Phillips Named Executive Director of the International Boethius Society

The International Boethius Society welcomes Philip Edward Phillips (Middle Tennessee State University) as its new Executive Director. Upon accepting his appointment by outgoing Executive Director Noel Harold Kaylor, Jr., on July 9, 2025, he named Professor Kaylor Executive Director Emeritus and promoted Anthony G. Cirilla from associate editor to co-editor (with Kenneth C. Hawley) of Carmina Philosophiae. A charter member of the Society, Professor Phillips has served as its Corresponding Secretary (1992-1996), editor of the IBS Newsletter (1995-2002), co-editor (with Noel Harold Kaylor, Jr.) of Carmina Philosophiae (1996-2014), and Secretary (1996-2025). The author of “Boethius” in Oxford Bibliographies in Medieval Studies (Oxford, 2017) and editor of Prison Narratives from Boethius to Zana (Palgrave, 2014), Professor Phillips was co-editor (with Professor Kaylor) of five books on Boethius. He is grateful to Professor Kaylor for his lifelong commitment to the advancement of Boethian studies, from founding the Society to supporting emerging scholars, and he looks forward to working with the officers, trustees, and members of the Society to continue to promote the study of Boethius worldwide.

Kaylor Retires as Executive Director of the International Boethius Society

The International Boethius Society expresses its profound respect and appreciation to Noel Harold Kaylor, Jr., upon his retirement as Executive Director of the IBS and co-editor of Carmina Philosophiae, effective July 8, 2025. Professor Kaylor founded the Society and ratified its Constitution at Kalamazoo on May 9, 1992. He subsequently served as the Society’s Executive Director from 1992-2025 and as the co-editor of its journal (with Philip Edward Phillips) from 1996-2014 (Volume 5/6 to 23) and (with Kenneth C. Hawley) from 2015-2025 (Volume 24 to 32/33). His contributions to the field of Boethian studies have been enormous, from the publication of his foundational The Medieval Consolation of Philosophy: An Annotated Bibliography (Garland, 1993) to his many important co-edited collections and editions, especially The Consolation of Queen Elizabeth I (ACMRS, 2009) and A Companion to Boethius in the Middle Ages (Brill, 2012), as well as numerous articles and editions related to Boethius and Chaucer. He appointed Professor Phillips to succeed him. Professor Kaylor, now our Executive Director Emeritus, is devoting his time to the completion of an important book, The Trojan War Tradition, and to other book-length projects in progress.

The International Boethius Society Welcomes Ian Johnson as New President

The International Boethius Society (IBS) warmly welcomes longtime member and Boethian scholar, Professor Ian Johnson, as our new president. Johnson accepted his new position at our IBS business meeting held on June 10, 2025, at the Twelfth Annual Symposium on Medieval and Renaissance Studies (SMRS) at Saint Louis University.

Johnson is Professor of Medieval Literature and a member of the Institute of Mediaeval Studies at the University of St Andrews. He co-directed the Queen’s Belfast-St Andrews AHRC-funded project Geographies of Orthodoxy (2007-11). With Alastair Minnis, he edited The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism: Volume II. The Middle Ages (2005). His other major publications include The Middle English Life of Christ (2013), The Pseudo-Bonaventuran Lives of Christ, ed. with Allan Westphall (2013), The Impact of Latin Culture on Medieval and Early Modern Scottish Writing, ed. with Alessandra Petrina (2018), Geoffrey Chaucer in Context (ed. 2019), and Literary Theory and Criticism in the Later Middle Ages, ed. with Ardis Butterfield and Andrew Kraebel. 

A contributor to Brill’s A Companion to Boethius in the Middle Ages (2012) and Vernacular Traditions of Boethius’s De consolation philosophiae (2016), both edited by Noel Harold Kaylor, Jr., and Philip Edward Phillips, he is currently working on a study of the translation of Boethius’s De consolatione philosophiae in late medieval England and Scotland. Ian Johnson is our fifth president—following Margaret Gibson, Michael Masi, J. Keith Atkinson, and Paul E. Szarmach—since the Society’s founding in 1992.

Philip Edward Phillips, IBS Secretary

Fabio Troncarelli - New Book

International Boethius Society Trustee Fabio Troncarelli has just published a volume on Living Memory: Boethius, Cassiodorus, and the Consolation of Philosophy, Brill - V&R Press, 2025, with 63 figures.

Fabio Troncarelli examines the Late Antique Cassiodorus edition of the Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius in this study consisting of five chapters. The first one is a brief sketch of the biography of the two protagonists of the story. The second is about the medieval copies of the edition, some very close to the original archetype, preserving even its formal aspect and the indication of its first transcription in Ravenna in the 6th century. The third chapter establishes a comparison between some typical rhetorical, philosophical or editorial methods by Cassiodorus and the ones we find in the Boethius' edition. The fourth chapter explains what could have been the reasons for Cassiodorus to make such an edition, in the years of the breakdown of the Osthrogotic rule in Italy. The last chapter is about the afterlife of Boethius' reputation in Vivarium and the relationships between his murder and Amalsuntha's murder established by the Vivarian monks. (from the publisher's description: available on Amazon)

12th Annual SMRS - 2025 CFP

Boethius at the 12th Annual Symposium of Medieval and Renaissance Studies

Saint Louis University

June 9-11, 2025

The International Boethius Society seeks papers for panels on Boethian scholarship to be hosted by the Symposium of Medieval and Renaissance Studies, at Saint Louis University in Saint Louis, MO, on June 9-11, 2025. We are particularly interested in papers which examine The Consolation of Philosophy in translation and literary reception, as well as papers which explore teaching Boethius in a variety of contexts. However, papers exploring any aspect of Boethius's corpus and influence are welcome. 

Please submit paper abstracts of about 300 words to Anthony G. Cirilla at acirilla@cofo.edu by December 25, 2024. Also please consider joining the International Boethius Society to help support our efforts to promote Boethius scholarship.

11th Annual Symposium on Medieval & Renaissance Studies

 Boethius 2024: The 1500 Year Memorial Conference

St. Louis University - June 10-12, 2024 

We had some wonderfully insightful and engaging presentations at our Boethius Mini-Conference.

Below are a few photos, and the program for our sessions is provided on our Conferences page.

Plenary Address, Stephen Blackwood, Ralston College

William Christian, Anthony G. Cirilla, Jane Maschue, & Gary Hartenburg

Discussion

Ethan Smilie, Madeline Fox, & Camarie Cirilla

Ian Johnson, Jennifer Arch, Abigail Palmisano, & Nicholas Babich

Jane Maschue, William Christian, Joshua Keatley, & Savannah Xaver

Megan Murton, Ian Johnson, Melinda Nielsen, & Ian Cornelius

Lea Luecking Frost

Margaret Trenchard-Smith

Boethius 2024: The 1500 Year Memorial Conference at SMRS

11th Annual Symposium on Medieval & Renaissance Studies

Boethius 2024: Mini-Conference Sponsored by the International Boethius Society

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In 524, Boethius authored the Consolation of Philosophy on the eve of his unjust execution. Fifteen centuries later, Boethius remains a figure of inspiration and fascination in his own right, and as a profoundly influential figure through the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and beyond. In 2024, this memorial conference will consider that wide ranging legacy, hosted at the Symposium of Medieval and Renaissance Studies held annually at St. Louis University in June. The International Boethius Society has had a presence at the SMRS since the symposium started and is pleased to organize this memorial to the life, works, and influence of a writer who shaped medieval and Renaissance thinkers so profoundly.

We look forward to this special mini-conference at the Symposium and will be providing updates soon on the featured presentations and sessions that the International Boethius Society is organizing for this event.