Who Owns The Classics?

E(i)ditorial — March 2016

Many classicists are ambivalent about the term ‘classics’ to describe what we study. When people ask me what I do, I’ve considered replacing it with ‘ancient Greek and Roman studies’ (or, more formally, ‘Greco-Roman Antiquity’). There would be definite benefits to the change, including not hearing the response “you mean like Mozart?”

For now, Eidolon and I are sticking with ‘classics’, although I know it privileges the study of European literature over the other languages and cultures that have at least as much of a claim to be called ‘classic’: Sanskrit, biblical Hebrew, classical Chinese, and Arabic. It may be a long time before we absorb those departments under the mantle of Classical Languages and Literatures, but in the interim we should certainly stay aware of the challenges those fields are facing. And something fascinating and disturbing is happening among those who study Sanskrit.

As many readers of Eidolon likely know, last month a group of 132 Indian scholars signed a petition arguing for the removal of Sheldon Pollock, a professor of South Asian Studies at Columbia, from his position as the general editor of the Murty Classical Library of India (MCLI). The MCLI is a product of Harvard University Press, and within the classics world it’s often thought of as ‘the Sanskrit Loebs’, although in fact its volumes are translated from at least 14 different languages, including Punjabi and Tamil.

The petition argued that Murty should have donated his $5.2 million to endow a library of Sanskrit volumes at an Indian university and appointed as general editor an Indian scholar who would have an appropriate level of respect for Indian scholarship, history, and tradition. Pollock has also come under fire because of a statement he signed supporting students and professors at Jawaharlal Nehru University protesting the arrest of the president of the student union on charges of sedition.

The petition writers claim that Pollock “has deep antipathy towards many of the ideals and values cherished and practiced in our civilisation” and that the MCLI needs a “team of scholars who not only have proven mastery in the relevant Indian languages, but are also deeply rooted and steeped in the intellectual traditions of India.” Although it still has some support, the petition has been widely criticized, not least because it relies on a quotation from a speech Pollock gave taken wildly out of context (he was stating the claim that he meant to argue against). Pollock’s phenomenal history of scholarship also speaks in his favor.

But it would be a mistake not to take the petition seriously, both for what it claims to say and what it plainly means. The petition claims that Pollock is unfit for the position because he is anti-Indian, the real problem seems to be not that he is anti-Indian in his beliefs but that he isn’t Indian either by ethnicity or nationality. And, to a certain extent, those fears are justified. Although I don’t personally agree, I can see how the MCLI could seem like the West extending backward in time its imperialist domination of India.

Rohan Murty, who made the $5.2 million donation to found the MCLI, has spoken out in support of Pollock; so has Harvard University Press. It seems unlikely that the petition will succeed. But it has revealed a deep schism in the community.

As I was writing this editorial, I realized I had no idea who the general editor of the Loeb Classical Library is. As it turns out, since 1999 the general editor has been Jeffrey Henderson, a fantastic scholar who I believe few could have serious objections to. But he isn’t Italian or Greek, and all classicists know a few Italian and Greek classical scholars who quietly — or maybe not so quietly — assert that they have more of a claim to classical antiquity than Anglophone scholars. These anxieties came to the surface particularly strongly this past summer, when Europe’s enduring respect for Greece’s legacy was so clearly in contrast with its attitude toward the Greece of the present day.

Nobody owns the classics. But the question of whose interpretations are granted the most influence is a question with deep cultural and political ramifications. Those of us who study Greek and Latin would do well to look at the critiques of the MCLI, no matter how much we disagree, and question how we would feel if the same critiques were applied to us.

Eidolon published eight articles in March:

Elizabeth Manwell used the story of Solon and Croesus to understand her own feelings about her father’s passing in Learning to Look at Death With Herodotus
Jay Reed explored the iconographic complexity of the propaganda image of the ISIS flag flying atop the Egyptian obelisk in the Vatican in ISIS and Osiris
Tara Mulder argued that the Hippocratic Oath has no place in Supreme Court discussions of abortion in The Hippocratic Oath in Roe v. Wade
Al Duncan analyzed Sophocles’ Oedipus the King from the perspective of over-reliance on encryption and information in Blinded by Big Data
Barry Strauss explained why he decided to return to the well-worn topic of the assassination of Julius Caesar in Beware the Ides of March — Yet Again
Sarah Scullin addressed the difficult question of how to approach Holt Parker’s scholarship in light of his child pornography arrest in Making a Monster
Federica Carugati made the case for applying our knowledge of ancient Athens to help understand the challenges facing the developing world in Development and Classics
Randall Souza argued that, if identity is constructed through repeated action, archaeology might be the best way to discover it in Thoughts on the Archaeology of Identity

Next month we’ll publish the winning and runner-up essays from our high school essay contest, some personal essays and book reviews, and the first few pieces from our anniversary event on Helen and her Eidolon. As always, thank you for reading!

Donna Zuckerberg is the editor-in-chief of Eidolon. She received her PhD in Classics from Princeton in 2014 and teaches for Stanford Continuing Studies and the Paideia Institute. Her first book, Classics Beyond the Manosphere, is under contract with Harvard University Press. Read more of her work here.