What Makes the Classics Worth Studying

[guy]

The study of the Ancients has been increasingly denigrated by a new generation of academics. One professor challenges this new line of thinking.

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Rachel Poser’s recent New York Times profile of Princeton classicist Dan -el Padilla Peralta comes across as both glib and ominous. Referring to Padilla’s mission, the headline of the piece reads: “He Wants to Save Classics from Whiteness. Can the Field Survive?” The Herculean task Padilla has in mind is convincing other classicists to reject the privileged position given to Greece and Rome within the field. Why? Because he believes that classics as a discipline has played and continues to play an outsize role in the construction of whiteness and, thus, the perpetuation of systemic racism.

Professor Andre M. Archie makes a passionate defense of the study of classical antiquity. He is an an associate professor of ancient Greek philosophy at Colorado State University. He is also an African American:

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Much like Padilla’s, my own early admiration for the classical world can attest to the powerful appeal of the tradition. Unlike Padilla, however, I haven’t grown disillusioned with the field. My engagement with classical antiquity continues to affirm, for me, its civilizing values, rather than the corrosive barbarism of identity politics. As an African American, I am not an immigrant. I can trace my lineage back to slaves (and a few indentured servants) who lived in the early 18th century. I am thus living proof that the classical tradition has just as much to offer the descendant of slaves as it does those who are to the manor born. I suspect that this is part of what attracted the younger Padilla to the field: Like me, he sensed that the ancient Greeks and Romans promised a degree of cultural competence and uplift, if one could master them. Unfortunately, Padilla has since racialized that promise.

 https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/02/what-makes-the-classics-worth-studying/

 

Of course, I would also remind Mr. Peralta that there were no Anglo-Saxon emperors. Three emperors were Hispanic: Trajan, Hadrian, and Theodosius. Septimius Severus was born in modern-day Libya. (His sons were Geta and Caracalla). Three other emperors were born also born in North Africa: Clodius Decimus Albinus (modern Tunisia), Macrinus (modern Algeria), and Aemilianus (modern Djerba, an island off Tunisia). Elagabalus and Alexander Severus were of Syrian origin. Phillip the Arab was ....

 

 

I guess I would be more sympathetic to Mr. Peralta if he desired to also study other ancient cultures (the Americas, Asia, and, Africa, etc.) without denigrating the study of ancient "Western" societies. Unfortunately, he is obsessed with "whiteness" and fails to see the universality of the ancient Romans and Greeks.

 

 

guy also known as gaius

Edited October 14, 2021 by guy