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Faculty of Classics

 

Biography

Carol Atack returned to Cambridge in 2019, after holding teaching positions in Classics at Oxford and Warwick, and working on the Anachronism and Antiquity project at the Faculty of Classics, University of Oxford. 

Research

Ancient Greek political thought, historiography, gender and sexuality, classical reception.

Publications

Key publications: 

Anachronism and Antiquity (2020), with Tim Rood and Tom Phillips, Bloomsbury Academic.

The Discourse of Kingship in Classical Greece (2019), Routledge Classical Monographs. 

‘Plato’s Queer Time: dialogic moments in the life and death of Socrates’ (2020), Classical Receptions JournalAnachronism and Antiquity special issue, Vol 12, Issue 1, pp. 10-31.

 ‘“I will interpret”: the Eighth Letter as a response to Plato’s literary method and political thought’ (2019), Classical Quarterly Vol. 69, Issue 2, pp. 616-35.

‘Tradition and innovation in the polis-kosmos analogy’, (2019) in P. Horky (ed.) Ancient Cosmos: Concord among Worlds, Cambridge University Press, pp. 164-187.

‘Plato, Foucault and the conceptualization of parrhēsia’ (2019), History of Political Thought Vol. 40, Issue 1, pp. 23-48.

Politeia and the past in Xenophon and Isocrates’ (2018), in M. Tamiolaki (ed.) ‘Xenophon and Isocrates. Political Affinities and Literary Interactions’, Trends in Classics Vol. 10, Issue 1, pp. 171-194.

‘Xenophon and the performativity of kingship’ (2018), in D. Allen, P. Christesen and P. Millett (edd.), How To Do Things With History, Oxford University Press, pp. 109-135.

‘Plato’s Statesman and Xenophon’s Cyrus’ (2018), in G. Danzig, D. Johnson and D. Morrison (edd.), Plato and Xenophon: comparative studies, Brill, pp. 510-543.

‘Imagined Superpowers: Isocrates on Athens and Sparta’ (2018), in A. Powell and P. Cartledge (edd.) The Greek Superpower: Sparta in the Self-Definitions of Athenians, Classical Press of Wales, pp. 157-184.

‘Aristotle’s pambasileia and the metaphysics of monarchy’ (2015), Polis Vol. 32, Issue 2, pp. 297-320.

‘The discourse of kingship in classical Athenian thought’ (2014), Histos Vol. 8, pp. 329-362.

Director of Studies in Classics, Bye-fellow and assistant tutor, Newnham College.
Dr Carol  Atack
Not available for consultancy

Affiliations

Latest news

Professor Patricia Easterling

19 August 2026

The Faculty is very sad to report that our dear colleague Professor Patricia (Pat) Easterling has died, at the age of 92. She was Fellow of Newnham College from 1958 to 1987 and Professor of Greek at University College London from 1987 to 1994, when she returned to Cambridge as the 36 th (and first female) Regius Professor...

Cambridge Classicists on Nolan's Odyssey

17 July 2026

Today marks the highly anticipated theatrical release of Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster adaptation of The Odyssey . Starring Matt Damon as Odysseus, the film is generating lots of discussion across the global classics community. As people everywhere head to cinemas, academics from the Faculty are already exploring how...

Script Keepers Network Wins Cultural Collaboration Award

28 July 2026

The Script Keepers Network —co-led by Pippa Steele (Faculty of Classics and the VIEWS Project ) and Tim Brookes ( Endangered Alphabets Project )—has been awarded the prestigious NCACE Emerging Academic Cultural Collaboration Award by the National Centre for Academic and Cultural Exchange . The award recognises outstanding...

New Fellows welcomed to the British Academy

17 July 2026

The Faculty notes with pleasure that Professor James Warren has been elected to the British Academy’s Fellowship , joining an eminent community of scholars who share a commitment to advancing the humanities and social sciences. Current British Academy Fellows in the Faculty include Professors Emily Gowers, Stephen Oakley...