About me
Sofia A Koutlaki PhD
Photo credit Nicolas Laborie (www.nicolaslaborie.com)
I was born and grew up in Athens, a few kilometres north of the Ancient Agora, where philosophy belongs and where Socrates and Zeno of Kitium breathed and taught. I grew up with philosophy in high school and later taught Classical Greek to philosophy students and researchers in Tehran. Since reading Lou Marinoff’s Plato not Prozac I’ve been considering the application of philosophy in everyday life, but over the last two years I was drawn specifically to Stoicism.
My academic trajectory traced a line through English literature, the Classics, linguistics and pragmatics. I spent decades observing and writing about everyday life rituals among Iranians; I lived and taught in Tehran, Iran for a total of fourteen years.
After a long ‘wintering’ break (and a clean break from academic work), I now work on memoir and life writing and write a monthly newsletter on substack. In my posts I explore the influence of ancient Greek philosophy, especially Stoicism, on spiritual progress; life with long-term health conditions; various aspects of healing - and more.
(For my full CV, click here.)