About the Boethius Project
It all began with an idea: What if we could bring people together to read one of the greatest books of all time? And so, in 2024, during the 1500th anniversary of Boethius’s death, we set out on a quest to develop new tools and bring about a revival of The Consolation of Philosophy.
The spark
We knew from the start that we wanted to create a feature-length documentary film. From time to time, we also posted reflections on The Consolation on social media. That’s when something incredible happened. People from all around the world have sent us photos of their book from the mail. As more and more requests came in for guidance on how to get the most out of reading Boethius, we knew we had to follow one of our founding principles: never wait until conditions are perfect to get started. So here we are. And we’re having a blast!
Read our founder SJ Murray on Boethius as the book C.S. Lewis’s Screwtape feared most in Christianity Today
“Once a bedrock Christian classic, Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy has been neglected for decades. It’s time for a revival.”
Read more about the Boethius Project in Baylor University news
“Embracing the Consolation’s wisdom would incalculably improve our world.”
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Dr. SJ Murray is Founder of The Greats Story Lab™. The Boethius Project grew out of approaches to teaching The Consolation she developed for her Great Texts courses at Baylor University (where she is Professor in the Honors College) and her passion for studying ancient manuscripts and evergreen ideas.
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Courtney Becker co-Founded The Greats Story Lab™ and serves as its Executive Director. An award-winning editor and producer, she developed a passion for reading Boethius as an undergraduate student and returns to The Consolation regularly for his great lessons on how to lead a meaningful life. Beginning with Book 3, Courtney is the co-author of materials for the digital reading journey and downloadable OERs.
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Dr. Lori Baker serves as the Executive Vice President of Aspirational Excellence at Belmont University. With a Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, she specializes in the molecular and forensic analysis of skeletal remains. An authority in her field, Dr. Baker's insights have reached a global audience as an invited speaker at numerous national and international venues. Her work has been featured across major platforms including National Geographic, Scientific American, Discover Magazine, and top newspapers like the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal, as well as on NPR, BBC, and MSNBC.
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Melinda Nielsen is an associate professor of literature in the Great Texts Program at Baylor University, where she teaches great books from Homer to Aquinas to Tolkien. She received her PhD in English from the University of Notre Dame and works on the translation and reception of classical culture into medieval English, particularly through the lens of manuscript studies. She is the author of more than a dozen articles on the Boethian and Chaucerian traditions, and translator of the popular medieval-Latin poem,The Speculum Humanae Salvationis: The Mirror of Human Salvation (Brill, 2022). Lately, she has returned to her first love, the Oxford greats, and their transformation of Catholic literary culture. Her newest book, Festivals of Faith: The Sermons of St John Henry Newman for the Liturgical Year (Cenacle Press, 2023), arranges and introduces Newman's magnificent homilies for reading across the Christian year. Together with Dr. Sarah-Jane Murray, she is also currently editing a volume showing Boethius's footprint across disciplines and centuries.
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Dr. Matthieu Boyd is Professor of Literature and Chair of the School of the Humanities at Fairleigh Dickinson University. A distinguished scholar with degrees from Princeton University, Stumdi Breton Language Institute, University College Dublin, and Harvard University, he publishes widely in medieval literature and literature in Celtic languages. He has held leadership roles in several scholarly associations, including the International Marie de France Society and the International Arthurian Society’s North American Branch. Currently, he serves as a contributing editor for The Broadview Anthology of British Literature 3e and as book review editor for the North American Journal of Celtic Studies. His notable translations include the Four Branches of the Mabinogi and the early Irish epic Táin bó Cúailnge, with his recent collaboration on The Medieval French Ovide moralisé (D.S. Brewer, 2023) alongside SJ Murray.
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Kristen Drahos is assistant professor of Great Texts and Theology at Baylor University. A systematic theologian by training, Dr. Drahos earned her doctorate in theology, along with a master’s in theological studies and bachelor’s in philosophy and theology, from the University of Notre Dame. Her work explores various cruciform dimensions of Catholic thought, continental philosophy, and literature. She is particularly interested in questions related to beauty, doubt, death, and suffering. Recent publications include work that investigates the intersection of medical narration and iconography, virtues related to suffering in the writing of Teresa of Cartagena, and Annie Dillard’s fiery contemplation as a guide for encountering suffering in neighbors. She is part of the Institute of the Advanced Catholic Studies at USC’s Generations in Dialogue cohort, bringing dedicated scholarly focus to Catholic considerations of questions related to transhumanism and artificial intelligence. She is also an affiliate faculty of the Baylor Initiative in Christianity and the Arts. Her work brings disparate voices into conversation and bridges disciplinary divides.
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Dr. Jessica Hooten Wilson (PhD Baylor University) is the Fletcher Jones Chair of Great Books at Pepperdine University. The author and editor of several books, Dr. Wilson has received a handful of awards including book of the year in culture and the arts from Christianity Today, the Hiett Prize in Humanities and Culture, and the Emerging Public Intellectual Award from CCCU and other partners. She is a Senior Fellow of the Trinity Forum.
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Dr. Robert Miner is the author of five books, including Thomas Aquinas on the Passions (Cambridge UP, 2009), Nietzsche and Montaigne (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), and Nietzsche’s Gay Science(Edinburgh UP, 2022). He has translated key works by Aquinas and co-translated Giambattista Vico’s New Science (Yale UP, 2020). With over two decades of teaching experience at Baylor University, Boston College, and Xavier University, Robert joined the Philosophy department at Providence College in 2023. Passionate about teaching, Robert believes education should awaken the mind, encouraging deep inquiry and cross-disciplinary connections, as advocated by Montaigne.
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Dr. Megan Murton is an Associate Professor of English at the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC. She earned a joint BA in French and Linguistics, summa cum laude, from Harvard University, where she developed an interest in the Middle Ages and eventually in Chaucer. Switching to English for graduate study, she earned an MPhil in English Literature, 650-1550 at Oxford as a Marshall Scholar, and then completed her studies with a PhD at Cambridge. Her research interests center on Chaucer’s writings in relation to medieval religious culture and to the Classical heritage. Her first book, Chaucer’s Prayers, examines Chaucer’s representations of acts of prayer, both Christian and pagan, and her current book project addresses Chaucer’s creative engagement with Boethius and its influence on other Middle English poets. Her interest in Boethius extends to his influence on modern-day medievalists like C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien.
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Dr. Euntaek David Shin (Ph.D., Wheaton College) is Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow at Baylor University, where he guides students in contemplating perennial questions of human existence through the reading of great texts. He is the author of Rest: A Theological Account and his scholarship has appeared in leading journals such asScottish Journal of Theology, Studies in Christian Ethics, and New Testament Studies. He serves as a Humanities Consultant for the Boethius Project.
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Dr. Caleb Simone, a distinguished scholar in ancient Greek cultural and intellectual history, specializes in the study of poetry and performance within their historical contexts. After earning his PhD from Columbia University in 2020, he was appointed the 2020-21 Bothmer Fellow in Greek and Roman Art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Currently, he serves as a Visiting Scholar in Classics at The University of Texas at Austin, where he continues to advance his research and delve into the depths of classical antiquity, unraveling its mysteries and treasures.
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Steven DeBose is a writer, producer, and script consultant hailing from Austin, Texas. He has shaped narratives and discovered emerging talent as the Conference Coordinator for the GTX Film Festival in Georgetown, TX, and as the Director of Script Competitions at the Austin Film Festival. A devoted aficionado of science fiction, comic books, and pop culture, Steven is passionate about crafting stories with unforgettable characters that resonate deeply and deliver poignant messages.
