Each year, The Benardete Archive presents the Seth Benardete Award in Ancient Philosophy to an MA or PhD student in the Philosophy department at NSSR. Awardees receive $2,000 for an outstanding paper or dissertation chapter in the field of ancient philosophy (broadly understood), and they are encouraged to use some of the award money for travel, research or a conference to present the paper. The Seth Bernardete Award was launched in 2024 in partnership with The Bernardete Archive by Gwenda-lin Grewal, the Onassis Lecturer in Ancient Greek Thought and Language and Assistant Professor of Ancient Philosophy, in order to support interest in Ancient Philosophy at The New School.
Submissions for the Seth Benardete Award in Ancient Philosophy open each fall, and may be self-nominations by students or faculty nominations of NSSR Philosophy MA or PhD students. Readers will be looking for a paper that is not only lucid and original but also one that is marked by a striking turn of thought. Inquiries about the award should be sent to [email protected].
Seth Benardete taught at NSSR for 37 years. He was an extraordinarily gifted scholar and translator. Pierre Vidal-Naquet once remarked, "There is in the United States one man who is as comfortable with the art of interpreting Homer, Herodotus, or Euripides as he is with that of understanding the most difficult problems raised by the Platonic dialogues, a man who follows texts step by step and discovers their hidden meanings. That man is Seth Benardete. I have long believed that he deserves glory - that of the heroes of Homer, to be precise." The Benardete Archive was established after Benardete's death in 2001. It has received contributions over the years from many of his former colleagues and students.
The New School Archives maintains collections of his work, including his files and audio recordings of his lectures.
Award Recipients
2025: Hannah Scharmer for a paper entitled, “A Harmonious Whole Upheld by Difference: A Close Reading of the Myth of Er.” Hannah is a PhD student in philosophy at The New School for Social Research, working on Simone Weil, phenomenology, and thinking as an act of receptivity. She has a deep appreciation for ancient philosophy and completed her undergraduate studies at Bard College Berlin before co-founding an artist residency in Portugal.
2024: Niklas Goldenthal for a paper entitled, “Truth, Justice, and Articulation in Hesiod’s Theogony.” Niklas is a doctoral candidate in philosophy at The New School for Social Research, New York, where he holds the Onassis Foundation Fellowship. His work focuses on the interconnections between ethics and ontology in 19th/20th Century Continental Thought and Ancient Greek Thought. His essays have been featured in The European Legacy and the Sofia Philosophical Review. He has an M.A. in Philosophy from The New School of Social Research, and an M.A. in European Thought from University College London.