Lucy Stothard

by Rodrigo Ballon Villanueva

Lucy Stothard

Another summer has passed, and we are thrilled to be back. We have many promising scholars in our field for you to know in this new academic year, beginning with Lucy Stothard!

Lucy has a very interesting and eclectic background. Her academic journey began at Sheffield University (UK), where she gained a BA in English Literature and History (2008) and an MA in English Studies (2017). Always guided by the concept of vocation and the conviction that one must find one’s calling in life, she decided to become an enclosed Catholic nun. However, her plans to enter the monastery were suddenly interrupted when the coronavirus pandemic hit. Instead, she spent much of 2020 and 2021 reading some of the great books of history as part of a foundation year programme at her local church, leading her to discover a new vocation: philosophy. Thus, in 2022, Lucy returned to higher education, pursuing a Graduate Diploma in Philosophy from Durham University (UK). She is now a PhD student at Cambridge University (UK), where she is reading for a doctorate in Classics under the supervision of James Warren.

Lucy is particularly interested in the philosophy of mind, the philosophy of language, and the problem of imagination. The working title of her doctoral thesis is ‘Language and Imagination in the Dialogues of Plato’. Here, she is exploring the understudied intersection between Plato’s theory of imagination and his philosophy of language, as contained in the so-called ‘late’ dialogues (especially the Philebus and the Sophist). Moreover, her research also considers the role of metaphysical propositions, both in constituting the phenomenal world and in one’s imaginative model of reality, and how this relates to questions regarding what contemporary philosophers ought to do with tradition and inherited world-pictures.

If you would like to contact Lucy and know more about her research, feel free to send her a message at lcs69@cam.ac.uk!