Aleena Islam

Aleena completed her BA in Classics at Downing College, Cambridge (2024) with First Class Honours, followed by an MPhil in Classics at King’s College, Cambridge (2025), where she received a Distinction for her thesis, Plato’s Republic and al-Fārābī’s al-Madīna al-Fāḍila. Her research examines the reception of Plato in medieval Islamic philosophy and explores how philosophical and socio-religious contexts reshape and transform inherited ideas. She seeks to advance the dialogue between the Islamicate and the Classical and affirm the place of Islamic philosophy as a central rather than peripheral component of the classical philosophical tradition. Her interests also include ancient gynaecology, gender in antiquity, and critical reception theory. At Michigan, she plans to continue her interdisciplinary work on Greek philosophy by expanding her expertise in Islamic cultures, Arabic language, and decolonial methodologies in order to challenge the epistemological, political, and ideological frameworks that shape the disciplinary boundaries of Classics.