I write about ancient Greek philosophy. Currently, I am on a visiting research fellowship at the University of Notre Dame. Since Fall 2023, I have been a faculty member in the philosophy department at Texas Tech. I am also an affiliated faculty member in the Classics and Women’s and Gender Studies departments.  In Summer 2023, I earned a PhD in Philosophy and an MA in Classical Studies from Boston University with a dissertation on women and the metaphors of sexual reproduction in Plato. Particularly, my dissertation focused on Socrates/Diotima’s speech in Plato’s Symposium and Socrates’ description of himself as a midwife in Theaetetus. 

Before defending my dissertation, I had a graduate dissertation fellowship with BU’s Center for the Humanities and taught several classes for BU’s writing program. Before coming to BU, I earned my BA at Saint John’s College in Santa Fe NM which is known for its “Great Books” curriculum.

Email: zeamdur AT gmail DOT com

My research on Plato is characterized by three practices. First, I pay close attention to the social and political context in which Plato wrote. Second, I do not shy away from applying and thinking about contemporary social and political concepts when reading and interpreting Plato. Together, these practices lead to a third: my readings of Plato strive to speak to our contemporary moment and concerns. For example, I have written about how the reproductive capabilities of foreign women shed light on Diotima’s claim that “all human beings are pregnant in body and soul” (Symposium, 206c). This work represents an intersectional approach to feminist history of philosophy, one that I develop elsewhere in my research on Socratic Midwifery. There I attend to the fragile position of midwives in ancient Athens and urges us to look at what Socrates learned from his mother.

More recently, I have begun two projects that put Plato into conversation with contemporary virtue ethics and epistemology. The first uses Plato’s dialogues as a source for theorizing epistemic vice. It is striking that Plato chose to write numerous dialogues depicting the most vicious people around him. This mere fact suggests that we as readers can learn to be better people from negative exemplars. The paper that began this research program, “Privilege, Self-Satisfaction, and the Need for Self-Cultivation in Plato’s Alcibiades 1” (currently under review, draft available), examines the origin of Alcibiades’ epistemic arrogance and contrasts this vice with Socrates’ intellectual humility.

A second project puts my work on Plato into conversation with Iris Murdoch on themes concerning love, beauty, and attention. Iris Murdoch’s Platonism emphasizes visual metaphors as morally significant. Yet, Murdoch misses how Plato regularly couples his visual metaphors with metaphors of pregnancy and birth. I argue this neglect is philosophically significant; generativity is an ethically rich metaphor that helps us see the ways in which other people enable us to understand the world better. 

Beyond this work on Plato, other works in progress include:                                                                   

• Should the Feminist Philosopher Fear Death?

• Sophistic Medicine

• Injustice in Hesiod and Anaximander

Recent Presentations:

1. “Seeing and Generating as Two Ethical Modes of Attention,” LA workshop in Humanistic Ethics, UCLA, (Upcoming) April 23-4 2027

   
   

2. “What Socrates Learned From his Mother,” Wabash College, (Upcoming) November 4 2026

   
   

3. “The Role of Mαῖα in Euripides’ Hippolytus and Plato’s Theaetetus,” Durham University, Plato and Euripides Conference, May 29 2026

   
   

4. “The Risks of Midwifery in Plato’s Theaetetus,” Ancient Philosophy Society 2026, New York University, April 16 2026

   
   

5. “Should the feminist philosopher fear death?” International Association for the Philosophy of Death and Dying, APA Central Division, February 21 2026

   
   

6. “Privilege and Avoiding the Risk of Self-Satisfaction in Alcibiades 1,” West Coast Plato Workshop, University of California, San Diego, May 16 2025
   
   

7. “What Don Quixote Can Teach Us About Plato’s Symposium,” Interdisciplinary Hellenic Studies Conference, University of South Florida, April 20, 2024

Since arriving at TTU, I regularly teach classes in feminist philosophy and ancient Greek philosophy at the graduate and undergraduate levels.

My approach to teaching almost always involves having conversations about texts and how they inform us about the world around us. 

Sometimes, I use activities inspired by our readings to facilitate these conversations. Here are some examples:

• Acting out Plato’s Symposium (Script here)

• Inventing our own Aristotlian virtues

  
  

• Analyzing Aristotle’s examples in De Anima ii.1 to illustrate the relationship between potentiality and actuality 

Selected Classes:    

1. Existentialism, Spring 2026

                              

2. Ancient Greek Philosophy,

   Fall 2023, 2024 , 2025; Grad Classes on Plato Spring 2024 and Fall 2025

                                

3. Feminist Philosophy, Spring 2024, 2025, 2026; Graduate Seminar in Feminist Philosophy, Spring 2025   

       

4. Introduction to Ethics, Fall 2023  

                                 

5. Is Jane Austen a Moral Philosopher?, Fall 2020

In Fall 2024, I received an “Apple Polishing Award” from TTU’s Mortar Board Honors Society. Based on a student nomination, this award distinguishes faculty who exemplify the values of scholarship, leadership, and service.

In 2018-9, I won the “Outstanding Teaching Fellow” Award from the Boston University philosophy department.