Hellenic Studies in Washington, DC in 2024-2025 and will be taking up a Leverhulme Research Grant in 2025-2026.
Dr. Rudolph focuses on the importance of ancient arguments for contemporary debates, while also elucidating the ancient texts within their own historical, literary and cultural milieu.
Her fascination with fragmentary sources guided her early work on ancient physics, epistemology, and the doxographical tradition, and informs her recent work on Stoic ethics and politics.
Kelli’s current Leverhulme Trust-funded project asks: what is popular Stoicism doing to Stoicism? By selectively isolating and amplifying certain aspects of ancient Stoic ethics, it is distorting the philosophy. This book explains why Stoicism as a dominant moral framework is so enormously popular today and explains how its shortcomings arise from a fundamental misunderstanding of ancient Stoicism’s foundational emphasis on individual autonomy and social relations.
Her earlier work on Stoicism was part of a British Academy-funded project with Professor Aldo Dinucci (Federal University of Espírito Santo, Brazil) which asked: what makes an argument ‘persuasive’ and how do people identify it as such? Major conferences in Brazil and publications in Portuguese aimed to make this research accessible to the Global South. An accompanying monograph, in English, is forthcoming, which demonstrates the importance of Stoic contributions to contemporary problems in the ethics of manipulation.
Kelli’s interest in perception inspired her intervention in the developing field of sensory studies in Classics. She broke new ground with Taste and the Ancient Senses, assembling specialists across the spectrum of classical studies – including archaeology, medicine, literature, religion, and oenology – to uncover the value, meaning, and function of taste in ancient society. Uniquely interdisciplinary in nature, this edited collection examines how philosophy, medicine, and technology shape the ancient experience and cultural conception of taste. One reviewer called the result a “field-creating volume”
Dr. Rudolph is a nationally recognised advocate for academic freedom. This is an essential outgrowth of her research into how rational examination enables us to resist persuasion.
As lead author of a position paper on Academic Freedom as a Public Good, for the Council for the Defence of British Universities, Kelli set out a vision for academic freedom in the 21st century alongside the most robust model ordinance of academic freedom in the UK.
As a member of the Academic Freedom and Internationalization Working Group (AFIWG) she has also collaboratively designed a Model Code of Conduct that protects academic freedom in the context of international cooperation, where threats to researchers and university autonomy might arise.
Kelli’s primary goal in teaching is to nurture students’ curiosity and critical thinking so that they challenge received wisdom and become independent thinkers who ask innovative questions or develop new and engaging answers to age old questions.
Kelli has extensive experience teaching ancient philosophy, Greek and Latin at all levels, but her teaching ranges widely across the ancient world, including in history, literature and their reception in the broader intellectual tradition. Kelli has also contributed to teaching on Philosophy modules, including introductions to Ethics, Political Philosophy, and Philosophy as a Way of Life.
Kelli is committed to the value of making ancient philosophy, literature and history available to everyone who is interested in it, regardless of their training or background. While Assistant Professor at Grand Valley State University, Kelli introduced students to the Classics and Philosophy by teaching widely popular general education courses and through interdisciplinary courses like ancient medicine. At Kent she continues this multidisciplinary interest in modules like Foundations of Activism.
Loading publications...
Showing of total publications in the Kent Academic Repository. View all publications
