classics

• 
• 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. 

• 
• 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. 

• 
• 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. 

• 
• 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. 

• 
• 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.

• 
• SOURCE: The Conversation
  2/23/2021
  

  When Men Started to Obsess Over Six-Packs

  by Conor Heffernan

  Today's culture of Instagrammed abdominal muscles traces back to the time when nineteenth-century physical culture movements converged with the archaeological discovery of ancient Greek statuary (bodybuilders then used the new technology of photography in ways we'd recognize). 

• 
• SOURCE: Chronicle of Higher Education
  2/23/2021
  

  No, Classics Shouldn’t ‘Burn’

  by James Kierstead

  A classicist offers a rebuttal to a recent critique of the field, arguing that practitioners are justified in evaluating a "western civilization" but do so from a multitude of perspectives.

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  

  Ancient Rome Has an Urgent Warning for Us

  by Kyle Harper

  It's simplistic to look to the classics as instructions for political or social conduct, but the study of the past should inform our awareness of the power of nature to affect social and political life. 

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  2/2/2021
  

  He Wants to Save Classics From Whiteness. Can the Field Survive?

  Dan-el Padilla Peralta argues that the field of Classical Studies has been tied to the historical rise of white supremacy by emphasizing the Greek and Roman roots of European society, and leads a movement of revisionists. 

• 
• SOURCE: Bloomberg
  12/19/2020
  

  How Ancient Rome Defeated Donald Trump

  Veteran war correspondent Tom Ricks has written a new book on the influence of Greece and Rome on the American founders, and discusses how this year's election reflects that influence. 

• 
• 12/20/2020
  

  The Plague in Ancient Athens: A Cautionary Tale for America

  by Fred Zilian

  The United States in some respects has fared better under COVID than Athens did during the plague that accompanied the Peloponnesian War: a vaccine is in sight, and our head of state survived the day's most feared disease. But in both cases, disease showed the strains and cracks of a society and political system that will be difficult to repair.

• 
• 11/8/2020
  

  The End of an Era? Athens After Empire

  by Ian Worthington

  “Hellenistic” Athens may not shine as brightly as Classical Athens, but it has lived unfairly in the shadow of its famous predecessor. It’s time it emerged from that shadow.

• 
• SOURCE: The Baffler
  10/28/2020
  

  Grin and Bear It: On the Rise and Rise of Neo-Stoicism

  by Hettie O'Brien

  "Stoic practices may allow us to live more easily in the world as it is. But politics is as much about conflict as consensus, and depends, at least in part, upon people getting angry."

• 
• 10/11/2020
  

  The Battle of Salamis Opened the Door for Ancient Greece’s Golden Age

  by Fred Zilian

  September marked the 2,500th anniversary of the Battle of Salamis, where the Greeks won a surprising naval victory over Persian forces, thwarted their efforts to conquer Greece, and set the stage for the golden age of Athenian civilization.