Research Interests

With an A.B. summa cum laude in Social Studies from Harvard, and an M.Phil. and PhD in Philosophy from Cambridge, where she studied as a Marshall, Truman, and Phi Beta Kappa scholar, Professor Lane’s work has focused on the history of political thought and political philosophy, with distinctive strength in ancient Greek political thought while spanning both the ancients and the moderns.  This wide range is reflected in the fact that she is a contributor to both the Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Political Thought (2000), of which she was also an Associate Editor, and the Cambridge History of Twentieth-Century Political Thought (2003). 

Professor Lane’s expertise in the area of ancient political theory is widely recognised, building on her books Method and Politics in Plato’s Statesman (Cambridge, 1998) and Plato’s Progeny: How Plato and Socrates still captivate the modern mind (Duckworth, 2001), and her Introduction to the Penguin Classics edition of Plato’s Republic (2007).  Her conference paper (work in progress) on the ancient Greek origins of the distinction between ‘statesmen’ and ‘demagogues’ was cited in The New York Times (17 April 2006).  She has also published on Nietzsche, Rousseau and Thoreau among other topics in the history of political thought. Areas of research and publication in political philosophy include security, compensation, authority, and accountability, as well as work on the political theory of international migration and of the role of corporations.

Current projects include books provisionally titled Socrates, Statesmen, and Demagogues: Political and Intellectual Authority in Plato and Athens, and Eco-Republic: Ancient Ethics for the Green Age (Peter Lang).

Curriculum vitae

© 2008 Faculty of Politics, Princeton University