Dr Frisbee Sheffield
- Associate Professor of Classics
- Fellow and Director of Studies at Downing College
Location
- fccs2@cam.ac.uk
About
Frisbee was an undergraduate at Bristol University, an MPhil student at Cambridge University and studied for her DPhil at Oxford University. She held a Post-Doctoral Research Fellowship in Classics, at the Institute of Hellenic and Roman Studies, Bristol University, followed by a Research Fellowship at Girton College, Cambridge. She taught at Yale and Kings College London before coming to Cambridge.
Research
Ancient Greek philosophy, particularly ethics, moral psychology, aesthetics, politics and the reception of ancient Greek philosophy, particularly in the work of Hannah Arendt.
Monographs and Edited Volumes
2013 (Co-editor) The Routledge Companion to Ancient Philosophy
2008 (Co-editor) Plato’s Symposium, introduction and critical notes for an edition in the Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy Series
2006 Plato’s Symposium: The Ethics of Desire, Oxford University Press
2006 (Co-editor) Plato’s Symposium: Issues in Interpretation and Reception, Harvard University Press
Articles
Forthcoming, "Plato and the Ethics and Politics of Care" in eds. Sabrier and Candiotto, The Care for the Soul in Plato and Platonic Ethics: A Contemporary Dialogue.
Forthcoming, co-authored with Richmond Kwesi, "Nkrumah's Harmonic Model of Decolonisation: Greek Philosophy as Case Study" in eds. Willis, Bettenworth, Chitando and Mlambo, The Palgrave Handbook of Africa and the Classics.
Forthcoming, "Towards an Ethics of Reading Plato's Dialogues" in ed. J. Ferrari, Plato and Literary Studies.
Forthcoming, “Defending Plato’s Alcibiades”, in (ed.) Duff, T., Alcibiades: A History (Classical Press of Wales).
Forthcoming, “The Politics of Collaboration: Dialogue, Community Building and Justice” in eds. Keary, Leventhal, and Nelson, Collaboration in Greek and Latin Literature, Cambridge University Press.
Forthcoming, “Aristotle’s Persuasion by Ethos: Platonic Precedent?” in ed. Aristotle’s Rhetoric: A Critical Guide (Cambridge) eds. Destree, P., Raap, C., and Videbaum, L.
Forthcoming “Plato’s Phaedrus (274b-277a)”, Plato Dialogue Project: Phaedrus, eds. Destrée, P., Horn, C., and S. Sauvé-Meyer (Oxford)
(2025) “Reading Plato’s Gorgias” in ed. Larsen, P. and Politis, V., The Platonic Mind (Routledge)
(2024), ‘Plato and Aristotle on Love and Friendship’, Love: A History, ed. R. Hanley (Oxford University Press).
(2024), “The Value of Communication in the Gorgias: Modelling Value in Speech” in ed. Mikes, Plato's Gorgias. Proceedings from the Twelve Symposium Platonicum Pragense, Prague.
(2024) “Desire and Argument in Plato’s Gorgias”, Cambridge Critical Guides: The Gorgias (Cambridge University Press).
(2023) "Socratic Dialogue and the Transformation of Character" in Transformation and the History of Philosophy, eds. A. Bruno and J. Vlasits
(2023): “Arendt and Plato in Dialogue: Supporting Arendt’s Argument in Thinking and Moral Considerations”, in Arendt Studies Volume 7 (Autumn)
(2023), “Beyond Gender: The Voice of Diotima” in (ed. Pello and O’Reilly) Ancient Women Philosophers (Cambridge University Press)
(2023), “Kenneth Dover and Plato’s Symposium: Attraction, Aversion and Intemperance” in eds. Halliwell and Stray, Scholarship and Controversy
(2021) “Moral Motivation in Plato’s Republic: Philia and the Return to the Cave”, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, vol 59, pp79-132
(2020) ‘Love in the City: Eros and Philia in Plato’s Laws’, Plato on the Emotions, ed. L. Candiotti and O. Renault
(2019) ‘The Greek Philosophers against Arendt’, Journal of the History of Political Thought
(2017) ‘Eros and the Pursuit of Form in Plato’s Symposium’, in Plato’s Symposium: A Critical Guide, Cambridge, ed. P. Destree
(2017) ‘Platonic Piety: Beyond the Euthyphro’, in eds. Anders Klostergaard Petersen & George van Kooten, Religio-Philosophical Discourses in the Mediterranean World: From Plato, through Jesus, to Late Antiquity (Ancient Philosophy & Religion 1), Leiden/Boston: Brill
(2017) ‘Love and Friendship in Plato’, in The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Ethics, ed. C. Bobonich
(2017) “Why there is no such thing as a Soul Mate”, The Critique, online Philosophy Journal
(2013) ‘Plato on Virtue and the Good life’ in The Routledge Companion to Ancient Philosophy, eds. J. Warren and F. Sheffield
(2012) ‘The Symposium and Platonic Ethics: Plato, Vlastos, and a misguided debate’, Phronesis vol. 57 (2) 117-141
(2012) ‘Eros before and after tri-partition’, in (ed.) Brittain, Barney and Brennan, Plato and the Divided Soul, Cambridge
(2012) ‘Symposium 201d1-204c6’, in (ed.) C. Horn, Plato’s Symposium
(2011) ‘Beyond eros: Plato on Friendship in the Phaedrus’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society vol. 111 (2) 251-273
(2010) ‘Aristotle and eros’, in (ed.) MM. McCabe, Harte, Sharples and Sheppard, Aristotle Reading Plato, Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies
(2006) ‘The Role of the Earlier Speeches in Plato’s Symposium: Plato’s Endoxic Method?’, in (ed.) Sheffield, Nails and Lesher, Plato’s Symposium: Issues in Interpretation and Reception, Harvard University Press
(2001) ‘Alcibiades’ Speech: A Satyric Drama’ Greece and Rome, 48 no.2
(2001) ‘Psychic Pregnancy and Platonic Epistemology’, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 20
Work In Progress
Book length study of Plato’s Phaedrus: Friends in Dialogue
Socrates and the Ethics of Conversation, forthcoming with OUP.
Reading Plato with Hannah Arendt, forthcoming in Elements in Ancient Philosophy, CUP.