Some of our best articles have taken a meta-scholarly approach, focusing on critiquing the way the discipline of Classics works and suggesting new ideas for making it more inclusive. Check out the following pieces on attracting students of color to Classics, the concept of “Western Civilization,” decolonization, and more.
Classics Beyond the Pale
By Dan-el Padilla Peralta
“Why does a field fundamentally predicated on the movement of bodies across borders tiptoe around the dilemmas, anxieties, and frustrations associated with that movement?”
Revisiting the “Hellenistic” Period
by Yousuf Chughtai
“I had always accepted these different building blocks of identity without a great deal of hesitation and had carried them all with a certain sense of hidden pride, and at times, confusion. However, my study of the Hellenistic period taught me just how elastic and flexible each of these different identities were, and that it was impossible to define them in any concrete way.”
Why Students of Color Don’t Take Latin
By John Bracey
“So why does Latin continue to maintain this exclusionary and elitist reputation? Shouldn’t these broad stereotypes be quickly debunked by actual experiences? Unfortunately, far too many Latin programs have embraced exclusivity rather than seeking to counteract it.”
Our Classics
Problems of Difference in Western Civilization
By Ayelet Wenger
“The Greeks and Romans of yore are dead. The Europeans of now speak tongues only distantly related to theirs. So, the question: whose Classics are they, anyway?”
Whose Dead White Man?
Homer’s Return to Egypt
by LKM Maisel
“This awareness means I can tell different myths. Stories that point to a future where Germans and English and Anglo-Americans stand in solidarity with those they have historically oppressed and from whose continued oppression they still benefit, rather than defending every inch of privilege.”
Why I Teach About Race and Ethnicity in the Classical World
By Rebecca Futo Kennedy
“It seems to be the case that people are more comfortable with antiquity being racist (and sexist and classist) than they are with it being diverse.”
Why I (Sometimes) Teach Bad Latin
On Listening To and Learning from Millennial Students
by Elizabeth Manwell
“What would you share with your children if you wanted to educate and delight them? If you didn’t want it to be boring and exhaustive? I don’t know that I am my students’ ideal reader, but by god I was a grateful one.”
A Bigger, Sexier Ancient World
Why We Should Care That Other Ancients Screwed
by Jeremy LaBuff
“The bigger point, though, is that the reasons that attract us to ancient discourse on sex in Rome or Greece hold true for cultures elsewhere. Reading Tacitus or Sima Qian helps us appreciate how sexual stereotypes grounded in traditional morality serve even today to control those in power and undermine the very validity of female and non-elite agency. Reading Tacitus and Sima Qian helps us see that the cultural distance between ancient societies is not as vast as we often assume, and sometimes closer than what separates us from either.”
Reclaiming the Ancient World
Towards a Decolonized Classics
By Krishnan Ram-Prasad
“As the rest of the humanities progress, Classics is going to look increasingly ugly: a subject that resolutely refuses to challenge its white supremacist foundations, while its proponents earnestly suggest that ‘if it’s not Rome or Greece, it’s just not our job.’”
The Climate Change Classics Needs
Broadening the Conversation Around Harassment and Discrimination
By Thea De Armond
“It is probably uncharitable of me to question the sincerity of the shock with which many academics have received #MeToo. We should have been shocked — the harassment catalogued by the #MeToo campaign is unacceptable. But I wasn’t.”
How to Write Black Disciplinary History on Its Own Terms
The Complex Life of John Wesley Gilbert
by Aliosha Bielenberg and Amanda Brynn
“To acknowledge these other facets of Gilbert as integral to his life and legacy, even within histories of classics and archaeology, goes some way to writing a black disciplinary history on its own terms — or, at least, on Gilbert’s.”
The Skeleton In My Closet
When Roman Bioarchaeology Is A Dead End Job
By Kristina Killgrove
“It took me another couple of years, though, to realize that leaving the field may be necessary as well. And that was the hardest part, as it’s a field I’ve broken into despite all odds.”
Voices In The Margins
Classics’ Suppression of Ancient Roman Writers of Color
by Nathanael Andrade
“But then, perhaps this is why Classics scarcely gives voice to them, as if they weren’t really Greeks or Romans in their own time. If we ignore them or their brownness (or blackness), don’t we get to pretend that Greeks and Romans were devoid of race — by which we really mean white?”
Fight or Die
How to Move from Statements to Actions
By Pria Jackson
“The first step towards making a qualifiable difference in Classics then would be to yank the chair out from underneath Whiteness. Start teaching an anti-white supremacist, anti-racist Classics curriculum! Today! And tomorrow! And next week. And forever.”
Johanna Hanink’s “Disciplinary Action” Column
