We are proud to announce that the Faculty of Classics has established a collaborative link with the University of Ghana, generously supported by the Cambridge-Africa ALBORADA Research fund.
Developing new connections with Ghana promises to open up new possibilities for research and teaching, which will be beneficial for both parties. We are looking forward to their input and perspective to support our efforts to invest in intercultural dialogue and diversify the discipline and we hope this will encourage applications from Ghana in coordination with existing initiatives, look into mechanisms for widening access for African students, and develop greater awareness of the challenges African students face in applying and being admitted to Cambridge.
The Focus of the Collaboration: Political Community
The research will be focused on the idea of political community - the polis - in Plato, building on the common research interests of three Classicists in Ghana and scholars working in Greco-Roman Philosophy in Cambridge. The project will investigate Plato’s discussions of the nature and value of political community and consider whether and in what ways these discussions might offer useful reference points for modern community building both in Ghana and in the UK.
The project will be jointly housed by the University of Ghana and the Faculty of Classics in Cambridge and will run initially over one year.
Commenting on the project, Dr Frisbee Sheffield, Assistant Professor of Classics in Cambridge said: “I am delighted to have the opportunity to explore Plato with Classicists in Ghana. After COVID 19 many of us are interested in community rebuilding and I am keen to hear what questions the political climate in Ghana poses for this topic and the reading of Plato.”
Professor Kofi Ackah, Associate Professor and former Head of the Department of Philosophy & Classics at the University of Ghana commented: “The overriding postcolonial focus of Ghana, as of many African countries, is national development—a focus heavily dependent on an envisaged function of African Universities to generate capacities that deliver practical solutions to human, existential and social problems. Plato’s conception and principles of community-building, virtually neglected in Western scholarship on Plato, are especially relevant in this respect, not least because developing societies have a lot in common with the societies envisaged in the Republic and Laws. This project, then, provides an opportunity to reflect on alternative perspectives to Western readings of Plato’s political philosophy which largely depend on a metaphysical reading of the Good and on the contested assumption that individual liberties constitute the highest political value and that institutions and practices are to be judged by their success in promoting or achieving them.”
