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Elizabeth S Belfiore

Photo of Elizabeth S Belfiore

Contact Me

esb@umn.edu


Affiliations

Before retiring from the University of Minnesota, I taught the Greek language at all levels, from beginning Greek to graduate seminars, Greek culture and literature in translation, beginning and intermediate Latin, and ancient philosophy. My two main research interests are ancient philosophy and Greek tragedy. I have published books on Aristotle's Poetics, on Greek tragedy, on Plato's Socrates, and numerous articles on Greek tragedy and ancient philosophy. I am currently engaged in research on Plato's use of Homer.

Educational Background & Specialties

Educational Background

  • Ph.D.: Classics, UCLA, 1978.

Curriculum Vitae

Specialties

  • ancient philosophy, especially Plato and Aristotle
  • Greek literature and philosophy, with emphasis on tragedy, Plato, and Aristotle
  • Greek literature, especially tragedy
Publications
  • Socrates' Daimonic Art: Love for Wisdom in Four Platonic Dialogues. Belfiore, Elizabeth, Cambridge University Press, Author, 2012.
  • Murder Among Friends: Violation of Philia in Greek Tragedy. Oxford, 2000.
  • Tragic Pleasures: Aristotle on Plot and Emotion. Princeton, 1992.
  • Il piacere del tragico: Aristotele e la Poetica. Translation of Tragic Pleasures by D.Guastini, Jouvence, 2003.
  • Poets at the Symposium: Belfiore, Elizabeth, P. Destrée and F. G. Herrmann, edd., Brill, Plato and the Poets, 2011.
  • "The Elements of Tragedy," In The Blackwell Companion to Aristotle, G. Anagnostopoulos, ed., 628-642. Wiley, 2009.
  • "Dances With the Gods: The Myth of the Chariot in Plato's Phaedrus" AJP 127 (2006): 185-217.
  • "A Theory of Imitation in Plato's Republic" (rpt with revisions). In Oxford Studies in Ancient Literary Criticism, Andrew Laird, ed. Oxford University Press, 2006.
  • "Tragédie, thumos, et plaisir esthétique," Les études philosophiques, Octobre, 2003; 451-465.
  • Preface to Italian translation of Tragic Pleasures. Jouvence, 2003.
  • "Family Friendship in Aristotle's Ethics." Ancient Philosophy 21 (2001): 113-132.
  • "Dramatic Time and Epic Time: 'Magnitude' and 'Length' in Aristotle's Poetics. In Making Sense of Aristotle. Essays in Poetics. O. Andersen and J. Haarberg, eds., London: Duckworth, 2001: 25-50.
  • "Aristotle’s Mythos and Narratological Plots.“Arethusa 33 (2000): 37-70.
  • "Aristotelian Aesthetics," Encyclopedia of Aesthetics. M. Kelly, ed. Vol. 1: 95-99. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.
  • "Aristotle's Muthos and Narratological Plots," Classical Bulletin 1998. (Summary of conference paper).
  • "Harming Friends: Reciprocity in Greek Tragedy." In Reciprocity in Ancient Greece, C. Gill, N. Postlethwaite, R. Seaford, eds.: 139-158. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1998.
  • "Xenia in Sophocles' Philoctetes," The Classical Journal 89.2 (1993/94): 113-29.
  • "Aristotle and Iphigenia." In Essays on Aristotle's Poetics, A. Rorty, ed., 359-77. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992.
  • "Peripeteia as Discontinuous Action: Aristotle, Poetics 11.1452a22-29," Classical Philology 88 (1988): 183-94.
  • "Wine and Catharsis of the Emotions in Plato's Laws," The Classical Quarterly 36 (1986): 421-37.
  • "Lies Unlike the Truth: Plato on Hesiod, Theogony 27," Transactions of the American Philological Association 115 (1985): 47-57.
  • "Pleasure, Tragedy and Aristotelian Psychology," The Classical Quarterly 35 (1985): 349-361.
  • "Dialectic with the Reader in Plato's Symposium," Maia 36 (1984): 137-149.
  • "A Theory of Imitation in Plato's Republic," Transactions of the American Philological Association 114 (1984): 121-46. Rpt.: Plato: Critical Assessments (4 vols.), N. D. Smith, ed. New York and London: Routledge, 1998; Oxford Readings in Classical Studies: Ancient Literary Criticism, 2003.
  • "Aristotle's Concept of Praxis in the Poetics," Classical Journal 79 (1983/84): 110-124.
  • "Plato's Greatest Accusation Against Poetry," Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Supplementary Vol. 9 (1983): 39-62.
  • "The Eagles' Feast and the Trojan Horse: Corrupted Fertility in the Agamemnon," Maia 35 (1983): 3-12.
  • "The Role of the Visual Arts in Plato's Ideal State," The Journal of the Theory and Criticism of the Visual Arts 1 (1981): 115-27.
  • "Ovid's Encomium of Helen," Classical Journal 76 (1980/81): 136-48.
  • "Epode, Elenchus and Magic: Socrates as Silenus," Phoenix 34 (1980): 128-37.
Awards
  • American Council of Learned Societies Fellowship, 1987 - 1988
  • Bush/College of Liberal Arts Sabbatical Supplements, 1994 - 1995
  • Bush/College of Liberal Arts Sabbatical Supplements, 2001 - 2002
  • McKnight/Faculty Summer Research Fellowship, 1998
  • National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship, 1988