Research

I specialize in Political Theory, particularly questions of cultural diversity and global justice in ancient Greek political thought. By studying how the ancient Greeks thought about the role of foreigners in the political community, the politics of cross-cultural engagement, and issues related to interpolity interaction, my research seeks to expand our understanding of ancient Greek political thought by placing it in the wider, cross-cultural context in which it developed. In doing so, my work contributes to recent efforts to broaden our vision of the ancient world, showing how the great variety of peoples and places that comprised it helped to shape the thinking of the ancient Greeks with respect to the study of political life.

My approach is both literary and historical– a practice of close textual exegesis guided by knowledge of ancient Greek language and research on the people, sites, events, and other details found throughout the canonical texts of ancient Greek political thought. While recognizing that all authors live in their own distinct version of “the cave,” I remain convinced that the questions and ideas they ponder can travel across time and space. Thus, in studying the works of the ancients, my aim is not to become lost in their world, but rather to engage with their ideas so as to bring new perspectives to contemporary conversations. My hope, which I humbly admit may never come to fruition, is to continue the song the ancients began.

Books

  • Plato’s Caves: The Liberating Sting of Cultural Diversity (Oxford University Press, 2020)
    Classical antiquity has become a political battleground in recent years in debates over immigration and cultural identity-whether it is ancient sculpture, symbolism, or even philosophy. Caught in the crossfire is the legacy of the famed ancient Greek philosopher Plato. Though works such as Plato’s Republic have long been considered essential reading for college students, protestors on campuses around the world are calling for the removal of Plato’s dialogues from the curriculum, contending that Plato and other thinkers in the Western philosophical tradition promote xenophobic and exclusionary ideologies. The appropriation of the classics by white nationalists throughout history–from the Nazis to modern-day hate groups–appears to lend credence to this claim, and the traditional scholarly narrative of cultural diversity in classical Greek political thought often reinforces the perception of ancient thinkers as xenophobic. This is particularly the case with interpretations of Plato. While scholars who study Plato reject the wholesale dismissal of his work, the vast majority tend to admit that his portrayal of foreigners is unsettling. From student protests over the teaching of canonical texts such as Plato’s Republic to the use of images of classical Greek statues in white supremacist propaganda, the world of the ancient Greeks is deeply implicated in a heated contemporary debate about identity and diversity.

    Plato’s Caves defends the bold thesis that Plato was a friend of cultural diversity, contrary to many contemporary perceptions. It shows that, across Plato’s dialogues, foreigners play a role similar to that of Socrates: liberating citizens from intellectual bondage. Through close readings of four Platonic dialogues–Republic, Menexenus, Laws, and Phaedrus–Rebecca LeMoine recovers Plato’s unique insight into the promise, and risk, of cross-cultural engagement. Like the Socratic “gadfly” who stings the “horse” of Athens into wakefulness, foreigners can provoke citizens to self-reflection by exposing contradictions and confronting them with alternative ways of life. The painfulness of this experience explains why encounters with foreigners often give rise to tension and conflict. Yet it also reveals why cultural diversity is an essential good. Simply put, exposure to cultural diversity helps one develop the intellectual humility one needs to be a good citizen and global neighbor. By illuminating Plato’s epistemological argument for cultural diversity, Plato’s Caves challenges readers to examine themselves and to reinvigorate their love of learning.

    Reviewed By:
    -Keum, Tae-Yeoun. Perspectives on Politics 18.3 (2020): 941-942.
    -Kundmueller, Michelle M. The Review of Politics 82.4 (2020): 674-677.
    -Schultz, Anne-Marie. VoegelinView. Sept. 11, 2020.

    -Subject of invited book panel, “Immigrants and Others in Ancient Athens.” Ancient Philosophy Society. Select events from the cancelled 2020 annual meeting organized by DePaul University, Chicago, IL. Online. Mar. 20, 2021.
    -Subject of interview by Andy Fitch at Los Angeles Review of Books
    -Subject of podcast interview with FAU’s Dean Michael Horswell

    -Available for purchase at OUP and Amazon.

  • Singing a Different Tune: Music and the Politics of Cultural Diversity in Ancient Greek Thought (manuscript in preparation)
    While much has been written on music and politics in classical antiquity, the role of culture and ethnicity is often neglected in these accounts. This is a major oversight, as the Greeks fundamentally conceived of music in connection to the cultures of their world. By providing the first examination of music and the politics of cultural diversity in ancient Greek thought from the archaic through the classical periods, my current book project will help to recover the rich conversation about the treatment of foreigners that lies at the center of the Greeks’ frequent evocations of music and politics. The book will show that the strong association of music with cultural identity supplied the Greeks with a “shortcut” for grasping the essence of a particular culture and thereby an effective tool for contemplating political issues related to cross-cultural engagement, from immigration to global justice—a tool that we today can also use.

Journal Articles

  • “Speaking Differently: The ‘Many-Saying’ Politics, Music, and World of Homer’s Odyssey.” Interpretation: A Journal of Political Philosophy 50.2 (2024): 243–260.
  • “A Recovered Script: Political Theory in the Year 2422.” Political Theory 51.1 (2023): 134–145. Solicited and refereed work of creative fiction for 50th anniversary issue.
  • “Rereading Plato on Censorship: Mindfulness towards Music and Politics in the Republic.” The Political Science Reviewer 45.1 (2021): 165–192.
  • “‘We Don’t Need No (Foreign) Education’: Plato’s Hippias Major as a Critique of Spartan Law.” History of Political Thought 40.3 (2019): 357–380.
  • “Foreigners as Liberators: Education and Cultural Diversity in Plato’s Menexenus.” American Political Science Review 111.3 (2017): 471–483.
  • “‘We Are the Champions’: Mousikē and Cultural Chauvinism in Plato’s Republic.” Expositions: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Humanities 11.1 (2017): 157–175.
  • “The Benefits of Bullies: Sophists as Unknowing Teachers of Moderation in Plato’s Euthydemus.” Polis: The Journal for Ancient Greek and Roman Political Thought 32.1 (2015): 32–54.

Book Chapters

  • “Chapter 16: Ancient Greece.” In Research Handbook on the History of Political Thought, edited by Cary J. Nederman and Guillaume Bogiaris, 178-188. Edward Elgar Publishing, 2024.
  • “Leisure and Human Dignity in Ancient Greek Political Thought.” In Human Dignity, Education, and Political Society: A Philosophical Defense of the Liberal Arts, edited by James Greenaway, 89-110. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2020.
  • “Is Socrates Culturally Imperialistic?” In The Socratic Method Today: Student-Centered and Transformative Teaching in Political Science, edited by Lee Trepanier, 125–137. New York: Routledge, 2017.
    -Reviewed by Kabala, Boleslaw Z. Journal of Political Science Education 17.1 (2021): 165-169.

Book Reviews

  • Review of Ann Ward, The Socratic Individual: Philosophy, Faith, and Freedom in a Democratic Age. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2020. VoegelinView. 15 May 2022.
  • “Persuading the Whole Person: On Philosophy’s Need for Myth.” Critical Exchange on Tae-Yeoun Keum’s Plato and the Mythic Tradition in Political Thought (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2020). Contemporary Political Theory. 31 Mar.2022.
  • Review of Jill Frank, Poetic Justice: Rereading Plato’s Republic (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2018). The Review of Politics 81.2 (2019): 336–339.
  • Review of Jonny Thakkar, Plato as Critical Theorist (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2018). Perspectives on Politics 16.4 (2018): 1143–1144.
  • Review of Kevin M. Crotty, The City-State of the Soul: Constituting the Self in Plato’s Republic (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2016). Polis: The Journal for Ancient Greek and Roman Political Thought 35.1 (2018): 324–327.
  • Review of John von Heyking, The Form of Politics: Aristotle and Plato on Friendship (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2016). International Political Anthropology 10.1 (2017): 9–16.
  • Review of Hesiod, Theogony; Works and Days, trans. C.S. Morrissey (Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2012). VoegelinView. Sept. 22, 2013.