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Faculty of Classics

 

Biography

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.

Publications

Key publications: 

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, “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): “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. Carey and Halliwell, 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: The Self in Dialogue

 Socrates and the Ethics of Conversation, forthcoming with OUP.

Associate Professor of Classics
Fellow and Director of Studies at Downing College

Contact Details

fccs2@cam.ac.uk
Not available for consultancy

Affiliations

Latest news

The Kennedy Professorship of Latin

13 June 2025

The Board of Electors to the Kennedy Professorship of Latin invite applications for this Professorship from persons whose work falls within the general field of the Professorship to take up appointment on 1 September 2026 or as soon as possible thereafter. For more information see details here . Closing date: 8 September...

Masters Student wins Roman Society MA dissertation prize

28 May 2025

The Faculty is delighted to announce that Naomi Norden (King’s College) has won joint first place in the Roman Society MA dissertation prize for her 2024 MPhil thesis 'Creating complexity: Paratextuality and Intertextuality in the Works of Ausonius'. Congratulations Naomi!

St John's College Newell Lecture

27 May 2025

This year the St John's College Newell Lecture was delivered by Jackie Murray on the topic of Race and Injustice in Plato's Republic. You can watch a recording of the event here:

Marie Curie / BA postdoctoral fellowship schemes

19 May 2025

The Faculty of Classics invites potential applicants to the MSCA (Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions) and the British Academy’s Postdoctoral Fellowship schemes within areas relevant to our research clusters: Greek and Latin Literature, Greek and Roman Philosophy, Ancient History, C lassical Art and Archaeology, Classical and...