Reclaiming the Ancient World
Towards a Decolonized Classics
It is, for some of us, a plain truth that our curricula require decolonizing. Others in our community still cling to the notion that everyone whose works appear on syllabi earned their place, and that anyone who isn’t included, therefore, is undeserving. There are also those who oppose decolonization, characterizing any attempt at inclusion as “eradicating” or “replacing” white men in the curriculum — academia’s own version of the tiki torch march.
Nevertheless, we are fortunate enough that some of the people with some of the power in our institutions are ready to take their first steps toward redressing the injustices perpetuated against minorities in academia. To a certain extent, the first stage of the argument is won. I won’t rehearse this argument here, but refer to the words of Mathura Umachandran, who makes a strong case for decolonization in Classics, arguing that:
Classics can only really start to think of itself as a global project once it has reckoned with how it has been invested all over the world in histories and ongoing realities of colonialism and racialized extractive capitalism of many kinds…
…
[We must aim] to stop producing the idea of a white antiquity, but to underscore the idea that the ancient world was much larger than Greece and Rome.
In this article, I’m going to explore how such a policy of decolonization could be implemented, and what it might mean for Classics as a field.
The humanities in general lend themselves to decolonization — or rather, they do not lend themselves well to neo-colonialism. Literature? There are thousands of phenomenal postcolonial writers of every age, ethnicity, and gender to be studied; get reading. Philosophy? Tear yourself away from the European canon and dip a toe into the veritable ocean that is “Eastern” philosophy. Music? Funnily enough, most of the world’s audio art does not miraculously emanate from seventeenth century German fugue and counterpoint; just listen.
I could go on. But try applying this approach to Classics, and you will find no such one-line solutions. We are well aware of how Classics has been used as an instrument of colonialism, but this isn’t the extent of Classics’ problem with race. Classics is, by its very definition, a white supremacist subject. For classicists, the ancient “world” is literally just Italy, Greece, and their colonies. There’s a smattering of Persia, Egypt, and the Levant if you’re lucky — which is to say, a handful of civilizations that came into direct contact with the OG Western Europeans. So when the question is raised of how we can decolonize our curriculum, we get a little stuck:
“Hmm, maybe we should teach [something going on elsewhere in the world c. 100 BCE] in our course?”
“Yeah, that would be nice but … it’s just not Classics, is it.”
There are some exceptions, of course, but they often fail to break the mold in any meaningful way. My own research is an apt example: I wrote my Master’s thesis, in Classics, entirely on Sanskrit. Decolonization in action! But Sanskrit finds its place in Classics only because of its prehistoric linguistic connection with Latin and Greek, and nothing more. Had I chosen a non-Indo-European language from the subcontinent — say, Tamil — I would have been banished to some form of area studies: “Asian and Middle Eastern Studies,” “South Asian Languages and Civilizations,” or even, most egregiously, the “Oriental Institute” (yes, Oxford still calls it that).
This is not meant as a criticism of area studies in general. But why does the ancient world — and I really mean the world this time — end up in area studies, unless we discuss it with reference to ancient Rome and Greece, when it is “elevated” to the status of Classics?
Historically, the answer is perhaps straightforward. Those who built the academy in the West centered their own experiences: that of aristocratic white men. They followed the white man back as far as they could, and found him in the ancient Mediterranean. For the earliest classicists, Classics wasn’t simply the areal study of ancient Rome and Greece: it was the history of civilization itself. This was then compounded by the notion from the European “Enlightenment” of history as a catalog of human progress. Western Europe, of course, is supposed to instantiate the furthest level of advancement.
I’d like to say we’ve moved on from this, but I’m probably wrong. Nevertheless, those of us who have any interest in decolonization at all are likely to reject the cultural hegemony of the West, and seek to reform our syllabi accordingly. In Classics, however, we still have a pathological, inherent focus on region that other subjects do not. Classics just is European, in a way that History, Philosophy, Art, Music, Literature, and Politics aren’t.
These criticisms may seem obvious, but the solutions certainly aren’t.
We can keep tweaking at the edges, as we are doing now. These approaches to decolonization often go hand in hand with curriculum-independent anti-racism: bring more people from underrepresented communities into the field; promote the scholarship of those from outside rich Western institutions; teach students to think critically about social issues when reading classical texts. It goes without saying that these are all causes we should be fighting for wholeheartedly.
But diversifying our staff and reforming our courses to address issues of race and gender, while keeping the locus of our cultural reference the same, is not enough. Those from historically marginalized communities will continue to be marginalized. White Western scholars will still be the “inheritors” of the great tradition, while people of color will remain outsiders, graciously afforded a look-in. Our ancestors barely exist in this ancient “world,” and when they do appear in the text, it is always in some notoriously warped way.
There is an extent to which this marginalization is just the nature of the texts, and that’s a hard truth. But another hard truth is that it is not an accident that these are valorized as The Classics, while texts with legitimate representation for people of color don’t make the cut. Today, this selective recognition constitutes a systematic and deliberate exclusion that is not present elsewhere in the humanities.
As strange as it feels to put this in writing — as a Classics PhD student — I arrive at the following conclusion: if the subject itself has been built up over centuries in such a way that it is impossible to separate it from an oppressive, colonial mindset, maybe it needs to die.
Not the subject matter: of course we should study the literature, history, philosophy, art, and archaeology of ancient Rome and Greece. I didn’t choose to stay in Classics to be perverse; I share in the same love of the material that motivates us all.
But, perhaps, the subject has had its time. We absolutely cannot give Classics a free pass when it comes to decolonization. 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.”
As I see it, there are two possible outcomes of a major overhaul. One is that we turn Classics into another branch of area studies. Perhaps we’d call it “Ancient Mediterranean Studies” or “Southern European Studies.” I’m not sure anyone likes the sound of these names, as they don’t really capture what Classics is. That said, they are no more inaccurate than names like “Native American Studies” or “African Studies.” I guess equality really does feel jarring when you’re accustomed to privilege.
Names are important, and arguably, renaming our departments is the least we can do. It would require a minimum level of effort to locate ourselves within the global humanities, and would send a very public message about decolonization.
I would argue, however, that renaming constitutes a hollow gesture if it is not backed up by action. Classics faculties and departments rechristened could continue doing exactly what they do now, albeit with an overt admission that their focus is localized. It would be a cleansing act, acknowledging that the rest of the world exists, but the supremacist praxis that Classics has embodied since its conception would remain unchallenged.
On the other hand, we could try something that digs a little deeper into this issue than renaming alone. Something that recognizes ancient Rome and Greece for the cultural monuments they are, without also establishing them as the cultural default, othering the rest of humanity.
We might call it, as a start, “Decolonized Ancient World Studies” (DAWS).
DAWS might be thought of as a superfield, which encompasses Classics as we know it but stretches far beyond the shores of the wine-dark sea. DAWS would enforce no borders, ethnic or linguistic, and would pursue the study of ancient civilizations wherever they may be. In short, DAWS would be the study of the ancient world.
Granted, it’s not at all an original idea to suggest that Classics should engage somewhat with the study of other ancient civilizations. Many of the colonial-era academics who went on to lay the foundations of modern area studies in the West were themselves classically educated, and anyone who has worked in these fields is painfully aware of the forced parallels they employed in a bid to fit other cultures into their worldview. I’m not looking to promote that kind of problematic, sleight-of-hand universalism.
But discussions surrounding decolonization often lack a push for a drastic recentering of Classics. A recentering such that comparative research outside Rome and Greece is not seen as some peculiar endeavor, but rather an integral part of what Classics is.
So where does DAWS end as a field? It can’t be “Everything Studies.” Boundaries should be drawn as we define it into existence. I’m not even going to attempt to do that here, but in pondering the question, we are forced to be forensic in our introspection, and ask some fundamental questions about Classics as a concept. What is it about ancient Rome and Greece that makes them worth studying, that is also to be found elsewhere in the world? How can we learn from the comparative study of civilizations that were not in direct contact with each other? What even makes a civilization a “classical” one?
If we really want to decolonize Classics, these are the questions we need to be asking, and we should be asking them at every level. We should be asking them in our research, in our teaching, at our conferences, in our committee meetings. If we can even begin to start having these discussions, we might be on track to truly decolonize our field.
Right now, maybe a DAWS Faculty — where one could go seamlessly from perusing the Alpamysh alongside the Iliad to comparing the cosmogenies of Genesis I and the Rig Veda — is a utopia.
But in some corners, the changes are already in motion. Earlier this year, Jeremy LaBuff wrote an article in Eidolon that makes a strong case for decentering the West with regard to ancient sexuality, in turn citing several other topics in Classics where scholars are “pushing the envelope” on widening the definition of “our past.” In the same vein, L.K.M Maisel made a cogent argument for a sea change in the way we read Greek texts by incorporating perspectives from non-European scholarship, both ancient and modern. Comparative studies are increasingly accepted as a gold mine for original and provocative research, and there is seemingly endless scope for new ideas.
In light of these advances, the greater task is to tie together the different strands of comparative research into a unifying movement that dislodges the Eurocentrism of Classics wholesale.
Of course, simply requiring that we should “know more” as classicists is not a particularly helpful or progressive stance. Classicists in general, and Classics students in particular, do not have unlimited time or brainspace, and requiring us to know even more on top of what we are already cramming is likely only to entrench pre-existing privilege. Space needs to be made for decolonization to be possible — and herein lies the rub.
To change the field of Classics, we have to rethink the experience of what it is to be a classicist. Perhaps more than in other humanities disciplines, classicists tend to fetishise their own “expertise,” and some argue that we cannot possibly be expected to acquire any more expertise than we already have; this has to be someone else’s job. The very notion of “expertise” here needs a lot of unpacking, and this article isn’t the place. My intuition, however, is that a lot of what we call “expertise” boils down to linguistic aptitude in Latin and Greek, and a meticulous knowledge of vast amounts of text. Past educators such as Roberts and Mortimer have actually stated this explicitly (1967:101, emphasis theirs):
[I]f Classics has a particular educational value, not shared by Modern History, say, or Eng. Lit., it will not lie in people, politics, or pots, but in the study of … the Greek and Latin languages, their development, morphology and syntax, and, more to the point … in the exercise of translation … [A]ny study of the subject matter and background of Classics Literature, and of the Classical World in general, contributes nothing except a sugar on the intellectual pill …
Such a curriculum is really a hangover from a pre-twentieth century education system, whereby those who had any access to a classical education at all would be sent to a private tutor or prep school at the tender age of seven or eight, and might continue on to a public school (British meaning!), before arriving at university with up to ten years experience of Latin and something similar in Greek. Under such a model, demanding a rehearsed knowledge of tens of thousands of lines of text, and a fluency in prose and verse composition, might have seemed a logical requirement for a university course.
The fact that (higher) education is more democratized now has somewhat assuaged the peculiar language requirements of university courses, but there is still often a feeling of “wouldn’t it be great if our students could still do that.” Jam-packing our courses with absurd quantities of set-text is supposed to compensate for a shortcoming of modern, state-funded education systems that do not teach Latin or Greek.
But of course those with the most privilege, generally rich and white, still arrive at university with at least several years of Latin and Greek; such individuals then excel at a course that rewards their specific educational history, while state school pupils are supposed to “catch up” in the first year or two of their degree. And thus, in a nutshell, a call for “expertise” serves uncritically to perpetuate age-old classist and racist practices. Some students may indeed wish to cultivate a detailed linguistic knowledge, and that is all well and good — as a linguist myself, I’m on board. But translation and practical criticism of Latin and Greek texts cannot remain the compulsory centerpiece of Classics, just because that’s how it’s always been.
So, there is an independent motivation for us to think critically about how much we prioritize a particular kind of narrow textual-linguistic knowledge over everything else. If this were the focus of the article, I would also address the implicit notions of a hierarchy of disciplines within Classics where textual criticism reigns supreme, and question the pedagogical value of the grammar-translation approach to language teaching. I would also highlight the central role Classical Reception Studies is playing in energizing the dialogue surrounding race, class, and language requirements, tying this into a broader discussion of gatekeeping within the field.
But I opened this can of worms today because reducing the pernicious demands for “expertise” that I have mentioned has a direct consequence for curriculum decolonization: it makes the room we need. Just imagine: how much more time could be spent thinking more broadly and critically about the ancient world if we could shed the burden of knowing as much Latin and Greek text inside out as possible?
In other words, it is not a satisfactory argument to say there isn’t “space” for curriculum decolonization in Classics. If that’s the case currently, then we need to make the damned space. And in doing so, perhaps we could challenge some other superannuated discriminatory practices along the way.
One structural consequence of the consolidation of Classics with other departments could be a reduction in the number of jobs for people who only work on Rome or Greece. For example: if Classics is to exist within DAWS, it can no longer be the case that a university employs four or five lecturers in, say, Greek philosophy, and only one person to teach every aspect of, say, Ancient Persia. If we are committed to dismantling the intellectual privilege of Western Europe, we must also dismantle its institutional privilege, in the form of hiring practices.
This change has to come from above. Without the prospect of a relevant job in academia, there is little incentive for PhDs to deviate from Eurocentric Classics. If you know you’re only going to be employable if you can teach courses on fifth-century Athens and the late Roman Republic, you’re likely — justifiably — to prioritize that sort of knowledge over non-European comparative themes. To overcome this, DAWS requires us to rebalance job opportunities at a faculty level. This is admittedly difficult to reconcile with the current state of the job market, which is crying out for structural reform in all subjects. So we have to tie in decolonisation into a wider push for broader change, and we have to accept that it may come at the cost of that fifth lectureship in Greek philosophy.
All this — letting go of age-old notions of what Classics is, de-expertising ourselves, collaborating outside our field, restructuring our departments, reclaiming the Ancient World — is a tall order. It’s not a job for one person, one university, or perhaps even one generation. But let’s remember that it took centuries for Classics to become what it is today. We have to bear that length of time in mind when we set our course for a new destination.
So today, as classicists, we have to start reaching out to people currently outside our area, and begin to bridge the gaps: in this case, not framed as an interdisciplinary endeavor, but as a way of extending the very limits of our discipline. It is not reasonable that we become experts in every civilization in the world — but it is reasonable that we collaborate outside our specialties in non-trivial ways to broaden our horizons. In turn, we should aim to convert such collaboration into tangible, structural change.
If we can start to actualize such changes, and allay our cultural myopia, there is literally a whole world for us to look forward to.
Krishnan Ram-Prasad is a PhD student in Classics at the University of Cambridge. If he’s not subjecting uneager colleagues to fun linguistic facts, he’s probably watching cricket and failing the Tebbit test with pride.
