classics

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• 4/3/2022
  

  More War Crimes Will Follow in Ukraine

  by Fred Zilian

  To those who believed that war and war crimes in Europe in the 21st century had become unthinkable, Thucydides offers us a simple yet powerful statement: “War is a violent teacher.”

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• SOURCE: Society for Classical Studies
  3/14/2022
  

  Sampling the Epic in Kendrick Lamar's "Mortal Man"

  by Justine McConnell

  Remembering the essential orality of classical epics can help to understand them as works that have been sampled and remixed, and to place contemporary popular culture in dialogue with that tradition. 

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• 3/13/2022
  

  Deadly Cucumbers and Roof Tiles: The Lines Separating Civilians from Combat Have Always Been Blurred

  by Nadya Williams

  Stories of ordinary Ukrainians resisting invasion are framed as heroic, but this can conceal the trauma and violence inflicted on civilians in warfare, both modern and ancient. 

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• SOURCE: Public Books
  2/7/2022
  

  Finding Nowhere: Mapping the Future Study of Antiquity

  by Stephanie Wong and Sarah E. Bond

  This is a conversation inaugurating a broader discussion about considering the ancient world beyond the fragmented histories of Greece, Rome, or "the west." 

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• SOURCE: WGBH
  1/4/2022
  

  New Boston MFA Exhibit Shows Museum's Complex History of Censoring Queer Desire

  by Erin L. Thompson

  "When I first visited Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, as a young and deeply closeted queer college student, I found myself wondering if the museum possessed ancient Greek vases decorated with anything other than sex scenes."

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• SOURCE: Chronicle of Higher Education
  12/3/2021
  

  A Descent into Textual Paranoia

  by Christopher S. Celenza

  "Doing one's own research" in an environment of proliferating information and few gatekeepers isn't new to the internet age. 

• 
• 12/5/2021
  

  What if Hannibal Had Won?

  by Philip Freeman

  Historians' dependence on the accounts of Roman historians has distorted modern understanding of Hannibal, the Carthaginians, and the different possibilities for the world if he had succeeded in defeating Rome.

• 
• SOURCE: Black Perspectives
  11/11/2021
  

  Mapping Black Antiquity

  by Sarah Derbew

  Ancient Greek literature is full of depictions of African people that affirm their participation in classical antiquity. Why have these been submerged? 

• 
• SOURCE: Foreign Policy
  11/1/2021
  

  Boris Johnson’s Roman Fantasies

  by Mateusz Fafinsky

  Boris Johnson's recent statements that the collapse of Rome was caused by open borders are well out of step with historical understanding of the fragmenting of the Roman empire, but in line with a long legacy of political misappropriation of Rome as an allegory for the danger of immigrants.

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• SOURCE: Inside Higher Ed
  9/20/2021
  

  Why a Liberal Education is Worth Defending

  by Steve Mintz

  Roosevelt Montas’s forthcoming "Rescuing Socrates: How the Great Books Changed My Life and Why They Matter for a New Generation" makes a powerful case for engagment with the Great Books as a way to subvert hierarchies and promote equity. 

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• SOURCE: National History Center and Woodrow Wilson Center
  9/17/2021
  

  Stoic Wisdom: Ancient Lessons for Modern Resilience (Thursday, 9/23)

  Nancy Sherman addresses the Washington History Seminar to discuss the maladaptation of Stoicism to the modern self-help industry and a fuller understanding of the lessons of the school. Zoom, September 23, 4:00 EDT. 

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• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  6/7/2021
  

  John McWhorter: The Problem With Dropping Standards in the Name of Racial Equity

  The linguist and cultural critic links Princeton's decision to drop the requirement that classics majors study ancient Greek or Latin to other changes in the field he argues are driven by trendy concern with racism instead of intellectual value.

• 
• 6/6/2021
  

  The Legacy of Same-Sex Love in Ancient Thebes

  by James Romm

  The story of the Sacred Band of Thebes – a fighting force of pairs of male lovers – was discovered in time to provide inspiration to gay rights struggles from the Victorian era to the present. James Romm's new book tells the story. 

• 
• SOURCE: The New Yorker
  5/16/2021
  

  Mary Beard Keeps History on the Move

  "I spent part of my career lamenting that there weren’t more female authors in the ancient world. Well, you can mourn the lack of those authors forever, but you’re not very likely to find more. But you can engage with how gender is defined."

• 
• SOURCE: ScienceNews
  5/4/2021
  

  2,500 Years Ago, the Philosopher Anaxagoras Brought Science’s Spirit to Athens

  2,500 years ago, Anaxagoras brought the Ionian philosophical outlook to Athens, where he helped to advance a naturalistic and empirical understanding of natural phenomena. 

• 
• SOURCE: NPR
  5/10/2021
  

  Howard University's Decision To Cut Classics Department Prompts An Outcry

  Anika Prather of Howard's Classics Department shares her view of the decision to close the department. 

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  4/19/2021
  

  Howard University’s Removal of Classics is a Spiritual Catastrophe

  by Cornel West and Jeremy Tate

  Despite some contemporary multicultural critiques, the literary and intellectual traditions of the West can and must be separated from "the crimes of the West." If Frederick Douglass and MLK drew on these traditions in struggles for freedom, then Howard University must continue to teach them. 

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  4/20/2021
  

  Students and Faculty Fight to Save Classics Department at Howard University

  The decision is seen by many Howard students as a blow to the university's academic standing, but it also comes at a time when the significance of racism in classical studies is a hot academic debate. 

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• SOURCE: Nursing Clio
  3/9/2021
  

  Thucydides, Historical Solidarity, and Birth in the Pandemic

  by Sarah Christine Teets

  A classicist reflects on Thucydides' account of the Athenian plague, and concludes that the point of historical knowledge is to empathize, not to strategize. 

• 
• 2/28/2021
  

  The Original Storming of the Capitol

  by Stephen Dando-Collins

  The January 6, 2021 siege of the Capitol in Washington DC has eerie parallels with a much earlier event, the AD 69 siege of the Capitoline Mount in Rome.