tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24415845119960155502024-02-02T13:52:47.331-05:00Classics at the IntersectionsRandom thoughts of a Classicist on ancient Greek and Roman culture and contemporary America by Rebecca Futo Kennedy
Rebecca Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09189847760200499244noreply@blogger.comBlogger89125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2441584511996015550.post-41741532272496693622023-01-22T10:51:00.004-05:002023-12-17T14:14:11.239-05:00Table of Contents<p> As some of you may be aware, I have not been blogging now for about 7 months and have only written a few posts even in the last year. I can't explain why; I just don't feel like writing blog posts. But, there is a lot of material on this blog that people use for classes and for building classes. So, I thought I would make a TOC as the final (and automatically visible post) of resource housed on this blog and some of the most frequently used posts, along with links or citations to published versions of some of the material. If you are looking for the posts on the disciplinary debates arounds Classics, use the sidebar navigation.</p><p style="text-align: center;">***</p><p style="text-align: left;">General Pedagogy and Scholarship: "<a href="https://rfkclassics.blogspot.com/2020/08/an-ethics-of-citation.html" target="_blank">An Ethnics of Citation</a>" (August 2020); written with Maximus Planudes on why and how to cite scholars and when it is actually ok to <u>not</u> cite someone. </p><h2 style="text-align: left;">Ancient Identities/Race and Ethnicity Teaching Resources</h2><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>New <a href="https://cdn.knightlab.com/libs/timeline3/latest/embed/index.html?source=1Jv9Ce9FWN-JcyPUXWfjsOX7BezYXnSDB7ehg1atN6DQ&amp" target="_blank">Timeline (in progress) of authors</a> included in the 2013 <i>Race and Ethnicity in the Classical World</i> sourcebook:</li></ul><p></p>
<p><iframe height="650" src="https://cdn.knightlab.com/libs/timeline3/latest/embed/index.html?source=1Jv9Ce9FWN-JcyPUXWfjsOX7BezYXnSDB7ehg1atN6DQ&font=Default&lang=en&initial_zoom=0" width="100%"></iframe></p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><a href="https://rfkclassics.blogspot.com/p/teaching-race-and-ethnicity.html" target="_blank">Syllabi, pedagogy articles, podcasts, etc for teaching</a></li><li><a href="https://rfkclassics.blogspot.com/p/bibliography-for-race-and-ethnicity-in.html" target="_blank">An out of control and in-need-of-updating bibliography of scholarship</a> on race, ethnicity, and identity in antiquity and its modern receptions</li><li><a href="https://rfkclassics.blogspot.com/2021/12/talking-about-race-and-ethnicity-in.html" target="_blank">Glossary of terms </a>for teaching about race, ethnicity, and identity in antiquity</li><li>"<a href="https://rfkclassics.blogspot.com/2018/09/museums-as-trojan-horses.html" target="_blank">Museums as 'Trojan Horses'</a>" (Sept 2018); from back in my Museum Director phase</li></ul><p></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">Blog Posts and References for "Western Civilization"</h2><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><a href="https://rfkclassics.blogspot.com/2022/04/reflections-on-west.html" target="_blank">"Reflections on the 'West'" </a>(April 2022)</li><li>"<a href="https://rfkclassics.blogspot.com/2020/05/correcting-nonsense-about-ancient-greco.html" target="_blank">Correcting Nonsense about the Ancient Greco-Roman Past</a>" (May 2020)</li><li>"<a href="https://rfkclassics.blogspot.com/2020/05/being-american-sophocles-intentions-and.html" target="_blank">Being "American", Sophocles' Intentions, and the Debates over "Western Civ"</a>" (May 2020) </li><li>"<a href="https://rfkclassics.blogspot.com/2020/02/notes-on-west-and-western-civ.html" target="_blank">Notes on "West" and "Western Civ"</a>" (February 2020)</li><li>"<a href="https://rfkclassics.blogspot.com/2019/04/on-history-of-western-civilization-part.html" target="_blank">On the History of 'Western Civilization', Part 1</a>" (Apr 2019). Part 2 never happened on the blog. I published two chapters in edited volumes on it instead (see below)</li><li>Kennedy, Rebecca Futo. 2023. "Classics and Western civilization: The Troubling History of an Authoritative Narrative" in <i><a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/authority-and-history-9781350269453/" target="_blank">Authority and History: Ancient Models, Modern Questions</a></i> edited by Juliana Bastos Marques and Federico Santangelo. (This would have been Part 2)</li><li>Kennedy, Rebecca Futo. 2023. "‘Western Civilization’, White Supremacism and the Myth of a White Ancient Greece," in <i><a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Polarized_Pasts/8v50EAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0" target="_blank">Polarized Pasts: Heritage and Belonging in Times of Political Polarization</a></i>, edited by Elisabeth Niklasson. (This would have been Part 3 of the blog series)</li><li>"<a href="https://rfkclassics.blogspot.com/2019/03/classics-culture-civilization-oh-my.html" target="_blank">Classics, Culture, and Civilization! Oh, My!</a>" (March 2019), by Maximus Planudes</li><li>"<a href="https://rfkclassics.blogspot.com/2017/11/his-western-civilization-is-not-my.html" target="_blank">His Western Civilization is not My Western Civilization</a>" (Nov. 2017)</li></ul><h2 style="text-align: left;">Blog Posts on Race, Ethnicity, Identity, Black Classicisms, and White Supremacism</h2><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>"<a href="https://rfkclassics.blogspot.com/2021/06/the-negro-problem-race-and-classics-in.html" target="_blank">"The Negro Problem", Race, and Classics in Higher Education</a>" (with Jackie Murray, June 2021); this was the material that was edited out of our essay in <a href="https://andscape.com/features/classics-is-a-part-of-black-intellectual-history-howard-needs-to-keep-it/" target="_blank">The Undefeated</a>). There will also be a book on Classics in HBCUs coming out hopefully this year that I will post the citation for when its ready.</li><li>"<a href="https://rfkclassics.blogspot.com/2020/12/race-and-athenian-metic-modeling.html" target="_blank">Race and the Athenian Metic--Modeling an Approach to Race in Antiquity</a>" (Dec 2020); the published, full-length version of this material will be coming out hopefully by the end of 2023 in a big edited volume on Identity in Antiquity. If you want to use the article in classes, email me. </li><li>"<a href="https://rfkclassics.blogspot.com/2020/03/notes-on-athenian-metic.html" target="_blank">Notes on the Athenian Metic</a>" (April 2020) (PS. I am revising the Oxford Classical Dictionary entry for Metics and it will be available by the end of 2023)</li><li>CANE Summer Institute 2019 Onassis Lectures on Ancient Identities/Modern Politics: <a href="https://rfkclassics.blogspot.com/2019/07/e-pluribus-plures-identities-in.html" target="_blank">Lecture 1</a>, <a href="https://rfkclassics.blogspot.com/2019/07/rejecting-greekness-classics-athens.html" target="_blank">Lecture 2</a>, <a href="https://rfkclassics.blogspot.com/2019/08/ancient-identitiesmodern-politics.html" target="_blank">Lecture 3</a></li><li>"<a href="https://rfkclassics.blogspot.com/2019/04/is-there-race-or-ethnicity-in-greco.html" target="_blank">Is there a race or ethnicity in Greco-Roman antiquity?</a>" (April 2019). This material was an early version of what is now Ch 1 of my forthcoming book. If you want the most recent and clarified version for a class, email me. Book should be out by the end of this year, but maybe early 2024. The Glossary linked above have updated definitions and may be more useful for classes. </li><li>"<a href="https://rfkclassics.blogspot.com/2019/03/the-blackfaces-of-aeschylus-suppliants.html" target="_blank">The (Black)Faces of Aeschylus' Suppliants</a>" (March 2019); the full published version will be out in March or so in the Companion to Aeschylus, edited by J. Bromberg and P. Burian (Wiley). Happy to provide a copy for class use. There is also a great Reading Greek Tragedy video from the CHS series available on YouTube.</li><li>"<a href="https://rfkclassics.blogspot.com/2018/10/wine-and-milk-drinking-cultures-as-acts.html" target="_blank">Wine and Milk: Drinking Cultures as Acts of Exclusion</a>" (Nov. 2018), by Kate Topper</li><li>"<a href="https://rfkclassics.blogspot.com/2018/02/the-ethics-of-using-freedpersons-as.html" target="_blank">Using Freedpersons as an Argument for an Inclusive Rome?</a>" (Feb 2018) -- still a problem in the classroom! </li><li>"<a href="https://rfkclassics.blogspot.com/2018/01/the-dorian-invasion-and-white-ownership.html" target="_blank">The Dorian Invasion and 'White' Ownership of Classical Greece?</a>" (Jan 2018); this began from the outrage over he casting of David Gyasi as Achilles. I've now published a chapter on the backlash as Kennedy 2022. "Racist Reactions to Black Achilles" in <i><a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/screening-love-and-war-in-troy-fall-of-a-city-9781350257009/" target="_blank">Screening Love and War in Troy: Fall of a City</a></i>, edited by Monica Cyrino and Antony Augoustakis. The rest of it ended up in the Polarizd Pasts chapter.</li><li>"<a href="https://rfkclassics.blogspot.com/2017/12/classically-white-supremacy-american.html" target="_blank">Classically White Supremacy--The American Dream of a White City</a>" (Dec 2017); some of this stuff will appear in the new book or appeared in my chapter in <i>Classics and Early Anthropology</i>, edited by Emily Varto. But the blog post is pretty much the only thing I've put in print to date on the fair, though many people have heard me give talks on it. -- THIS IS TEMPORARILY REMOVED AS I AM WORKING ON AN ARTICLE ON THE TOPIC</li><li>"<a href="https://rfkclassics.blogspot.com/2017/10/colorlines-in-classical-north-africa.html" target="_blank">Colorlines in Classical North Africa</a>" (Oct 2017)</li><li>"<a href="https://rfkclassics.blogspot.com/2017/09/ethnicity-in-herodotus-honest-entry.html" target="_blank">Ethnicity in Herodotus -- the Honest Entry</a>" (Sept 2017). The actual entry has been published in Chris Baron's 3-volume <i>Encyclopedia of Herodotus</i>.</li><li>"<a href="https://rfkclassics.blogspot.com/2017/08/blood-and-soil-from-antiquity-to.html" target="_blank">Blood and Soil from Antiquity to Charlottesville: A Short Primer</a>" (August 2017)</li><li>"<a href="https://rfkclassics.blogspot.com/2017/08/how-is-ancient-mediterranean-diverse-if.html" target="_blank">How is the Ancient Mediterranean Diverse If Everyone There Is "White"?</a> (August 2017)</li></ul></div><h2 style="text-align: left;">Blog Posts on Women and Gender Issues</h2><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>"<a href="https://rfkclassics.blogspot.com/2021/11/aspasia-of-miletus.html" target="_blank">Aspasia of Miletus</a>" (November 2021). (I have been asked to rewrite the entry on Aspasia for the Encyclopedia of Ancient History-- Wiley. Bob Wallace wrote the original and it should be available online by the end of 2023)</li><li>"<a href="https://rfkclassics.blogspot.com/2020/08/the-epilogue-i-never-wrote-in-finally.html" target="_blank">The Epilogue I Never Wrote. On Finally Coming to a Conclusion</a>" (August 2020); the final chapter of my 2014 book on Immigrant Women in Athens, a chapter I never wrote until 6 years later. THIS IS TEMPORARILY REMOVED </li><li>"<a href="https://rfkclassics.blogspot.com/2018/09/the-ancient-frat-bro-and-history-of.html" target="_blank">The Ancient Frat Bro and a History of Legal Disregard of Women</a>" (Sept 2018); lol. this is the post that got me written up in some far right TPUSA affiliated rag. I actually have a chapter coming out at the end of this year in an edited volume on the ancient courtroom strategies discussed. </li><li>"<a href="https://rfkclassics.blogspot.com/2018/03/on-being-foreign-woman-in-classical.html" target="_blank">On Being a [Foreign] Women in Classical Athens</a>" (March 2018)</li><li>"<a href="Ancient Texts/Modern Practices: Girls as Targets of Adult Sexual Desire" target="_blank">Ancient Texts/Modern Practices: Girls as Targets of Adult Sexual Desire</a>" (Nov 2017)</li><li>"<a href="https://rfkclassics.blogspot.com/2017/08/consent-and-rape-is-it-modern-thing-no_78.html" target="_blank">Consent and Rape: Is it a Modern Thing? No</a>" (Aug 2017)</li></ul><div><br /></div></div><h2 style="text-align: left;">US Politics </h2><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>"<a href="https://rfkclassics.blogspot.com/2021/01/accountability-unity-and-political.html" target="_blank">Accountability, Unity, and Political Forgetting</a>" (Jan 2021)</li></ul></div><p></p>Rebecca Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09189847760200499244noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2441584511996015550.post-61789497642218752532022-05-29T10:22:00.001-04:002022-05-29T10:22:19.891-04:00"Fra-gee-lay. Must be Italian"<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEU9yuW_FiiAgi74nclxc7LaUO0dhB8QrojyA-ksqe5LD2_XdumwRXeIcusQ_DMJr_p02vlEqfn-zaBiCT6CUkzQtU4OMvrD2rv6pjbJHAnPlLm0lO4ts9nZbXlToe6cHIeCQZhV3qdCCy7I-gtB6u8l_ZTJMmQj4DpB4eoARgMU300r9XkAhBfF4xcg/s500/a-christmas-story-fragile.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="281" data-original-width="500" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEU9yuW_FiiAgi74nclxc7LaUO0dhB8QrojyA-ksqe5LD2_XdumwRXeIcusQ_DMJr_p02vlEqfn-zaBiCT6CUkzQtU4OMvrD2rv6pjbJHAnPlLm0lO4ts9nZbXlToe6cHIeCQZhV3qdCCy7I-gtB6u8l_ZTJMmQj4DpB4eoARgMU300r9XkAhBfF4xcg/w640-h360/a-christmas-story-fragile.gif" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p>One of the biggest issues facing the academic discipline that calls itself "Classics" is the fact that so many people who spend their lives studying how languages work and what things mean if written in Greek and Latin are seemingly incredibly incapable of taking the same care when it comes to words and meaning in their own languages and everyday lives. Case in point: there is a difference fundamentally between saying that someone or something supports White supremacist systems and ideologies and saying that someone <i>is</i> a White supremacist. </p><p>I have never been called a White supremacist for choosing to study and teach ancient Greece and Rome. I have been called fragile for not recognizing that White people have had lots of advantages in this world that are not afforded to our Black, Asian, Indigenous, Hispanic/Latino/a, Pacific Islander neighbors, colleagues, friends, and family. I have been guilty of thinking that my first gen, working class background and/or gender was the equivalent and set me at equal disadvantage and then getting huffy when the differences are pointed out. I've worked to be less fragile about it and just put my head down and do the work to try to reduce or eradicate the systems used to oppress and suppress and work to reduce and eliminate the disadvantages in whatever spaces I am in. Sometimes that means actually stepping out of those spaces or even dismantling them. Usually, there is plenty of room in the space so long as we don't whitespread. If I don't do these things, then I, too, am contributing to the system we call White supremacism. </p><p>One can contribute to White supremacism in many ways while not <i>being</i> a White supremacist. This can be done, for example, by pushing the Western Exceptionalism narrative in our classrooms and scholarship. It can be done by pretending that colorblindness is effective in eradicating racism and supporting colorblind policies. We can support White supremacism by accusing our Black colleagues of always being political while pretending that our Whiteness is neutral. We can support White supremacism even if we aren't White or don't think of ourselves as White. None of this necessarily means one <i>is</i> a White supremacist. </p><p>Certainly, choosing to study antiquity doesn't make one a White supremacist. But, one can choose how to teach, write about and study antiquity. And if the way one chooses to do so is in the knowledge that the traditional way of doing so has been used in the past in the service of empire, colonialism, and racial segregation in ways that continue to impact the present (the past, after all, <i>does</i> impact the present -- an argument we all always make for why it is important to study the past), then one <i>is</i> supporting a White supremacist system. But, one can choose again. </p><p>One can choose <i>not </i>to support that system by learning how the system works and what changes they can make to the system through policy and practice to reduce harm and move towards equity and equality and a less racist system. Some of that might mean recognizing that the Western exceptionalism narrative is just that, a narrative. And that it and the "Greek Miracle" are neither Truth™(in the sense of an accurate reflection of antiquity) nor necessary to loving and encouraging the study of antiquity. Some of that means recognizing that supporting the status quo will be perceived by our colleagues on campus in other disciplines as supporting that history of White supremacism and changing our programs to combat those perceptions.</p><p>These stories were part of a White supremacist system and continue to support it. We can choose to give up that particular story. We don't need it. There are more accurate and way more interesting ways to study and teach and write about the ancient Greek and Roman worlds. Choosing to keep those particular narratives means choosing to continue supporting White supremacism. Does that make one a White supremacist? It depends. It certainly can look more like one is choosing White supremacism if they are made aware that what they are doing supports a White supremacist system and then still choose to do it. </p><p>Rejecting that knowledge (that these stories support White supremacism) and deflecting away from it is a form of fragility -- it means not necessarily that one <i>is</i> a White supremacist<i>, </i>but it does certainly mean that one has wrapped their identity so tightly around a notion of the superiority of a very specific academic framing that they begin to break under the idea that maybe it is just a story after all and it doesn't make them better than others to study it. </p><p>The truth is, White supremacism (like its bestie racism) are not about individuals. It isn't about who <i>is </i>and <i>is not</i> a White supremacist. It is about a system that allows for and promotes inequality based on excluding people who aren't categorized as White in the system from justice, fairness, privilege, participation, comfort, care, education, or any other wide range of basic things we pretend are universal human rights. But we have been taught and we are continuing to be taught (aggressively in many states in the US) that racism is a problem of individual behavior and not a system we live in or the actual fabric of our societies. It makes it so much easier to do nothing when we can say "I am not a racist" instead of seeing what is before our eyes everyday: the system is racist and we can and do all contribute to it even if we don't intend to. </p><p>Same with its sibling White supremacism. If we reduce the conversation to "is this individual a White supremacist?" then it deflects away from the very real system in place that our individual actions contribute to that is White supremacism. Does contributing to this mean one <i>is </i>a White supremacist? It means that one is, whether they truly believe in the superiority of a White "race" or not, supporting a system of White supremacism. And we can supports White supremacist systems whether we believe we are racist or not. We can support White supremacist systems whether we are "White" or not. We can support White supremacist systems whether we are harmed by them or not. </p><p>This isn't that difficult to understand. And it certainly shouldn't be difficult to understand by people who make a living by studying language and what it means and how it works. It is mistaking racism as a problem of individuals and not embedded within social, political and economic systems. I can only conclude that often this isn't a mistake, however, but an act of deflection to avoid responsibility for trying to do anything about the very real problems of White supremacism and racism in our world. </p>Rebecca Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09189847760200499244noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2441584511996015550.post-33706466278992351862022-05-16T10:10:00.005-04:002022-07-05T04:55:17.494-04:00What is an Identity?<p style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">As some people know, I am trying to finish a book right now on ancient identity formation and the way modern identities get built from them. There is a lot of scholarship on trying to understand ethnicity and race in both the ancient and modern worlds but not necessarily the interactions between the two. Maybe that is why I have enjoyed reading Greenberg and Hamilakis' <i>Archaeology, Nation and Race</i> book -- it does just this (and has led me to a lot of other work that also does it). I've also been looking forward to finishing someday Berger's <i>The Past as History</i>. There are so many books I need to finish reading. And so many books I need to finish writing. </span><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">As I was writing a chapter in the book, I also decided to work through some of the confusion that even a story like that of my own family can cause. I am not including it in the chapter, but it was a good clarifying exercise because it reminded me that for every sweep of history concerning "Greeks" and "Romans" and 'White people" etc, there are the microhistories of the people we lump under these larger identities. In recent weeks, at least one person mislabeled me as "mixed race", in part because of the confusion my name causes (one should ALWAYS be cautious of using names to track ethnicity) and because, while I personally am not descended in any meaningful way from anyone Asian, my step family with whom I grew up is. It causes confusion to many. </span><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The point is, however, that all of us have in our family histories some of these elements of confusion. It may be one of the reasons why some White people cling to that White identity so fiercely--they don't like the confusion, the uncertainty, the multiplicities. They rail agains "multiculturalism" having invested in a monocultural myth. They fear their "replacement" by ethnic and racialized others because White people are mostly descended from people who have committed genocide all over the world. And even if we happen to be from somewhere that didn't, we only have home on this continent because others before our families <i>did</i> and because we were somehow allowed to immigrate and assimilate (eventually) to reap the benefits of that genocide. </span><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Anyway, these are just some thoughts on identities on a rainy morning after a day of racialized terrorism and violence while I try to work on finishing a book on the sometimes violent ways humans decide who is and isn't similar enough or worthy enough to be included in the category "human". Here is the material I removed from the book on the confusions of even just my own family's identity over the last 100 or so years:</span><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;"></p><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">*** </span></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span><p></p><p style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Here’s an example from my own life: my father’s grandparents (and some of his aunts and uncles then children) immigrated to the United States from the old Austro-Hungarian Empire. They and their children identified as Hungarian-Americans.They were either born in the “Old Country” (as they called it) or were raised in houses where the language and culture were still strong. The first generation were naturalized citizens, the second were a mix of naturalized and natural-born. I am of the fourth generation. The hyphen indicated for my great-grandparents that they held two identities, one cultural and by birth (Hungarian) and one by citizenship (American). For my grandparents, it held similar connotations, but slightly reversed; they were Americans by birth, but Hungarians and Americans by cultural practices. </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">For my father and myself, we are basically Americans, but with a memory of cultural traditions from our childhoods practiced by our older family members, that we don’t much adhere to and certainly don’t consider our own. We are Americans by birth, cultural habit, and citizenship. Our name (Futo) is the only real marker of Hungarian descent – but even here, our name is often confused for being Asian (Japanese, precisely). Adding to the confusion, my step-mother </span><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is</span><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Japanese-American; born in Japan to a Japanese mother and an American father on a US military base. There is no hyphen in my identity, however. I might make a great goulash or paprikas, but that doesn’t make me Hungarian anymore. And, the fact that we ate more Japanese food growing up and immersed ourselves in Japanese culture more often (and still do), doesn’t make me Japanese either.</span></span></p><p style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Citizenship, culture, and geography have all become American. Only the knowledge that my great-grandparents immigrated from a place other than where I am now remains of the Hungarian. And that memory isn’t enough to grant me the hyphen. Why? because in the world we inhabit today, we could become American and, perhaps more importantly, my family could become White. In tension here are my modern ethnic and racial identities. Culturally, I am American; this is my ethnicity; racially, I am White as “white” is the box I check on US Census forms. My great-grandparents were not White because they were Hungarian; I, however, am White because they were Hungarian. What a difference 100 years makes. Now imagine the difference 2000 years makes.</span></span></p><p style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What made my family’s transition from Hungarian to White happen? Genetically, we didn’t change. Sure, my grandfather married a Croatian woman, but Croatians weren’t White either at that time. What changed were attitudes about what and who counted. What changed was how those with social, political, and economic power defined their opposition and who they needed to co-opt to maintain their power. That is what race is -- race uses ethnicity (mostly) and crafts hierarchies of degrees of difference from the dominant group. Sometimes it even offers access to formerly racialized others if it serves the purposes of maintaining its power.</span></span></p>Rebecca Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09189847760200499244noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2441584511996015550.post-59442376549211692642022-04-10T11:39:00.007-04:002022-06-30T10:38:40.125-04:00Reflections on "the West"<p> Just last week, I finished a chapter for an edited volume on history and authority that, although good, may never get published. I say this not because the editors rejected it -- they did not. But because I am uncertain it will make it past peer review. I do not think it is a bad article; in fact, parts of it are excellent. But it is "political". I took on one of the most authoritative stories in history -- Western civilization -- and subjected contemporary classics and ancient history writers who promote "the West" and Western exceptionalism to the same type of scrutiny I was trained to apply to ancient texts. "Western civilization" is a political concept, so any attempt to understand its history and continued power is de facto political as well. As far as those who treat it as a neutral category are concerned, to try to understand it is to violate some sort of academic objectivity, because to truly understand it means to see it as a history of violence and exploitation. For some people, those are good things. If you think they are bad, you are "political."</p><p>In doing philological analysis of my colleagues instead of simply citing them as one opinion on an ancient topic, I may have crossed a line. Because no analysis of the Western civilization narrative can avoid the problems of imperialism, colonialism, and genocide that created it. The racism and White supremacism are always there, even when we pretend it isn't. Many of my colleagues want to preserve the language and the category of "West" by pretending it is historically neutral and values-free. It never is. It can't be. And scholars who spend their time arguing about the historically contextual meanings of words should know better.</p><p>There are perhaps people who are at this very moment thinking that "the West" is having a moment and is a force for good in the world and so critiquing the history of the label and its meaning is bad. But, if anything, the invasion of Ukraine and the language surrounding it should make clear that this history is very relevant and that we <i>should</i> be concerned with how we understand "the West" historically. We should be particularly interested in how "West" and "Western" are used to stand in for "civilization" and "civilized".</p><p>Like my colleague Neville Morley, who speaks of his own <a href="https://thesphinxblog.com/2022/04/05/weaponising-thucydides/" target="_blank">scramble to finish his chapter </a>for the same volume, I too wanted to include a section in my chapter on the current language surrounding the Russian invasion of Ukraine. We are awash in stories of "the West" standing against the evil tyranny of Russia. Except, of course, it isn't "the West" doing it. It is one of those spaces on the map that "the West" designated back in 1994 as a buffer zone between itself and Russia. There are numerous spots on the map of Eurasia that act as such buffer zones. Greece is one, as Yannis Hamilakis discusses in his new co-authored book <i><a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/archaeology-nation-and-race/A82939A30B9C761A245211B11A441D11" target="_blank">Archaeology, Nation, and Race</a></i>. Ukraine is a buffer zone. And the language used in the press and by pundits and analysts in Russia and Europe/US to discuss the war make clear that Ukraine is not "the West". <br /></p><p>Historically, Ukraine's region has always been both a geographic border region and a civilizational one for those who identify as Europeans. But even in antiquity, when no such identity existed, what is now Ukraine was thought to sit at what was considered the boundary between Europe and Asia since the days of Herodotus and Hippocrates. Both the Hippocratic <i>Airs, Waters, Places</i> and Herodotus set the boundary at the Don River, which is very near to the southwestern border of Russia and the eastern border of Ukraine. The territory in Ukraine that Russia is claiming for themselves and currently attempting to depopulate of Ukrainians is on that eastern border near the Don River (ancient Tanais). </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-duqUttLAh4xb_NKsI7oX9aLQ0riJs206-FoE2qkJH-0jyLfHkyMPGdzMy1kHjhQZmoDYDSq0bUOwI6zcyOfl_7Shq-04gljcZHWw4qrvwqzXNuvDZoz5DWubqzexZjul-a4zyutgpNbqe6qDpOnmXJ7b0m5Q4SqNA2mFvOt-0X33bFNS76ImLxpaRQ/s2420/Ukraine-Map-L.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1691" data-original-width="2420" height="448" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-duqUttLAh4xb_NKsI7oX9aLQ0riJs206-FoE2qkJH-0jyLfHkyMPGdzMy1kHjhQZmoDYDSq0bUOwI6zcyOfl_7Shq-04gljcZHWw4qrvwqzXNuvDZoz5DWubqzexZjul-a4zyutgpNbqe6qDpOnmXJ7b0m5Q4SqNA2mFvOt-0X33bFNS76ImLxpaRQ/w640-h448/Ukraine-Map-L.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p>In antiquity, this area was inhabited, according to various ancient Greek texts, by a combination of various groups of "Scythians" and with Greek colonies. In the Hippocratic <i>Airs</i>, the residents of the region were oddities in need of a medical explanation. The schematic nature of the environmental theory unpinning the <i>Airs</i> demands that the imagined wet and cold climate of the region create people who are bloated and round and can only look like the Scythians the author and other southern Greeks were familiar with through the application of technologies, specifically, hot irons to burn out the wet and damp from their bodies and turn them into the muscled and lithe horseback warriors they were known to be. </p><p>Herodotus, however, provides a lot more detail and variety to his story of the Scythians. Hartog is still, perhaps, the best read for understanding the hold the nomadic horsemen of the Black Sea region held on southern Greeks, but Herodotus himself gives us the story that informs most of our modern imaginary about Steppe peoples, horse-warriors, nomads, and "primitives" on the prairies. They are the quintessential "Noble Savage". The map below gives a reasonable interpretation of Herodotus' placement of the different Scythian groups and decades of archaeology have given us a picture of exquisite artisans, warriors, and horseman that doesn't conflict all that much with Herodotus' representation. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxdzeCiYAlcKAdepqxeT0OoOmC2CMMeuMhnR9j6raXSWHckJzXE46-MlCyaD_0p_9yMEkmX3JzEb-C_TM14mNdACE3F6VmhQSqn0lHDGhEqp4PM2lcQBQYy8Ppd7ZX2PjNa1soi2rySKjU9seXMszhD36i24Z-P7smr8Un7t2otW5SBkWWHsAE8MDewQ/s2813/Bunbury_Vol_1_Map_04_Scythia_Herodotus_p_206.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2630" data-original-width="2813" height="598" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxdzeCiYAlcKAdepqxeT0OoOmC2CMMeuMhnR9j6raXSWHckJzXE46-MlCyaD_0p_9yMEkmX3JzEb-C_TM14mNdACE3F6VmhQSqn0lHDGhEqp4PM2lcQBQYy8Ppd7ZX2PjNa1soi2rySKjU9seXMszhD36i24Z-P7smr8Un7t2otW5SBkWWHsAE8MDewQ/w640-h598/Bunbury_Vol_1_Map_04_Scythia_Herodotus_p_206.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p>Of course, this isn't the whole story. Everywhere along those coasts are Greeks, going all the way back to the 7th century BCE. And Olbia, of course, isn't too far from where Odessa is now, which is itself on top of a Greek colony. Not on the map above also are the group Herodotus calls the Helleno-Scyths and, of course, the Colchians, who may have been descended in part (again according to Herodotus) from an ancient Egyptian shipwreck, while the Sauromatae were said to have descended from a shipwrecked crew of Amazons. Regardless of how accurate Herodotus' origin stories are, what we do know is that Ukraine today is the result of millenia of rich cultural interactions that have formed into its own modern nation today. It doesn't belong to Russia anymore than Greece belongs to "the West" or Russia (despite their apparent grand imperial plans on the country). Also, despite the sentiments of some folks, Ukraine <i>is</i> Europe. But being in Europe doesn't make them "Western", at least not enough for some people. </p><p>It came as a bit of a shock to many people to hear journalists reporting on the invasion using phrases like "relatively civilized" and "they look like us" to discuss the first waves of refugees coming from Ukraine. It was part of their explanation for why <i>these</i> refugees should be accepted into Europe as opposed to all the refugees whom various European states said they were "too full" to take who came from Syria and other war zones to their south (though, of course, Syria is another Russia vs "the West" war, just on someone else's turf). The argument had to be made, though, because Ukraine is only "relatively civilized" because it sits a a buffer between "East" and "West" and isn't "the West." </p><p>The UK is at least honest about this in their refusal to open their borders to refugees. Brexit was mostly aimed at getting eastern Europeans out of the UK, so at least they are consistent. Poland is taking in the most Ukrainian refugees, marking it also as a buffer, just as Greece and Italy were expected by their northern allies to take in and deal with all of the refugees driven out of Syria by war. "The West" builds concentric circles of Westernness around itself. Those concentric circles aren't just Westernness, though. Because "Western" is just a proxy for "civilization" in these discourses. Those circles are also about level of "civilization" -- from civilized to barbarian to savage. Ukraine is in the "relatively civilized" circle, along with much of eastern Europe and as such are deemed inferior locations of resource extraction and exploitation by the still colonizer mentality of western European countries. That hasn't changed in more than a century. </p><p>The fact that Europe and the US are even mobilizing as much effort as they are to help Ukraine is amazing. When Hungary attempted to fight off the Soviets in 1954, they were abandoned, even after continual encouragement by Radio Free Europe and other propaganda mechanisms to resist the Soviets. One member of the British parliament made clear where he stood. He said in response to debate about supporting the revolution something to the effect of "Ever since Arpad and his Magyars entered into the Carpathian basin, they have been nothing but trouble for the rest of Europe." But the point is, those Magyars were not "Europe." They were not "the West". They were a buffer between "the West" and Russia (and in earlier centuries, between Christendom and barbarians) and so were sacrificed. </p><p>NOTE: Viktor Orban is clearly an ally of Putin and is doing only now what he can do without drawing Putin's ire entirely. Far right governments stick together. But in 1954, the Hungarian revolutionaries were abandoned. Just facts. </p><p>Anyway, the point of this all this is that that story of "the West" is a powerful one that often obscures the realities that it is a story of "civilization" and is part of a narrative about "values" and not geography. It isn't that Ukraine isn't geographically "West" of those who supposedly embody the "East" (Russia off and on for about 300 years now), but that it is in an external concentric circle of civilization that situates it as only "relatively civilized." Their purpose in Europe is to be sacrificed to ensure the safety of their geographically western (and so more "civilized") neighbors. </p><p>If Ukraine manages to push Russia back and survive this war with its country intact, it won't be because "the West" came to its aid (enough). It will be because they fought for their very existence and Russia wasn't as almighty as they present themselves. But the cost will be millions of Ukrainian lives destroyed -- people murdered, bombed, shot; children kidnapped and adopted into Russian families to try to erase their Ukrainianness; hospitals, schools, homes, museums, historic buildings, parks roads, bridges, businesses obliterated; millions displaced perhaps never to be able to return. An actual attempted genocide while we watch. A very "Western" result. </p><p><br /></p>Rebecca Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09189847760200499244noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2441584511996015550.post-23320981026348511092022-03-08T13:06:00.006-05:002022-03-08T14:06:10.196-05:00Translating and Retranslating<p> Today I had a conversation with a bright undergrad at University of Pittsburgh who is working on a research project and wanted to know about the translation of a passage from the sourcebook. Here it is, Manilius <i>Astronomica</i> 4.711-730:</p><p></p><blockquote><p><i>For that reason, humankind is arranged by various standards and physical qualities, and peoples are fashioned with their own complexion, indicating through their physical appearance, as if by private treaty with nature, the shared society and similar substance of their people. Germany stands tall, with its towering offspring, all of it blonde, while Gaul is slightly dyed with a redness akin to Germans. Hardier Spain is an assemblage of compact, sturdy limbs. Romulus endows the Romans with the face of Mars and, through the union of Mars and Venus, well-balanced proportion of limbs, while clever Greece announces through its well-tanned people [720] their preference for athletics, especially manly wrestling. Curly hair at the temples reveals the Syrian.</i></p><p><i>The Ethiopians defile the earth and form a people drenched in shadows, while India bears people less burnt. Egypt, flooded by the Nile, darkens its people more gently because of the well-watered fields nearby and makes their complexions only moderately dark by its mild climate. Apollo, the sun god, dries out the people of Africa with dust in their desert sands, and Mauretania contains its name in the peoples’ faces, [730] the title “mauretania” being one with the color itself. </i><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span></p></blockquote><p><span style="white-space: pre;"></span></p><p>The part he was asking about is: "The Ethiopians defile the earth and form a people drenched in shadows..." and the question was about the translation of <i>maculare</i> as "defile". Welp, I am here to tell you that the translation is wrong. Given the context, it should be "darkens" or "marks". What we have is a gradation of colors: from the darkest to the lightest shades of black/brown. </p><p>The word <i>maculare</i> has lots of figurative pejorative uses, which I imported into this translation, but I don't think it belongs. Instead, I assumed a prejudice by Manilius that he likely did not have and then put it in a translation, which will be read by lots of people who don't know Latin and will go around thinking that ancient Romans had the same sort of prejudice we do in the modern world. Some will think that justifies their own anti-blackness. Others will then be turned way from Latin authors thinking this is a norm for them, too. </p><p>Anyway, this is just another reason to say no to any new projects and hit the ground running in the next couple of years on a revision and expansion of the Sourcebook. There are numerous things in it that I would no longer do today and we really need to update and fix the errors. </p><div><br /></div><p><br /></p>Rebecca Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09189847760200499244noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2441584511996015550.post-84685414770391855262021-12-19T11:16:00.013-05:002022-05-16T05:12:37.177-04:00A True Story about Student Loans<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhxskzrY3xLN2aKO3rFyZBzHSUmyyl21_Fugsee2Yfzicm2GybrcEOu_W8l10Vd-y4m7-ltiCC73mLlwnRYihPlwEvedBhF54qHlwHkDVhVLs1u_4Y285IIx6p1CBHxnNm4XKakpUqq-WtfNw-uiQmyGd_dSHPKaXivpVd4QCSLr_Dijd2luu_ZluQVdw=s1518" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="274" data-original-width="1518" height="115" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhxskzrY3xLN2aKO3rFyZBzHSUmyyl21_Fugsee2Yfzicm2GybrcEOu_W8l10Vd-y4m7-ltiCC73mLlwnRYihPlwEvedBhF54qHlwHkDVhVLs1u_4Y285IIx6p1CBHxnNm4XKakpUqq-WtfNw-uiQmyGd_dSHPKaXivpVd4QCSLr_Dijd2luu_ZluQVdw=w640-h115" width="640" /></a></div><p>There are a lot of people who talk about student loans who actually know nothing about them -- even people who work for the Dept of Education that oversees them. They know nothing about them because they don't live with them and the arcane processes that the government and private servicers and lenders have developed to keep people who took those loans out in perpetual debt. I thought I would shed some light on what it is like to live with student loan debt for decades even though you should have qualified for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program years ago. Something like only 1% of people with student loan debt have had their loans forgiven. That number should appall you. The whole system should appall you. </p><p style="text-align: center;">***</p><p>Let's start with my situation going into college so readers understand how and why student loans happen to begin with, especially in a pre-2008 crisis world:</p><p>I was a first generation college student living in a house where the rule was 18 and out. We were not provided any funds to college if we chose to go that route nor were we allowed to live at home. That meant that regardless of what the FAFSA report which I was required to fill out said about "parental contribution", there simply was none. And, given my father's income at the time, there was no financial aid for me that wasn't a loan. </p><p>So, it was 1993 and I worked about 30-40 hours a week at Red Lobster and took out student loans to pay for college and all of my living expenses. The two things my father paid for were my car insurance and health insurance. My mother sent me $300/month to help with rent and such. I lived in San Diego, which even then was too expensive for a teen trying to go to college and live on their own at the same time. I went to UCSD, where tuition cost $1800 per year when I started and cost $4200 per year when I finished. Then there were books, other fees, parking and transportation, rent, food, utilities, etc. I was at UCSD from 1993 to 1997 and accumulated $18k in student loans through the direct federal subsidized and unsubsidized loan programs. Then, I went to graduate school.</p><p>I was in graduate school for an MA and a PhD at Ohio State from 1997-2003. I finished fast by Humanities standards. My first year was unfunded and out of state tuition was $18,000/year. I took out direct federal student loans and worked at another Red Lobster. I was put on funding my 2nd year. Our funding package covered tuition and paid us $10,000 per year. We were paid for 9 months and expected to save to cover our unfunded summers, unless you were one of the lucky 3 people who got summer funding (always senior students and frequently the same 3-5 students). With that 10k per year (which rose to 14k by my 5th year), we were to cover all our expenses that weren't tuition. We were not supposed to work more than 10/hrs per week in an outside job per the conditions of our TA position. I finished graduate school with a combined undergrad/grad debt of $110,000.</p><p>Now, because I had no support for undergrad, that means I came to grad school not only with student loans but also with other debt. Because my first year was unfunded, I also took on more debt. I had to pay for all of my own expenses from the time I graduated from high school. That means that I started accumulating debt from the moment I started college. And I never stopped. Because debt always creates more debt. And because I do not have any inherited wealth and had no family support, as a first gen student, I started off in debt and will likely continue in debt until I die and if the loans are not paid off then, they will try to extract it from my spouse or child. I went to only state schools and either didn't have a car or drove variously a stripped down toyota truck or a ford festiva because neither San Diego not Columbus have ever had very robust public transportation options. I lived at times with as many as 4 other people to try to keep expenses low. But school and living costs only increased as the years went on.</p><p>When I got my first job out of grad school, it paid $42,000/year to live in Washington DC. I had $110,000 in student loan debt. And DC was expensive. My then servicer suggested I consolidate my loans to help keep the payments down and then used an extended payment plan for high debt. There were no income contingent payment plans in 2003, so this was the best thing to do. Otherwise, $800/month of my $3000/month income would have gone to student loans and I would not have been able to pay anything else really. Not in DC. Instead I paid $500. My rent was $2000. </p><p>But, here is the part that is important: when my student loans were consolidated, they were moved to a new type of loan and in the computer system, it looks like my Direct Federal Student Loans taken out from 1993-2003 were paid off. Because that is how consolidation works -- the company that takes on the loan, buys it from the lender. So, my 10 years of different loans now looked like 1 single loan taken out in 2003. </p><p>In 2007, the government initiated the PSLF program. I was a professor and so my employment qualified me. But they only counted any employment that started after 2007 and no loan payment before 2007 would count. So, basically, in 2007, the clock started. In 2009, I applied for the income based repayment plan that also started around 2007. It cut my monthly payments in half. But, my servicer's website advised that we apply for the program only when we became eligible for forgiveness, i.e. after 10 years. <b>The website also did not explain that even if you took out Direct Federal Student Loans, once you consolidated those loans, they no longer qualified for the program</b>. </p><p>Fast forward to 2014. I decided on the advice of friends, to send in the app for the PSLF program just to see where I stand and get a payoff number. Technically, it was 7 years from when the program started and I had been making payments of qualifying level that whole time. BUT! And here is the big BUT. <b>When I applied, I was told that my loans did not qualify because ONLY Direct Federal Student Loans qualified. And it was only at this time that they explained to me that my Direct Federal Student Loans had not been consolidate AS Direct Federal Student Loans, but as one of the servicer's private loan types.</b> </p><p>It was, of course, to the servicer's benefit, not mine, to have my loans consolidated that way and it was the loan industry that lobbied hard to limit the loan forgiveness program to only Direct Federal Loans. That meant that all the loans they had consolidated away from that program to their own programs would NOT qualify. <b>And, even though thousands of us had originally taken out Direct loans, our debt could not be discharged under the new program even when we had both qualifying employment and had been paying them regularly and without default or forbearance for over a decade already.</b> </p><p>So, in 2014, I initiated a reconsolidation of my loans to return them to the Direct Federal Student Loan program so that I could qualify for the PSLF program. <b>But every reconsolidation wipes out the previous payments</b>. I had, at this point, never missed a payment since 2003 and had even been in the qualifying payment types and in a qualifying job since the beginning of PSFL, but the clock started ALL OVER in 2015 when my loans were move BACK into the Direct Federal Loan program. If you go into my loans right now, it says that the loans were initiated in 2015 and I now only have 78 qualifying payment. I still owe $50,780 in 2021 and still have until 2025 until I qualify for PSLF (if we still have the program and the then administration actually follows through). </p><p>So, to recap, I took out my original loans from the direct federal program between 1993-2003. I have not missed a single payment over that time and have paid off $60,000 of the loans plus about $30,000 in interest. Because, of course, when your loan payments string out over 20 years, even at 3% interest, that is tens of thousand of dollars. My own child will be starting college in 2024 and I have almost no accumulated savings to cover those costs. Because how can you save when you have spent 20 years paying 25% of your monthly income to student loans? My own child's college choices will be limited because I have student loan debt. And I have student loan debt because I had no parental support to go to college. </p><p style="text-align: center;">***</p><p>This is how generational debt is perpetuated. This is why social mobility in America is a lie. The entire student loan structure is about getting people into debt with promises of a better life and then keeping them in debt to transfer any wealth we may accumulate in that "better life" to the banks and other already wealthy classes. And then when the debt reaches crisis proportions for masses of people, they turn it around and say "oh, but you don't deserve loan forgiveness because you were irresponsible." No, my friends. I and people like me have been very responsible and have been diligently working to pay for everything. The system is just designed to make that as difficult as possible. We deserve to have our loans forgiven because we have more than already paid them off! The system has been changed over and over again, however, to make it so that never happens. Or only happens after lenders have milked as much EXTRA from us as they can get away with. </p><p>If we stopped owing money, then how would rich companies and people stay rich? How would they ensure that any wealth that might accumulate to the lower and middle classes would trickle up to them? Because THAT is the legacy of trickle down economics -- almost all the money has transferred upwards and student loan debt has been one of the tools in the capitalist toolkit to ensure it keeps doing so. </p><p>PS. If you want to know why only 78 of my 80 payments qualify? When I was transferring from the income based repayment plan back to the standard plan, the loan servicer took out two withdrawals in the same month. So, according to the system, their servicing error looks instead like I made an extra payment which means that both of those payments they took out do not qualify as "qualifying payments". Their banking error, my penalty. </p><p>EDIT TO ADD THE HAPPY ENDING TO THIS STORY: </p><p>One month after writing this blog post, I received the email telling me that under the temporary expansion of what count as eligible payments, my loans have been forgiven. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhNpWvkS7_RgUBamKHWrvkHtHIdWICtgMOyr9_-fQaxhFNjraiYiJv6peV7Obh4E-RWt51rd4CSDOQ_IawCxGQgemsFwUIcRZ-LQszUZxayScnSzh5BsyWnktSBpXojOhbf7B5hgsHbBA1N_bUGr60WXZm0gkdX8tuYERm34roEBsShbCN-IA1uolys_Q=s804" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="414" data-original-width="804" height="330" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhNpWvkS7_RgUBamKHWrvkHtHIdWICtgMOyr9_-fQaxhFNjraiYiJv6peV7Obh4E-RWt51rd4CSDOQ_IawCxGQgemsFwUIcRZ-LQszUZxayScnSzh5BsyWnktSBpXojOhbf7B5hgsHbBA1N_bUGr60WXZm0gkdX8tuYERm34roEBsShbCN-IA1uolys_Q=w640-h330" width="640" /></a></div>SECOND EDIT: I got a refund for 9 overpayments on my loan (at $809.74 each). Had there not been a payment moratorium during COVID, I would have gotten all of those payments back as well. Because I ended up overpaying by years for the program. But they are now working to make things right for us.<div><br /></div><div>CANCEL STUDENT DEBT! ALL OF IT. <br /><p><br /></p></div>Rebecca Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09189847760200499244noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2441584511996015550.post-80746828069038344642021-12-01T14:56:00.002-05:002021-12-04T20:25:54.341-05:00Talking about Race and Ethnicity in Greco-Roman Antiquity<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhz78CddIdV7XEynHuYF6FhILtDEMlIAJI8KaL7YkgJoL4sEXwt5MEiBIL357eRcJ7wJGqGPR3WeJ-qhQRufZOG8Hc13mWpGEKqjpvXp03F3ufInAMlmSSGAgJ1AxSQLHdxKNO_lH6_I0yd/s2048/1428982805_Bishop-9-MONSTERS.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1399" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhz78CddIdV7XEynHuYF6FhILtDEMlIAJI8KaL7YkgJoL4sEXwt5MEiBIL357eRcJ7wJGqGPR3WeJ-qhQRufZOG8Hc13mWpGEKqjpvXp03F3ufInAMlmSSGAgJ1AxSQLHdxKNO_lH6_I0yd/s320/1428982805_Bishop-9-MONSTERS.jpg" width="219" /></a></div>A couple of years ago, I gave a talk that was the seed of a book I am now in the process of finishing up discussing whether or not we can talk about the ideas of race and ethnicity outside of modern contexts. I posted the talk <a href="https://rfkclassics.blogspot.com/2019/04/is-there-race-or-ethnicity-in-greco.html" target="_blank">on the blog here</a> and it seems to continue to be of interest to readers. There, I posited rethinking how we deploy those terms given that it has been the practice of those working in the discipline called "Classics" especially to just use them interchangeably, under the misconception that the terms are really just marking the same concepts. The result has been as one might expect -- from about the 1960 until 2010-ish, we only had scholarship on antiquity that talked about "ethnicity" and now, we are getting a lot of scholarship that is talking about ethnicity in Greco-Roman antiquity, but is calling it "race." We are also getting more studies that are talking about Blackness, Black people, or Africans in the ancient Mediterranean, as "race in antiquity". Very few scholars of antiquity are actually studying "race" as it is understood by sociologists, anthropologists, philosophers and legal scholars of race, some of which falls under the penumbra of Critical Race Theory™(OH NOES!).<p></p><p>My own work in this area has changed a lot over the last decade as I have engaged more and more deeply with both the theories and the histories of race and ethnicity in the modern world AND identity formation in Greco-Roman antiquity. Where I once followed the party line of using ethnicity and treating "race" as only a modern phenomenon, I now recognize that my mistake rested in thinking that "race" was actually a biological thing (even if I recognized it was an imaginary one) and so could only manifest in modernity. Simultaneously, in recognizing that "race" is really something quite different than its modern biological manifestation, I have also recognized that we can't simply use the words race and ethnicity interchangeably because they signify different relationships to identity. In other words, I have had to get serious about the research because these ideas are complex and just using the terms as we do in everyday life or as they are found in our Greek and Latin lexicons can be worse than not using them at all. </p><p>The result of all of this research is that in order to write my current book (<i>Ancient Identities/Modern Politics: Race and Ethnicity in Greco-Roman Antiquity</i>, for Johns Hopkins University Press), I have had to develop a working vocabulary and clearly articulated definitions so as not to muddle the already muddied waters where race and antiquity and its modern receptions are involved. As I have been giving talks around and about on the material from the book, I have found it is helpful for audiences to know how I am using these terms. Some of it I've already highlighted in my work on metics (<a href="https://rfkclassics.blogspot.com/2020/12/race-and-athenian-metic-modeling.html" target="_blank">a version of which is posted here</a>), some of it will appear in a forthcoming article in <i>Classical Outlook</i> on teaching race and ethnicity in the Latin classroom, and some of it will appear in a forthcoming <i>Classical Review</i> review of he new <i>Cambridge Greek Lexicon</i>. But, I thought maybe it might be helpful to others to see these working definitions all together in one place. So, here they are.</p><p style="text-align: center;">***</p><p><b>Race:</b> a technology or doctrine of population management that institutionalizes ethnic prejudice, oppression, and inequality based on imaginary and changeable signifiers for human difference, signifiers that manifest differently in different times and places (i.e. it is historically contingent and fluid). Race is, in many instances, a biologized type of class system. </p><p><b>Biorace</b>: One form of “race”; a fiction that certain visible physical characteristics and blood/biological descent among people are signs of moral and intellectual abilities and that people can be classified along the lines of these biological differences for explaining social, political, and economic inequalities. Common forms of biorace are skin color designations (somatic race) and genetic identities.</p><p><b>Ethnicity</b>: a group identity shaped according to changing needs and contexts that most frequently reflects a form of self-grouping or identification of others based on a belief in shared characteristics that may include cultural practices, geography, and/or a notion of imagined shared descent or kinship. </p><p><b>Racism</b>: an ideology; the practice of a double standard that naturalizes the idea that human differences signify superiority or inferiority. These double standards enable and reinforce prejudice and justify oppression. </p><p><b>Racecraft: </b>"the practical, day to day actions that reproduce the imaginary, pervasive belief in natural distinctions between the groups." (Fields and Fields (2013) 18-19.</p><p><b>Race-making: </b>the process by which communities define their in and out groups and develop justifications for and enforcement mechanism for maintaining these distinctions. Race-making institutionalizes ethnic and/or class prejudices along "natural" criteria.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh13vC7YfEVfpCzLmRZSlnk5LuHubLpKT2lN99dZayc7vRAkZ1jbwHVl1EneaCc_7m8qtn3BZEwHyooKqtVcKYYo9yadKWQEW4bi-Gbqrjh98dq1rZzTZpWzr66XSt2vWg-Y8h3jBAX_PYy/s2048/Screen+Shot+2020-12-03+at+3.01.31+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1146" data-original-width="2048" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh13vC7YfEVfpCzLmRZSlnk5LuHubLpKT2lN99dZayc7vRAkZ1jbwHVl1EneaCc_7m8qtn3BZEwHyooKqtVcKYYo9yadKWQEW4bi-Gbqrjh98dq1rZzTZpWzr66XSt2vWg-Y8h3jBAX_PYy/w640-h358/Screen+Shot+2020-12-03+at+3.01.31+PM.png" width="640" /></a></div><b><p><b><br /></b></p>White supremacism</b>: a specific racial ideology based on the assumption of superiority of a “White” race over other groups or of a “White” norm or neutral position from which everyone else diverges. It is not an extreme form of individual racism, but a structure; one can have White supremacism without overt racism. White supremacism describes a conceptual system (often concealed) that centers and supports a group called “White” against those excluded from the category. The category itself is historically contingent.<p></p><p><b>Race science</b>: the actual categories and typologies still used in physical anthropology and population genetics. The science of categorizing people through biological or genetic expressions (phenotype). A form of racecraft for maintaining biorace as a way of categorizing peoples.</p><p><b>Scientific racism</b>: racist ideas that dress themselves up in “science” to justify their claims, like the idea the IQ is linked to skin color or the idea that violence is correlated to bioracial categories.</p><p><b>Western</b>: A term generally used to refer to Western and Central European countries and some of their colonial offspring (like the United States, Australia and New Zealand). Israel is also included frequently under the category, while Russia and eastern Europe frequently are not.</p><p><b>Western exceptionalism</b>: The idea that countries included in the category of “western” have a distinctive destiny or historical trajectory that marks them as special and superior to those outside the group. Such “exceptionalism” is said to be rooted in specific values embraced by the west as foundational to their identity. "Western Civilization" is one packaging of western exceptionalism most frequently understood within a "clash of civilizations" model.</p><p><b>Classics</b>: a specific packaging of the ancient Mediterranean world as an explicitly Greco-Roman world that developed beginning in the middle of the 18th century and became embedded within academic contexts. “Classics” came to be primarily identified with the ancient Greek and Latin languages in universities. “Classics” is not the content of antiquity, but a specific way of studying it and viewing it.</p><p><br /></p><p><b>Some works informing these definitions and/or which are otherwise enlightening</b>:</p><p>Appiah, A. 2019. <i>The Lies That Bind</i>. Liverlight. </p><p>Bell, D. 2020 <i>Dreamworlds of Race: Empire and the Utopian Destiny of Anglo-America</i> (Princeton University Press).</p><p>Birney, E., Inouye, M., Raff, J., Rutherford, A. and Scally, A., 2021. “The language of race, ethnicity, and ancestry in human genetic research.” arXiv preprint arXiv:2106.10041.</p><p>Bonnett, A., 2016. “Whiteness and the West.” In <i>New geographies of race and racism</i>. (Routledge) 31-42.</p><p>Bonilla-Silva, E. 2018. <i>Racism without Racists</i>. 5th edition. Rowan and Littlefield. </p><p>Fields, K. and B. Fields 2012 <i>Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality in American Life.</i> Verso.</p><p>Ifekwunigwe, J., J. Wagner, J-H. Yu, T. Harrell, M. Bamshad,and C. Royal. 2017. "A Qualitative Analysis of How Anthropologists Interpret the Race Construct" <i>American Anthropologist</i> 119: 422-434.</p><p>Mullings, L., J.B. Torres, A. Fuentes, C. Gravlee, D. Roberts, and Z. Thayer. 2021. "The Biology of Racism" <i>American Antrhopologist </i>123: 671-680.</p><p>Sheth, F. <i>Towards a Political Philosophy of Race</i>. SUNY Press.</p><p><br /></p><div><br /></div><p><br /></p><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Rebecca Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09189847760200499244noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2441584511996015550.post-40506180322512150572021-11-07T11:55:00.011-05:002021-11-08T07:56:47.248-05:00Aspasia of Miletus<p><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMVPx6ncBKNjGOWl0wK-V5hGzsXsWNfSzQdfGmGSpjGiBrsonThG8rPgp8F7Z7kkr0TZYb5Ys9d1yeNJ5S8ejceMNcA0eSKEDzcPt0XT12FhGFjuskmO45Zk5z7xnJ82J8b5RIFgPChGCB/s600/aspasia.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="400" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMVPx6ncBKNjGOWl0wK-V5hGzsXsWNfSzQdfGmGSpjGiBrsonThG8rPgp8F7Z7kkr0TZYb5Ys9d1yeNJ5S8ejceMNcA0eSKEDzcPt0XT12FhGFjuskmO45Zk5z7xnJ82J8b5RIFgPChGCB/w266-h400/aspasia.jpg" width="266" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Bust of Aspasia. We have a few copies likely made<br />from an original placed on the Acropolis as a dedication.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />Every time I see someone post, publish, podcast, or </span><span style="font-family: arial;">whatever about Aspasia of Miletus, I have a moment of false hope that they will be doing so based on scholarship on Aspasia published in the last few decades and not based on fantasies of her as some high-class </span><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2003/08/11/grandes-horizontales" style="font-family: arial;" target="_blank">Grande Horizontale</a><span style="font-family: arial;">. Aspasia the </span><i style="font-family: arial;">hetaira</i><span style="font-family: arial;"> is a long-standing trope that resists evidence to the contrary even though such a trope was disputed even as far back as the 1920s and in some cases, even in the 19th century. It is based on the application of a multivalent term <i>hetaira </i>to a woman whose prevalence in our male-dominated sources from ancient Athens makes her stand out (even though the terms was not applied to her in ancient sources). I was going to write something up for the great site </span><a href="https://www.badancient.com/" style="font-family: arial;" target="_blank"><i>Bad Ancient</i> </a><span style="font-family: arial;">on this, but I've already written on it a lot, so, I am placing here a summary of the problem, links to further readings, and an excerpt from my book. </span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Part of the insistence on "Aspasia the <i>hetaira"</i> is rooted in a misunderstanding of that term itself. <i>Hetaira</i>, as the new Cambridge Greek Lexicon gets right, has a wide range of meanings from the address one woman uses for another who happens to be her friend (Sappho speaks of Hera and Artemis as "girlfriends" in this sense) to a woman who is in a sexual relationship with a man, but is not married to them (what we in the modern world might also call a "girlfriend"). Some of these "girlfriends" may have received payments in gifts or support from the men they were with. In a specific mental landscape, this gets translated as "whore". </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Another part of this insistence is because we have accepted as real a trope of the wife/whore as the primary structuring device for women in pretty much every society. And, we have come to assume that Aspasia was not Perikles' wife, so she must have been a "whore". And yet, this notion is rooted in an assumption that the Citizenship Law of 451 BCE banned marriage between citizen men and non-citizen women. Scholarly consensus, however, is coalescing around evidence that marriage was not, in fact, banned, until the 380s BCE. And yet, even with this assumption of a 451 BCE marriage ban, many scholars acknowledge that Aspasia was more likely a <i>pallake</i> (also spelled <i>pallakis</i>) in relation to Perikles instead of his "girlfriend" (<i>hetaira). </i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">But what is a <i>pallake</i>? It is most often translated a "concubine", but it really only has something resembling that meaning in a handful of references in Herodotus to women of the Persian King's court. Or, it gets conflated with the use of the term to refer to temple attendants (who themselves get yoked to a disputed concept of the "temple prostitute") or it gets conflated with enslaved women who worked as personal servants in Athenian households, women who are threatened by their enslavers, we are told, with being sent to brothels. Any enslaved woman could be sent to work in a brothel, whether she was the pallake of an owner or a farm hand or wetnurse. More importantly, however, is that the term pallake is also used in Athenian law to refer to a domestic partner who is free and eligible to bear legitimate children to their partner. If Aspasia was not a wife, she was, as Madeline Henry argued in the 1990s, this sort of pallake. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">And yet, Aspasia is accused in numerous comic fragments of either being a sex worker or a madam. And Plutarch took this seriously. Except that we know for a fact that the easiest way to attack a politician in Athens was always through their mothers, sisters, daughters, and wives. It's hard to take the anti-Athenian writer Ephorus or the comic poets Cratinus and Aristophanes at face value when they call Perikles' non-citizen wife a madam, when the attack would have been a normal part of political discourse AND expected within anti-immigrant, misogynist comic norms. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">We also, of course, have to contend with the Socratic tradition that positions Aspasia as a teacher of rhetoric, likely of young women, but also of young men (see discussion in ch 5 of <i>Immigrant Women</i>). </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Anyway, point is, Aspasia was most likely NOT any form of sex worker or madam, but there are a lot of people invested in this specific version of her and resist any evidence to the contrary. I collated all the evidence in my <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-Zn0k6PosjczvTNgpADBZ6SKBhT8wAfZ/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank">2014 book </a><i><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-Zn0k6PosjczvTNgpADBZ6SKBhT8wAfZ/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank">Immigrant Women in Athens</a> </i>and discussed the disputed concept of the <i>hetaira </i>again in my <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xXxpr-YSg8BsyDxdE5srIkKV_y9CKwe4/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank">2015 article on </a>two women named Elpinike (sister of Kimon) and Koisyra (mother of Megakles). You can read the whole section on Aspasia in the book (it's chapter 3; ch 1 is an overview of the laws, ch 2 on tragic representations of foreign women, ch 4-5 moves to the 4th c and oratory and further inscriptional evidence for non-citizen women's lives but includes a section on Aspasia as teacher of rhetoric)). Please feel free to read both the book and the article for further contextualization and evidence for why I and other scholars dispute that Aspasia was a madam or <i>hetaira </i>(in the sense of a sex worker) and what is at stake in continuing to promote that version of her. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Below, I am reproducing an excerpt from that study that attempts to reconstruct a more likely version of her life based on a broad range of evidence that includes inscriptions that may refer to her male family members and within the context of how immigrants, especially from Miletus, integrated into Athens in the 5th century BCE. Please consider referring to it next time you see some new encyclopedia entry or textbook that tells you Aspasia was a <i>hetaira</i> because her name means "sweetie" or some bullpuckey like that (citizen women in Athens often had names that meant "honey", "sweetie", etc). Aspasia was a wealthy metic (resident non-citizen) woman in Athens with connections to wealthy citizen families. That context matters. </span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">***</span></p><p><i><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></i></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5cPiBP7M4ib4WeB-TNUFeqimqnj-1fS4tU_ANGgwTz2S4ON4Hd5N7bHFiPRCHl9UF7_7Lkj9UBAPlq51FLCX0vMfjnG_QNeMa45hAGB9FJPGPnpi0o02rx86bnUAt-QxMVw-nAaf2Rt9t/s2048/P1010535.JPG" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1185" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5cPiBP7M4ib4WeB-TNUFeqimqnj-1fS4tU_ANGgwTz2S4ON4Hd5N7bHFiPRCHl9UF7_7Lkj9UBAPlq51FLCX0vMfjnG_QNeMa45hAGB9FJPGPnpi0o02rx86bnUAt-QxMVw-nAaf2Rt9t/s320/P1010535.JPG" width="185" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">If Aspasia's tomb remained, <br />it probably looked a lot<br />like this.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><i><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />Reconstruction: When Aspasia arrived in Athens sometime around 450 BCE, she did not come as a poor immigrant looking for work in the bustling imperial city that was Athens at that time or as a trained courtesan. Rather, she came to Athens from the politically unstable Miletos as the sister-in-law of the fabulously wealthy and well-known Athenian Alkibiades the elder, just returned from his ostracism. When Alkibiades left Athens in 460 BCE and arrived in Miletos, where he seems to have spent his exile, his marriage to a daughter of the wealthy Milesian Axiochus was nothing outside of the norm for an aristocratic Athenian man. His two children from this union, Axiochus and Aspasios, while metroxenoi, were still reckoned as Athenian citizens because they were born before 451 BCE. When Alkibiades returned to Athens, however, with his Milesian wife and her younger sister Aspasia, the laws had changed thanks to Perikles. What had been possible for Aspasia’s sister, producing citizen children, was no longer a possibility for the young Aspasia. </span></i><p></p><p><i><span style="font-family: arial;">Thus, when Aspasia arrived in Athens, she came allied by marriage to one of the most powerful families in the city, but would perhaps not be able to contract such a dynastic marriage for herself if only because her children could not be citizens. Still, she was not without citizen friends and family in the city and her immediate social circle was from the cream of Athenian society. The possibilities for finding a good marriage were not out of bounds for her. It is even possible that when Kleinias, the son of the elder Alkibiades from an earlier marriage, died at Koroneia in 447/446 BCE and Perikles became guardian of the younger Alkibiades (III), that Perikles also became the kurios of the still young Aspasia. Around this time, Aspasia and Perikles began a long-term relationship that was recognized as a marriage that lasted until Pericles’ death in 429 BCE. They had one child born sometime before 441 BCE who was enfranchised in 430 BCE. Their relationship, because of Perikles’ prominence and because of the law he himself proposed (and which made his child by Aspasia initially a non-citizen), became the subject of much gossip on the comic stage for certain, and likely, in the agora and the assembly. <span style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></i></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><i>Upon Perikles’ death in 429/8 BCE, it is unclear what happened to Aspasia and her son Perikles Jr., although it is possible that the latter became the ward of Alkibiades, now aged around 23, or his own uncle Axiochus, Aspasia’s nephew. Aspasia, Alkibiades’ aunt now aged around 40, would have either become the dependent of Axiochus or of Alkibiades himself until her son came of age. The tradition that Aspasia was remarried to Lysikles, by whom she supposedly had a child named Poristes, is neither secure or necessary. Many of the comic slanders against Aspasia come from the years after Perikles’ death and may be associated with the careers of her nephew and son. Her relationship to Lysikles could have been one of teacher and student because many of the philosophical texts (Plato, Xenophon and Aeschines) treat Aspasia as something akin to a Sophist. It is quite possible that Aspasia and Lysikles were not married at all and never had a child, but by learning rhetoric from her, he was able to bamboozle others as the comic figure Strepseides attempts to do in Aristophanes’ </i>Clouds<i>, thus bearing the metaphorical child, Poristes, a polite way of calling someone a thief. Aspasia also could have offered basic education to young women, thus the reference to her ‘girls’ in Aristophanes’ Acharnians, the pornê whose kidnapping he jokes led to the Megarian decree. We might view both as comic slanders against Aspasia as Sophist, dressed erotically in the guise of madam or prostitute.</i></span></p><p><i><span style="font-family: arial;">This reconstruction of Aspasia’s journey to Athens and her life is based primarily on the epigraphical and historical evidence linking her Milesian family to the Athenian family of Alcibiades (II). Whether it is completely accurate or not does not matter, although I think it a more accurate picture of Aspasia’s life than what is traditionally posited. What matters most, however, is its plausibility and what that means for understanding the possibilities for metic women found frequenting citizen social circles in mid-fifth century BCE in Athens and the impact laws like the Citizenship Law might have had on them. Aspasia has long been reckoned among scholars, especially among scholars studying women’s history, as a courtesan and madam mostly because she was associated socially with Athenian citizen men and scholars have long rejected any notion that a respectable citizen woman could socialize with men in this way. </span></i></p><p><i><span style="font-family: arial;">Aspasia was also considered by her contemporaries as educated and intellectual. The combination of her foreign birth, education and eroticization has led to the inevitable conclusion that she must have been a courtesan because within the dynamics that have become established in the study of Athenian women, the only possible way to understand the famous foreign women of wealth we encounter in the historical record is as such. But it is unclear if such prostitutes really did exist in Aspasia’s lifetime. And the history reconstructed for Aspasia by Bicknell suggests a very different path for metic women of wealth in Athens, especially for those with ties to citizens. While the Citizenship Law did eliminate temporarily and technically the possibility that a metic woman’s child could be a citizen, it did not eliminate relationships for those with connections to the Athenian elites nor did it reduce these women to indigence with no options but to prostitute themselves (or others) to survive. What we see at work both in the invectives against Aspasia and in the scholarly tradition is the ideology of the metic woman, especially reflected in the representation of Phaedra. Aspasia, living in Athens on the cusp of a change in Athenian self-definition, bears the scars of the ideological warfare waged after 451 BCE on metic women under the guise of protecting the citizen body. </span></i></p><p><i><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></i></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Reconstruction quoted from <i>Immigrant Women in Athens</i> (Routledge, 2014) Copyright Rebecca Futo Kennedy. </span></p><div><br /></div><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Rebecca Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09189847760200499244noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2441584511996015550.post-19466471123146979302021-09-29T15:00:00.004-04:002021-10-05T13:49:58.937-04:00I am Not a Humanist<p>I've read a few things in the last week or so that have me thinking, specifically while I do some painting and woodwork in the house and my mind is free to wander. What I've been thinking about is how power structures get naturalized and how we (in the general sense) fight or argue to keep those structures in place without recognizing (willfully or in blissful ignorance) that these things are not <i>in</i> nature or <i>of</i> nature but naturalized as such. One of these things is the divisional structures of universities which slot us into humanities, physical sciences, arts, and social sciences. These are not "natural" divisions, but clearly an organizing structure that is meant to manage people, not necessarily knowledge. It's about how we allocate value and resources, not about how we think, interact with the world, or experience life. To be a humanist, social scientist, arts practitioner or physical scientist isn't a thing inherent in our work or based on where we reside in university structures (the same could be said of our disciplinary or departmental positions). It is not, in other words, an identity. To call ourselves by these structures is to invest ourselves in the naturalization of a specific way of organizing the world that is inseparable from politics. It is to defend a specific socio-political order that is not natural but has been naturalized. In other words, there is a reason I resist calling myself a classicist and why I do not call myself a humanist. </p><p>We can see this type of people management process in the name of defending a naturalized socio-political order in education (or, as the University of Toronto now calls it "people strategy") in things like the list the Wisconsin Republican party wishes to see banned from public schools (up through universities). The list is a "what's what" of stuff that questions power developed over the last few decades often within social science and humanities programs at universities as part of critical engagement with the world we inhabit. Some of this stuff has by now been coopted into the university and corporate machines that reproduce the status quo, so seeing it on a banned list is funny (like "Diversity, Equity and Inclusion" or "Diversity Training"). The total list, which can be found <a href="https://twitter.com/nadaelmikashfi/status/1442641204672450564?s=20" target="_blank">here</a>, is absurd--my favorite is banning the word "intersection"; what do we call the place where streets connect? </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMhkNaaySeYuMFjP8hYj_LOMjJKTQpisp3CF3I5a7sOt0rXvGdcVjdbG4YIRefM75AnGFRMQ8s8G5Tw-cyKoNr6g6a-LkQmnbL0k2Iq8eHk2xjrXpo8TU5ZNAEXFNx8bYNGWCH5Jrsal1z/s1280/intersection.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="959" data-original-width="1280" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMhkNaaySeYuMFjP8hYj_LOMjJKTQpisp3CF3I5a7sOt0rXvGdcVjdbG4YIRefM75AnGFRMQ8s8G5Tw-cyKoNr6g6a-LkQmnbL0k2Iq8eHk2xjrXpo8TU5ZNAEXFNx8bYNGWCH5Jrsal1z/w640-h480/intersection.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p>The current bans are all centered on race and gender -- the very things that many of my colleagues in "classics" still consider "fringe" or "ancillary" to the study of antiquity despite decades of research and teaching on these topics and despite the fact that half the human population in antiquity was ALSO women and despite the fact that race (though not biorace as it manifests in the modern world) also existed in antiquity. The humanities, for the better, I think, has been invested in understanding and engaging these aspects of the human experience for many years now. In doing so, however, it has decentered (oops! that's one of the words on the bad list!) more traditional focus on what is inarguably elite men and their primary concerns and perspective of the world. This is why humanities is being attacked and shrunk within the university. To ignore this is to ignore context. To ignore context is to argue and defend a humanities divorced from humans. A humanities that isn't simply a device for maintaining a Christian education under the guise of "universal morality" is a threat to the status quo. </p><p>Reasons that "humanities" and "classics" in their current form are being dismantled are manifold. It has been the trajectory of those of us who are generally placed within the humanities divisions of our colleges to increasingly push against disciplinarity and to seek intellectual engagement with our colleagues in other "divisions". We don't see why these "divisions" need to actually divide us so thoroughly. Disciplinarity and divisional structures, of course, are meant to divide us. But neither knowledge nor the humans who seek it can reside strictly within the oubliettes we have crafted for ourselves. We want to see the sky in all its vastness. We want to be free. But that means undermining the very people management system that provides us with structure in our lives. For this reason, we must be destroyed.</p><p>To be free floating entities at a university without majors, minors, departments, disciplines, divisions, or (perhaps most importantly) budgets and endowments to rest our sense of value and purpose upon, is scary. And, of course, it disadvantages those who have built their existence upon all of these divisions and who thrive within the system because they are built <i>for</i> the system. To want to move and think and <i>be </i>outside of this often comfortable and comforting (even while alienating and oppressive) regime requires rethinking how and what we value. It requires a whole slew of things on the banned words list: deconstruction, critical self awareness, critical self reflection, decentering, interrupting. It means staring the systems of power in the face, recognizing them for what they are, and understanding that continuing to inhabit them without resistance can only be intentional --there is no unconscious or unintentional bias in a true human centered education. Because we cannot truly study humanity and not know that our structures result in exclusions, oppressions, and bias. If we choose to defend or reproduce these structures without resisting them and working to change them, we are choosing exclusions, oppressions, and bias. I am not a humanist, if humanist means continuing to do things the way they have always been done. </p><p>And so we find ourselves in a strange situation where those of us who find disciplinarity and divisionalism restrictive and nothing more than mechanisms for maintaining a naturalized status quo where elite male and Christian perspectives and valuations are centered as normative (damn! I cannot stop with these bad words) are participating in our own dismantling as an academic discipline at the hands of a human management system that only wants that which reproduces and supports itself. Those who embrace traditional disciplinarity and the values that support and help reproduce the current system defend the value of disciplines and the humanities through something that cannot, in fact, be taught through reading books --morality. </p><p>Humanities by itself cannot teach morality or ethics -- we need to be one with our colleagues across disciplines and divisions --physical sciences, arts, social sciences, and humanities working together and through each other. Though it is unclear if even the most robustly well-rounded university education can create "discerning moral agents" (to quote my university's mission statement). Despite focusing our studies and teaching and valuing humanity more broadly, openly, and realistically than those invested in universalism and traditional structures and hierarchies, we are considered the "real" threat to the traditional "humanities" that themselves can only be kept within the modern university so long as it functions to enforce an unreal idea that there is a universal human experience or morality that is reflected in the current order of things. This is to naturalize the unnatural. </p><p>I don't want to nor can I in good conscience be doing a job the goal of which is to reinforce the naturalization of the status quo. As far as I am concerned, if being a humanist means imparting or discovering "universal truths" in texts instead of engaging in a critical inquiry of the relationships between those texts and both their original and continuing contexts, then I don't want to be a humanist. In fact, this sort of humanism is, to me, anti-human, just as any science that purports to be purely objective and divorced from contexts is. There is no universal truth that should not be interrogated, no morality that is embedded in nature that should be accepted without question, no status quo that must be defended in the name of any artificial disciplinary or administrative people management system. To defend these things as inherently necessary or valuable means that one is either comfortable with the system, resigned to it, or benefits from it. </p><p>And this is <i>by design</i> only a small portion of the human population. Any "classics", any "history", any "philosophy", and "biology", and "physics", any "political science" that depends upon traditional hierarchies, distributions of knowledge and resources, intellectual categories, proprietary methodologies, or claims to morality or ethics is a dead end and an agent of entrenched power. No thank you. </p>Rebecca Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09189847760200499244noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2441584511996015550.post-76113531165804504262021-09-13T09:22:00.013-04:002021-09-14T08:12:47.562-04:00Work, Not Work -- It's All the Same<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> Some days I don't work. </span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">As a result, nothing of the dozen projects I need to finish (or start) get done.</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Other days, I work.</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> But the result is that none of the dozen projects I need to finish (or start) get done. </span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Work, don't work. It all ends the same.</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0T7ZaZJIsWKPfXfowwxjLnZ3DW-rm4FvuG9E7E7QYkQXb2AA5QNeASoJ4h5oLkZQBpboLu-cuLi4oIyQXwRc8efQKLKjkDIFuNMyAoJFghBKX_BaG2j-37VlDqFUCLLE9eNO62om-MIcd/s500/Yoda+Gif.gif" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img border="0" data-original-height="200" data-original-width="500" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0T7ZaZJIsWKPfXfowwxjLnZ3DW-rm4FvuG9E7E7QYkQXb2AA5QNeASoJ4h5oLkZQBpboLu-cuLi4oIyQXwRc8efQKLKjkDIFuNMyAoJFghBKX_BaG2j-37VlDqFUCLLE9eNO62om-MIcd/w640-h256/Yoda+Gif.gif" width="640" /></span></a></div><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">I've been trying to figure out <i>why</i> nothing seems to get done no matter how much or how little I work and I have no answers. I do know that my brain is a mess -- I can barely string more than a few sentences of a thought together before it starts to break down. I try repeatedly to summon up something of the ideas I've been pondering for years to put them to page and all I get are fragments.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">I am surrounded by the fragments of my projects -- piles of unread or half read scholarship and primary sources, partially written chapters and other documents, partially translated texts, unfinished windows in the kitchen, unfinished ceilings, unstained stairs I ripped the carpet off 3 years ago, half painted walls in the entry of the house, a light fixture unboxed but sitting in pieces. I hardly even notice that one anymore. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Part of the issue lies, of course, with the ADHD and the difficulties of keeping myself on task --except when I hyperfocus, though <i>what</i> I hyperfocus on is not really within my control. My list of active symptoms is long:</span></p><ul style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-inline-start: 48px;"><li aria-level="1" dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial;">missing details and becoming distracted easily</span></span></p></li><li aria-level="1" dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial;">trouble focusing on the task at hand</span></span></p></li><li aria-level="1" dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial;">becoming bored quickly</span></span></p></li><li aria-level="1" dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial;">becoming confused easily or daydreaming frequently</span></span></p></li><li aria-level="1" dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial;">seeming not to listen when spoken to directly</span></span></p></li><li aria-level="1" dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #231f20; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">having difficulty following through on tasks or assignments</span></span></p></li><li aria-level="1" dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: #231f20; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial;">losing or forgetting things or events</span></span></p></li><li aria-level="1" dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial;">fidgeting or squirming</span></span></p></li><li aria-level="1" dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial;">talking nonstop</span></span></p></li><li aria-level="1" dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial;">saying inappropriate things without thinking</span></span></p></li><li aria-level="1" dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial;">being impatient or rude</span></span></p></li><li aria-level="1" dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial;">interrupting or butting into other peoples’ conversations</span></span></p></li><li aria-level="1" dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial;">having difficulty waiting your turn</span></span></p></li></ul><div><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Not all of these impact my writing and work, but most of them do. I look at the list and I wonder how I ever got anything done (or how I have <i>any</i> friends). But hyperfocus properly aimed is truly an amazing thing. </span></span></div><div><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Another reason is just mental exhaustion. Between the overwork of doing both my professor position and museum director position for 5 years and the intense uptick in requests for my time by...everyone and the strangeness that is COVID life, I am just spent. Sometimes I don't sleep well and when I don't sleep well, I can't think well. Somedays I sleep like a champion, but my energy is wasted away in I don't even know what, but it usually involves driving my child to some tournament or sports event or something. Maybe it is announcing the high school field hockey games? Or helping install new floors at the fencing club. My time is rarely my own.</span></span></div><div><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Another reason may be futility. Of the 5 things I have finished since 2019, only 2 of those are even close to seeing the light of day currently. Both of those come out in separate volumes in December-ish. The other 3, 2 of which are to my mind the best scholarship I have written to date and 1 of which (my piece on race and metics) is one of the most important things I have ever written, are languishing with editors. One of them I have not received even comments from the editors on in the 18 months since I submitted it. Another has been revised and reviewed by the press, but is waiting on work on the intro and some of the other chapters. The third I never received feedback from the editor, but it went out to review also like 18 months ago and I have not heard anything since. </span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">It's like the best stuff I have ever written has gone into the wind never to be seen or heard from again. </span></span></div><div><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial;">It really does make it hard to put words to page when there seems to be no hope anyone will ever read the words you've written. </span></span></div><div><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Its likely a combination of all of these things that makes working and not working all the same in the end. No matter how much I work, I get nowhere, nothing gets done, or it gets done and goes into a void. </span></span></div><div><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">The other issue may be that there is so much work that I have no way to devote myself singularly to any thing and so the fragmenting of my brain continues even in times of supposed concentration and I can't write about poverty because thoughts about colonialist fashion trends keep intruding, all while ancient Greek sources on women and centuries of ideas of race and ethnicity</span> <span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">swirl around in my mind like a hurricane. </span></span></div><div><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial;">To try to focus on each project, I go back and read things past Rebecca has written on the topic. It helps for a few minutes, but then I either realize that these things are themselves not yet published and seem like they never will be (but I can't duplicate them or, I guess, even quote them or cite them as they languish with the various editors). I also wonder how past Rebecca ever wrote anything so concise, effective, or...finished. </span></span></div><div><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial;">I haven't even been able to finish writing a blog post in months. I've started three. Only this one -- which involves no real work other than typing my fragmented and fractured thoughts -- is close to completion. </span></span></div><div><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial;">So, work, don't work. At this stage, my results are the same. Most days, I wonder why I even try. </span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span></div>Rebecca Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09189847760200499244noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2441584511996015550.post-41564781758665207482021-06-11T13:43:00.017-04:002021-06-15T13:02:33.876-04:00Open Letter to the SCS on Supporting Departments and Programs<p>[note:there are a few sentences in here that are a little harsh. I am not going to change them because they are already out there and editing them now would be disingenuous. But, I do want to acknowledge the hard work of the SCS staff (tiny) and many of the people on comms who are working for change. It really is not about individuals, but a long standing blind spot that has led in some ways to, as one person put it “1980s solutions to 2020 problems”. More people have read this than I anticipated. I hope you can see past the snark to the concrete suggestions and need for a long needed investment in teaching and small, non PhD programs and towards a democratization of our orgs and the efforts to support those programs below the prestige line.]</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2ZFeeMaWOSYo5Gh6JugrNRs_sEvRb7ndbKrUWsIS-wwLpi0DjVj08-VXUS4kzUVfzbjqD4SUb-hC4x5UrMDWU7K87tktN8GOLsJjDAzYqazTahVm4v9GOLFtUbi69Bd_mCQg_n9fjkvIu/s611/athene.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="611" data-original-width="516" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2ZFeeMaWOSYo5Gh6JugrNRs_sEvRb7ndbKrUWsIS-wwLpi0DjVj08-VXUS4kzUVfzbjqD4SUb-hC4x5UrMDWU7K87tktN8GOLsJjDAzYqazTahVm4v9GOLFtUbi69Bd_mCQg_n9fjkvIu/w169-h200/athene.png" width="169" /></a></div>Dear Important People in the SCS (and any other professional classics orgs),<p></p><p>The last couple of weeks has seen a lot of handwringing in the media, on social media, and elsewhere about a change made last year to Princeton's undergraduate degree requirements. If we are to believe some of our colleagues and interested non-professionals, the sky has not only fallen, but hell has also frozen over and the field is definitely burning down. By making the languages an optional choice for students, Princeton has apparently broken classics. This is despite the fact that the languages will still be required to enter graduate programs nationwide. </p><p>We are witnessing in slow motion (though it’s speeding up) the creation of a new educational apartheid wherein elite, prestige institutions will continue to have robust humanities and classics educations, while small liberal arts schools, state schools, public K-12 schools, community colleges, and other non-elite spaces become vocational schools for future debt-peons. But, please, let's keep talking about language requirements versus making them optional. </p><p>It says something about the state of affairs when the Princeton program changes get more airtime than the dozen or so programs or departments that are currently being closed, reduced, or are under threat at non-Ivy schools around the country. Here is a <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1G9dYP_zbKfndcDSh6C2mfh1h8t9dd-VxeGiFlyXsetA/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">spreadsheet</a> being kept by Evan Jewell <a href="https://twitter.com/ClassicsAtRisk" target="_blank">@ClassicsAtRisk</a>. Yes, Howard University's closure received some attention, thanks to Cornell West (and the indefatigable Anika Prather), and there was a period of outcry and support for University of Vermont (thanks mostly to Jessica Evans). But, for the most part, programs just fade with a shrug and a sigh from our professional organizations, who seem to be at a loss for how to do any sort of advocacy work for the field beyond handing out limited funds for outreach activities. The most recent statement on anything from the SCS, if I recall correctly, was about how people shouldn't be mildly mean to each other on Twitter or Facebook or in our personal communications with each other. The SCS didn't even raise a finger in protest when AP World History eliminated the ancient world sections and decided the History of the World started in the 15th century. </p><p>For over 20 years now, Classics programs and departments in the US have been under threat of closure or reduction. The minutes of the Liberal Arts Chairs meetings from the SCS are filled with discussions of how to prevent losses to tenure lines, losses of majors, and department closures. The strategies have mostly centered around adding more classes in translation and shifting the language requirements. This makes sense because the classes that aren't enrolling and that put the departments at risk in the corporate university structure are the advanced language courses. Students simply do not want to take foreign languages (it isn't just Greek and Latin that are closing, but also German, Chinese, Japanese, etc.). </p><p>Importantly, often no one learns of these closures or threats until they are too far along to stop. Many universities are in deep financial trouble and under-enrolled majors like Classics are one fo the easiest places to justify cuts. Programs closed or under threat basically have been on their own to try to find solutions at their home institutions and these programs are often small and without resources to fight. What has the SCS or our other orgs done? According to @ClassicsAtRisk, Jeffrey Henderson (contacted I guess as a member of the Education Division?—UPDATE as the contact for the Campus Advisory Group that sometimes offers advice—CORRECTION “service”, not “group”. It isn’t a group.) said over a year ago that they were working on something. Nothing has yet been done.</p><p>The only current mechanism for departments to share their experiences and struggles is the Liberal Arts Chairs meeting, which 1. only happens once a year at the SCS, 2. is only made up from people who can actually attend, and 3. is actually a relatively new entity. The SCS doesn't even provide guidance or support for departments or programs that need or want to have external reviews done, something commonly done by other professional organizations. </p><p>Meetings between the Liberal Arts Chairs and the Grad Program Chairs have consistently showed the gap in where the two types of programs are, with the Liberal Arts programs basically being asked to choose between having a program that prepares students for graduate work and entrance to the profession or that can fill enrollments, increase majors, and serve the greater communities on our campuses and which keep our programs open. One common solution has been the 2 tiered majors (or similar structures)--one in languages, one in "studies" that has reduced or no language requirements--the thing that is supposedly killing classics at Princeton has saved dozens of smaller programs from closure.</p><p>I would like to call for the SCS and any of our other professional organization--CAMWS, CAAS, CAPN, etc--to consider the big picture and make itself useful to the programs and departments that teach the majority of courses and students in this country, programs that are NOT Princeton and the other PhD granting institutions. I am calling on the SCS to make real changes to what they do and do not do for the field as a whole. I am asking for the SCS to be more than an organization that passively exists and be an actual organizational space and active space in support of the teaching of the ancient world. To that end, I have thought of a few minor things the SCS might do to make itself more useful to membership. I call for the SCS to:</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Enlist a group of volunteers from all levels of education--from K-12 schools, community colleges, liberal arts colleges small and large, state schools at every level, BA only, MA only and PHD granting schools, from departments to interdepartmental programs to faculty housed in other traditional departments (like history, English, languages, art history, etc) who will be available and willing to share their experiences and time with programs looking for ideas on how to change their curriculum, majors, pedagogies, anti-racism efforts, etc, or who need external reviewers for their programs. These volunteers should not be appointed by the SCS, but should be enlisted through an open call and a list should be put together with their contact information and areas of experience that they are willing to help with. This list and information should be easily accessible to any member of the organization. </li><li>Create a team of volunteers who are on call for any program that is under threat who are willing and able to help those programs organize support through the SCS or other regional organization of whatever sort the program thinks they need--a strike force of sorts who are authorized to act quickly. Maybe this team can provide guidance on how to request renewals of tenure lines that are at risk, maybe they can utilize media connections to get the news out publicly. Maybe they can organize letter writing or petition campaigns. Again, this team needs to be representative of the range of programs, not dominated by R1 PhDs. The Henderson funneled Campus Advisory is not working.</li><li>Provide a place on the website for programs to upload and share their department programs, curricula, major requirements, guidelines, etc and provide a forum for colleagues to share ideas and discuss potential configurations outside of the annual meeting. Resources like the Classics Tuning Project should have permanent homes on the organization website and should be only 1 of many such resources. The current page is underwhelming</li><li>Conduct a deep study of secondary and collegiate program closures, mergers, major shutterings, and loss of tenure lines since the 2008 financial crisis and MAKE THIS DATA AVAILABLE TO THE PUBLIC. The survey should not depend on the reporting of department chairs (as past demographic surveys have done), but should be gathered by professional researchers and data scientists (we actually have tons of them in our field) who work with membership through individual survey, interviews (especially of those from closed programs), and through publicly available media reports, university press releases, web info, etc, to pull as much accurate data on these losses as possible.</li><li>The SCS leadership should be ready, willing, and should follow through in organizing and sending meaningful statements of support--publicly, loudly, and frequently to go along with (not to replace) the material support provided for in the above bullet points.</li><li>Never again allow a panel called “future of classics” to happen that is entirely made up of faculty from PhD institutions and that doesn’t address the very real issue of closures of programs all over the country. </li></ul><div>There are probably other things that others can think of that would make the SCS and other professional orgs useful to their membership in the fight to prevent the disappearance of ancient studies from our education system. Otherwise, I am not sure what good the organization will be for anyone other than the elite prestige programs that will be the only remaining ones another 20 years from now. Maybe that is the plan. At the least, it's the likely outcome of passive professional orgs [probably too harshly worded] who think their only option is to watch helplessly or work quiet back room letter writing in the face of the continuing onslaught against the Humanities, Liberal Arts, and study of the ancient world in the US education system.</div><p></p><p><br /></p><p>Sincerely,</p><p>Rebecca Futo Kennedy </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Rebecca Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09189847760200499244noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2441584511996015550.post-71501822628637007302021-06-04T19:15:00.005-04:002021-06-17T16:49:01.554-04:00"The Negro Problem", Race, and Classics in Higher Education<p><span style="font-family: arial;">by Jackie Murray and Rebecca Futo Kennedy </span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-e784a15e-7fff-46d1-32cd-7b01b98f330a"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><i>Dr. Jackie Murray and I recently wrote a short piece for </i><a href="https://theundefeated.com/features/classics-is-a-part-of-black-intellectual-history-howard-needs-to-keep-it/" style="font-style: italic;" target="_blank">ESPN’s The Undefeated</a><i> reflecting on the history of Black engagement with the Greco-Roman past in the United States in light of the closure of Howard University’s Classics department. The original essay was bout 2500 words longer, of course, because Jackie and I are like that. What got cut (rightly for the venue!) was a more detailed discussion of the fierce debates between Emancipation and the end of Jim Crow over what right, if any, Black Americans had to higher education and how a Classical liberal arts education was linked to the idea of voting rights and full equality. We have decided to publish that material (which will appear in various other guises in books and articles we are both working on separately and together) here at the blog. We hope you will read it in tandem with our piece at The Undefeated. </i></span></span></p><i><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></i><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i><span style="font-family: arial;">PS. Working with <a href="http://www.morgan-jerkins.com/" target="_blank">Morgan Jerkins</a> for the <a href="https://theundefeated.com/" target="_blank">The Undefeated </a>essay was amazing. She is such an impressive editor and really got the best out of us. We recommend you check out <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Morgan-Jerkins/e/B0772VRSGZ%3Fref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share" target="_blank">her books</a>. </span></i></span></p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial;">*** </span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7zV2CExW0W6nx90gvBWRbAl0lvjCtgPJTO02EAJpDCn76FLduw8-6fyq9Y0bEvaRFvSX9VoTPh6ogIJJJUuoWtiIlrUB1FjpYSF6-g3hW3RPW90n6Vy6lcdzLV-G7xbcH7yoqEr9t9XrV/s373/Phillis_Wheatley_frontispiece_%2528cropped%2529%252C_1834.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Phillis Wheatley" border="0" data-original-height="373" data-original-width="329" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7zV2CExW0W6nx90gvBWRbAl0lvjCtgPJTO02EAJpDCn76FLduw8-6fyq9Y0bEvaRFvSX9VoTPh6ogIJJJUuoWtiIlrUB1FjpYSF6-g3hW3RPW90n6Vy6lcdzLV-G7xbcH7yoqEr9t9XrV/w282-h320/Phillis_Wheatley_frontispiece_%2528cropped%2529%252C_1834.jpeg" width="282" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;">It is inarguable that without an education system made up of the extensive study of Greek and Roman languages and culture, the standard liberal arts education up until the mid-20th century, there could be no “American” culture. This includes African-American culture. Black abolitionists </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://poets.org/poet/phillis-wheatley" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Phillis Wheatley</span></a><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and </span><a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/frederick-douglass/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Frederick Douglass</span></a><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> immediately spring to mind, but a whole host of Black intellectuals and artists used their Classical education to undermine any and all uses of ancient Greeks and Romans to justify slavery and racism. Education in classics gave and still gives Black thinkers and artists fluency in the cultural language that undergirds the architecture of American empire to show that a white supremacist empire was and is, in John Levi Barnard’s words, an “</span><a href="https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/oso/9780190663599.001.0001/oso-9780190663599#" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">empire of ruin</span></a><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.” For every white supremacist invocation of the classics there has been an equal invocation in the name of </span><a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/voices/2021/04/23/howard-university-classics-arent-racist-canon-column/7333337002/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Black liberation</span></a><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, anti-racism, and equal rights. </span></span><p></p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8PopHWCgEUaHBadN7NbgAIwP5oibHDzRIIMU8poKLHkHiZi_0mNSE73GkmZpY4fHTdAYXR9HjPHtBNnJPysgvB0JanMGPZTGgMxdx2n2N7aIQfbmldeCHnTn8hg7lH_3i9xf0OKAOQ6Cv/s448/Pauline_Elizabeth_Hopkins_circa_1901.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="Pauline Hopkins" border="0" data-original-height="448" data-original-width="342" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8PopHWCgEUaHBadN7NbgAIwP5oibHDzRIIMU8poKLHkHiZi_0mNSE73GkmZpY4fHTdAYXR9HjPHtBNnJPysgvB0JanMGPZTGgMxdx2n2N7aIQfbmldeCHnTn8hg7lH_3i9xf0OKAOQ6Cv/w244-h320/Pauline_Elizabeth_Hopkins_circa_1901.png" width="244" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;">Early African American literature was not just an unrelenting series of up-from-slavery autobiographies and narratives. This is a common misconception. Much of the literature produced in the wake of the Civil War and Reconstruction were focused on the contemporary experience of being Black in America, on racial oppression and terrorism after emancipation. Like white American literature of the time, it relied on classical forms and references as well as content, but more often than not American American writers tied their classicism to anti-racist arguments. W.E.B. Du Bois’ <span style="font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Souls of Black Folk</span><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> was not the only work of literature that advocated for </span><a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12138-018-0475-9" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Black classical education</span></a><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> as a way to eradicate the color-line. </span><a href="http://www.paulinehopkinssociety.org/biography/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Pauline Hopkins</span></a><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">’ novels were all rooted in her knowledge of the classics and enshrined an anti-racist, Black-centered vision of the ancient world. In 1901, </span><a href="https://americanwritersmuseum.org/why-we-should-all-read-charles-chesnutt/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Charles Chesnutt</span></a><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> drew on his deep classical training to write his anti-racist novel, </span><a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Marrow_of_Tradition/2ch8PsEzvO4C?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PP9&printsec=frontcover" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Marrow of Tradition</span></a><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, about the 1898 Wilmington race riot that ended Republican control of the legislature in North Carolina. </span></span><p></p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Chesnutt’s novel is crucial to understanding the centrality of classics in the fight for Black equality. The struggle between his protagonist, the prosperous Black physician Dr. Miller, the son of a slave, and his antagonist, Confederate Major Carteret, who are both descended from the same white planter, exposes the moral bankruptcy of slavery and white supremacy and the false narrative of Black inferiority. Significantly, the virtues of Miller’s side of the family are enumerated by Mr. Delamere, “who read the Latin poets, and whose allusions were apt to be classical rather than scriptural.” Through Dr. Miller’s achievements in medicine, which could only have come with </span><a href="https://adoseofhistory.com/category/nineteenth-century-medicine/classics-and-medicine/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">a classical education</span></a><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, Chesnutt makes the argument for the benefits that educated Black people can offer the Black community as well as US society in general. He even attributes to Miller a recognizable Black-centered vision of antiquity and inversion of the white supremacist march of civilization:</span></span></p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> “The negro was here before the </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/04/26/us-praise-anglo-saxon-heritage-has-always-been-about-white-supremacy/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Anglo-Saxon</span></a><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> was evolved, and his thick lips and heavy-lidded eyes looked out from the inscrutable face of the Sphinx across the sands of Egypt while yet the ancestors of those who now oppress him were living in caves, practicing human sacrifice, and painting themselves with woad — and the negro is here yet.” </span></span></p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYdah5Eq3VQia8VrR12EvEpYk-nFFZ6Hrf_bcrACpJVsGlfBr8wAl8PI4kvzCBRqOxP4tEPJQApQkOjwMmqB4PdtUukgEcmbgGrqQER173UbmA7_ZUBFOQrTC_3c6iDQIjGa5g-CIiQfj1/s441/Charles_W_Chesnutt_40.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Charles Chesnutt" border="0" data-original-height="441" data-original-width="317" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYdah5Eq3VQia8VrR12EvEpYk-nFFZ6Hrf_bcrACpJVsGlfBr8wAl8PI4kvzCBRqOxP4tEPJQApQkOjwMmqB4PdtUukgEcmbgGrqQER173UbmA7_ZUBFOQrTC_3c6iDQIjGa5g-CIiQfj1/w230-h320/Charles_W_Chesnutt_40.jpeg" width="230" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;">Crucial to Chesnutt’s argument was a defense of the <a href="https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/amendment/amendment-xiv" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Fourteenth Amendment</span></a><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. As </span><a href="https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/oso/9780190663599.001.0001/oso-9780190663599#" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">John Levi Barnard</span></a><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> notes, Chesnutt’s novel fits within “a continuous tradition of [b]lack classicism as political engagement and historical critique across at least two centuries.” Like all </span><a href="https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/ida-b-wells-and-anti-lynching-activism" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">anti-lynching activists</span></a><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and </span><a href="https://digitalexhibits.auctr.edu/exhibits/show/seekingtotell/anti-lynching" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Civil rights leaders</span></a><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> during the rise of Jim Crow, Chesnutt saw the resistance to Black education, especially Black classical education, for what it was, part of the effort to curtail Black voting rights in the south and to cement the apparatus of segregation in the South and even extend it to the North. And they were right. </span></span><p></p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">James D. Anderson in his monumental study, </span><a href="https://uncpress.org/book/9780807842218/the-education-of-blacks-in-the-south-1860-1935/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Education of Blacks in the South, 1860-1935</span></a><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, observes that any Black institution in the early 1900s that emphasized classical liberal education was attacked as impractical and “not geared to prepare [Black] youth for useful citizenship and productive efficiency.” He quotes Wallace Buttrick, a trustee of the Rockefeller Foundation and an assessor for the General Education Board (GEB) who opposed funding Black schools that taught a classical liberal arts curriculum. Expressing views that resonated with Booker T. Washington’s, Buttrick advocated that Black schools be </span><a href="https://virginiahistory.org/learn/historical-book/chapter/hampton-institute-and-booker-t-washington" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“‘Hamptonized’</span></a><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (as far as is practicable),” eliminating Greek and Latin, “to say nothing of piano music and the like.” Buttrick (along with most of the GEB) </span><a href="https://resource.rockarch.org/story/black-education-and-rockefeller-philanthropy-from-the-jim-crow-south-to-the-civil-rights-era/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">supported segregationism</span></a><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and white supremacism.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Buttrick’s use of “Hamptonizing” captures the dominant white supremacist ideology about the purpose of Black education: to train Black youths to perform their role in the social hierarchy and in the caste system based on the principle of a division of labor according race for their economic advantage. In other words, Hamptionized Black institutions were not supposed to produce Black intellectual or political leaders, but a source of cheap underclass labor.</span><span style="background-color: white; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></span></p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBhmqKv2AEMVsr2GyTTdQh2Hd2g8a5xwmMJF8ZQzqNsgQOR6n4V71VxcbYYM2RHQ_QVHFp4hl3mWEMTZJp5XGbOm04tyaOcgzyr9P8OKMhyGDZGE82k3QBPqdSg3fQaoCdbmHdSl1d-CSv/s1334/1024px-WEB_DuBois_1918.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="WEB DuBois" border="0" data-original-height="1334" data-original-width="1024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBhmqKv2AEMVsr2GyTTdQh2Hd2g8a5xwmMJF8ZQzqNsgQOR6n4V71VxcbYYM2RHQ_QVHFp4hl3mWEMTZJp5XGbOm04tyaOcgzyr9P8OKMhyGDZGE82k3QBPqdSg3fQaoCdbmHdSl1d-CSv/w246-h320/1024px-WEB_DuBois_1918.jpeg" width="246" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;">We tend to think that the debate over Black education in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was solely between Black intellectuals in either Booker T. Washington’s camp or <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/dubois/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">W.E.B. Du Bois</span></a><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">’. This is far too simplistic a picture that ignores the extent to which white supremacists and segregationists were invested in the outcomes of the debate. The General Education Board was founded in 1902 with a large endowment from John D. Rockefeller, Sr. with the goal of supporting public education for all without distinguishing race. Except in the south. There, the only way the GEB was permitted to operate and fund schools was if those schools were segregated, and the Black schools restricted to vocational training. As Anderson again highlights, it was the dedicated position of the GEB to “attach the Negro to the soil”, an educational accommodation to the economy of the Jim Crow south that sought to prevent Black laborers from moving to urban centers. This position was advocated most vocally by Robert C. Ogden, one-time president of the GEB and a president of the Hampton Institute, an HBCU that advocated for vocational and specifically agricultural education for Black Americans.<span style="background-color: white;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></span><p></p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzHz5NrYRAQNNrlA_5Nv_2mPTOIa6BBJsZUA5AbyhW9rN8rTJw6eCYZ6Zvi40EnlLqUBGPv6R4Um3WHkc5Splocm_kflLUscXBSqB_cq-ctELv5YJPZ7NeO2_H7MQd1Z3U9WlA9fFvCdOs/s392/Mildred_Lewis_Rutherford.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Mildred Lewis Rutherford" border="0" data-original-height="392" data-original-width="254" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzHz5NrYRAQNNrlA_5Nv_2mPTOIa6BBJsZUA5AbyhW9rN8rTJw6eCYZ6Zvi40EnlLqUBGPv6R4Um3WHkc5Splocm_kflLUscXBSqB_cq-ctELv5YJPZ7NeO2_H7MQd1Z3U9WlA9fFvCdOs/w207-h320/Mildred_Lewis_Rutherford.jpeg" width="207" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;">But even the GEB’s segregationist accommodation was not enough for some southern whites. <a href="https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/167281" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mildred Lewis Rutherford</span></a><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, the Historian General of the </span><a href="https://youtu.be/dOkFXPblLpU" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">United Daughters of the Confederacy</span></a><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> ran a parallel cultural campaign against both Black suffrage and Black education in the South using an education curriculum designed for white students that painted an idyllic image of the Antebellum era, promoted dangerous negative stereotypes of Black people, and delegitimized </span><a href="https://constitutioncenter.org/learn/educational-resources/historical-documents/the-reconstruction-amendments" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Reconstruction Amendments, especially the Fourteenth</span></a><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. She also effectively canonized popular literature that instilled fear and sparked violence against the “uppity” classically educated Black man. Rutherford was the woman most responsible for indoctrinating generations of Southern school children in the mythology of the </span><a href="https://www.facingsouth.org/2019/04/twisted-sources-how-confederate-propaganda-ended-souths-schoolbooks" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Lost Cause</span></a><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. She established Thomas Dixon’s notoriously racist novel </span><a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Leopard_s_Spots/cChAAQAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=the%20leopard's%20spot&pg=PP1&printsec=frontcover" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Leopard’s Spots</span></a><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (1902)––later revised as </span><a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Clansman/5vbDqpn8maoC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=the%20clansman&pg=PP1&printsec=frontcover" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Clansman</span><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (1905)</span></a><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, which became the basis of D.W. Griffith’s </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Birth of a Nation</span><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (1915)––in the canon of Southern literature to be read by school children along side a host of other pro-Confederacy and white supremacist works. In her influential </span><a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_South_in_History_and_Literature/yrtLAQAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=The%20South%20in%20history%20and%20literature%3B%20a%20hand-book%20of%20southern%20authors&pg=PA605&printsec=frontcover" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The South in history and literature; a hand-book of southern authors, from the settlement of Jamestown, 1607, to living writers (1907)</span></a><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, Rutherford devoted a chapter to Dixon’s biography. </span></span><p></p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmub9rUtzBS_aELwJfd1tfu_s04X64QZWMwmINnA7uY1sqTpHanUaTtutQWzzAd8646J47A7JeVbHyrjVNdR8ylsJuWD82I2Q_FNTEaExKzW483LQORBrOMEw-szwLDtKEpopFRnMI2kOG/s1525/Portrait_of_Thomas_Dixon%252C_Jr.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="Thomas Dixon" border="0" data-original-height="1525" data-original-width="1024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmub9rUtzBS_aELwJfd1tfu_s04X64QZWMwmINnA7uY1sqTpHanUaTtutQWzzAd8646J47A7JeVbHyrjVNdR8ylsJuWD82I2Q_FNTEaExKzW483LQORBrOMEw-szwLDtKEpopFRnMI2kOG/w215-h320/Portrait_of_Thomas_Dixon%252C_Jr.jpeg" width="215" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;">Dixon himself was well aware of the efforts of Black intellectuals to tie classical education to the eradication of race prejudice and the fight against black disenfranchisement. A year after Chesnutt published <span style="font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Marrow of Tradition</span><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">,</span><span style="font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Dixon published </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Leopard’s Spots, </span><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">his own fictionalized retelling of the same 1898 race riot as a direct response. It’s title alluded to Jeremiah 13:23––</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #22223d; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard its spots?”</span><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">–– and recalled for those who had read Chesnutt’s, which attributed racist views to his character Major Carteret: “These pitiful attempts to change their physical characteristics were an acknowledgment, on their own part, that the negro was doomed, and that the white man was to inherit the earth and hold all other races under his heel.” </span></span><p></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Dixon’s novel and the plays based on it provoked a </span><a href="https://docsouth.unc.edu/highlights/dixon.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline;">revival of the Ku Klux Klan</span></a><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. By presenting Black men, especially classically educated, vote-wielding black men, as lecherous threats to white womanhood and menaces to society in general, Dixon deliberately sought to entangle the debate over Black education and political equality with white terrorist violence. His works, which were wildly popular among white northerners as well as southerners, corresponded with an uptick in lynchings. In 1905, a staging of the </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Clansman</span><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> turned into a race riot that prefigured the </span><a href="https://www.gpb.org/georgiastories/stories/race_riot_of_1906" style="text-decoration-line: none; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Atlanta massacre</span></a><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> that would happen a year later.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhueRPaS76fWS6iqpVuyi9JJ9tMGTTF7RuoS490OtCshUebQaHsu4dsKTKVshrPc_Hb8nPTKspmf-4AOZhOtbOCZY-XgPpvKywfgL9hkOls8vtSaqctnULL0nac0A3toUSxEhRInn7qArPE/s732/Screen+Shot+2021-06-03+at+11.15.31+AM.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Saturday Evening Post cover with Dixon's article" border="0" data-original-height="732" data-original-width="612" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhueRPaS76fWS6iqpVuyi9JJ9tMGTTF7RuoS490OtCshUebQaHsu4dsKTKVshrPc_Hb8nPTKspmf-4AOZhOtbOCZY-XgPpvKywfgL9hkOls8vtSaqctnULL0nac0A3toUSxEhRInn7qArPE/w268-h320/Screen+Shot+2021-06-03+at+11.15.31+AM.png" width="268" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;">In August of the same year, Dixon wrote a feature length article in the <a href="https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/flipbooks/issues/19050819/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Saturday Evening Post</span><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, “Booker T. Washington and the Negro”</span></a><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> that was ostensibly an attack on Washington’s writings and edited work on education––</span><a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Up_from_Slavery/whoZEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PP1&printsec=frontcover" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Up from Slavery</span></a><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (1901), </span><a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Future_of_the_American_Negro/08MxAQAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=The%20Future%20of%20the%20American%20Negro&pg=PR3&printsec=frontcover" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Future of the American Negro</span></a><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (1900) and </span><a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Negro_Problem/A8RtAAAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Negro Problem</span></a><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (1903). The article was also a broadside against Chesnutt, W.E.B. Du Bois, and </span><a href="https://www.biography.com/scientist/kelly-miller" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Kelly Miller (Howard alumnus, faculty member, and dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Howard from 1907 to 1918)</span></a><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. As far as Dixon was concerned, “no amount of education of any kind, industrial, classical or religious” would make a black man equal to a white man. His attack shows that he not only read Washington, Chesnutt, Du Bois, and Miller but that he perfectly understood that the rift among them was not about the goals of Black education––the eradication of racial prejudice––but about how strenuously and how openly social and political equality should be demanded. By labeling the eradication of racism with “amalgamation”, i.e. white genocide, Dixon used the crisis over Black education as an opportunity to stir up in the mainstream press the same racial paranoia and hatred that his novels and plays were stirring up. As </span><a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=9NJzPAxOyMIC&lpg=PA46&ots=SUAhzbVLnQ&dq=%E2%80%9CMy%20Books%20Are%20Hard%20Reading%20for%20a%20Negro%E2%80%9D%3A%20Tom%20Dixon%20and%20His%20African%20American%20Critics%2C%20%EF%9B%9C905%E2%80%93%EF%9B%9C939&pg=PA46#v=onepage&q&f=false" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">John David Smith details</span></a><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, Dixon’s attacks only intensified as the NAACP became an important organization and against W.E.B. Du Bois specifically after the publication of his monumental </span><a href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/592d8d61ebbd1a90f5c4d8ec/t/5cc87befb208fcc964b3e5e0/1556642800124/Dubois-ch-15.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Black Reconstruction in America</span><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (1935)</span></a><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span></span><p></p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We focus on Dixon and his attack against Black education because most Black leaders at the time wrote and spoke out against him and his works, and because his works produced deadly real-world effects in the form of racial violence, lynchings, and even bombings. </span><a href="https://wfpp.columbia.edu/pioneer/drusilla-dunjee-houston/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Drusilla Dunjee Houston</span></a><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, writing for the </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Black Dispatch</span><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> about the </span><a href="https://gateway.okhistory.org/ark:/67531/metadc152337/m1/4/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Tulsa Massacre</span></a><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, directly linked Dixon’s novels and plays and their glorification of the KKK in the lead up to the event to the racial hatred that fired the horrific attack. The education white students received in high schools and colleges across the South shaped their acceptance of racial segregation and susceptibility to condoning or even participating in the acts of racial terrorism that defined the Black experience in the early 20th century. </span></span></p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Even when Black people migrated from the south, they still had to fight to gain access to the same kind of liberal education offered in predominantly white northern schools and colleges. In many cases, knowledge of Latin––rarely taught outside private schools––was an entrance requirement. In other words, classics functioned as a gatekeeper, restricting access to top-ranked universities, the training grounds of future leaders, the elite, white men (and occasionally women) who became the new Alexanders and Caesars of politics, industry, and the military. College campuses buildings with large white columns, random inscriptions in Latin or ancient Greek, and statues reminiscent of ancient bronze and marble sculpture. </span></span></p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Under Jim Crow, in both the white schools and at both northern and southern universities, the </span><a href="https://cj.camws.org/node/1150" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Latin textbooks</span></a><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> they studied were (and still are) filled with stories of “</span><a href="https://eidolon.pub/the-slaves-were-happy-high-school-latin-and-the-horrors-of-classical-studies-4e1123649916" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">happy slaves</span></a><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">” that describe beatings of “lazy slaves” as morality lessons. As historian </span><a href="https://intersectionist.medium.com/american-power-structures-white-columns-white-marble-white-supremacy-d43aa091b5f9" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Lyra Monteiro</span></a><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> has shown, in the years before the Civil War, a white supremacist grammar of landscape and architecture also developed connecting whiteness to </span><a href="https://www.thespruce.com/neoclassical-architecture-4802081" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">neoclassical architecture</span></a><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, modern designs that incorporate elements of ancient Greek and Roman architecture, especially monumental white columns. The wealthy, slave-owning elite constructed visual echoes of the architecture of ancient Rome on plantation mansions and civic buildings, like the US Capitol, to justify their slavery based empire.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjM7IalVs8wWUUURT-DZlrNGkPj2sc3U461aa-jX7B2GwMzjVZ1F2Iu0SxpIoT9lrC-H3UKeM_Jc1uLwbg88MjJ14WdoEzZNtJJHLY9Zst2uRrZEX-NMolCyEsFxtxZ4TUeg2feslEkwij3/s1024/Hurrah_for_the_Red_White_and_Blue-1024x656.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Classicisizing image of "America"" border="0" data-original-height="656" data-original-width="1024" height="205" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjM7IalVs8wWUUURT-DZlrNGkPj2sc3U461aa-jX7B2GwMzjVZ1F2Iu0SxpIoT9lrC-H3UKeM_Jc1uLwbg88MjJ14WdoEzZNtJJHLY9Zst2uRrZEX-NMolCyEsFxtxZ4TUeg2feslEkwij3/w320-h205/Hurrah_for_the_Red_White_and_Blue-1024x656.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;">As US colonization of the continent moved westward, new universities and colleges took up the same classical curriculum; the white settler colonialism of these colleges reflected in the neoclassical architecture of their churches, libraries, and lecture halls. The Jim Crow-era <a href="https://intersectionist.medium.com/american-power-structures-white-columns-white-marble-white-supremacy-d43aa091b5f9" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Confederate statues</span></a><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> evoking Greek and Roman statues of emperors and generals, were also part of this white supremacist visual rhetoric that culminated in the neoclassicism of the World’s Fairs, especially the </span><a href="https://rfkclassics.blogspot.com/2017/12/classically-white-supremacy-american.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">1893 Columbian Exposition</span></a><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> in Chicago, visited by nearly 20 million people, which </span><a href="https://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/wells/exposition/exposition.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">intentionally excluded</span></a><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> African-Americans from showcasing Black progress since emancipation. And, neoclassical Confederate monuments began to proliferate not just the southern landscape. Dixon’s work operated within this racescape of popular “white” classics. The effectiveness of the “Birth of a Nation” propaganda campaign that he spawned relied in a large part on this unholy alliance between classics and </span><a href="https://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/darwin/evolution-today/social-darwinism" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Social Darwinism</span></a><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (“survival of the fittest”) that dominated race thinking at the time. </span></span><p></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Black leaders pushed back against this racist discourse. They centered a more accurate interpretation of Greek and Roman antiquity in their argument for the power of education to uplift the formerly enslaved. Kelly Miller undermined the racist Social Darwinist premises of Dixon’s </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Leopard’s Spots</span><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. In his </span><a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/As_to_The_Leopard_s_Spots/5BZAAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">open letter</span></a><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, he argued that so far from being at the bottom of the so-called hierarchy of civilizations and intellectually inferior by nature, as contemporary racist thinking held, black people had achieved heights in literature, art, sciences as well as in the professions in a mere generation after emancipation. </span><a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/274972" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">His own classical education</span></a><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and achievements proved that Black students taught in Negro schools and colleges were just as adept at Greek and Latin as the best white students who had their education at elite schools. </span></span></p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The anti-Black terrorist violence and repression that Dixon and others stoked was deliberately designed to keep Black people in an inferior economic and social place. Consequently, it led to </span><a href="https://macaulay.cuny.edu/seminars/henken08/articles/h/o/w/How_Harlem_Became_Black_d205.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">the great migration North in the 1920s</span></a><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Significantly, it is this move north that gave many of the leading lights of the Harlem Renaissance access to the classical education curriculum. In Miller’s contribution to the anthology credited with launching the movement</span><span style="font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">,The New Negro</span><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, compiled by </span><a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/alain-locke/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Alain Locke</span></a><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, chair of Philosophy at Howard, he pointed to the original intentions of Howard’s founders to educate students to reach their full-potential through liberal arts education. Ironically, his claims about the disparity between the endowments white universities receive and those Howard receives are echoed by Carter and Hogan. However, Miller decried the over-privileging of the professional and vocational training at the expense of education in the liberal arts.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial;">“The ideal is not a working man, but a man working; not a business man, but a man doing business; not a school man, but a man teaching school; not a statesman, but a man handling the affairs of state; not a medicine man, but a man practicing medicine; not a clergyman, but a man devoted to the things of the soul. Only upon such a platform, the writer submits, could Howard University justify its claims as the national University of the colored race.”</span></span></p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Kelly Miller strongly advocated for the kind of classical liberal arts curriculum that he studied himself and was adamant that if Howard University aspired to a national Black university, it must be “a conscious and recognized center of the higher life and cultural interests of the race.” And he did so knowing that teaching classics at Howard was an affront to white supremacists who fought to deny Black students access to it, even with violence.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIbF6u7z1d8pxLTmSBzTLwiboiLaAETEOa801BLyN4N4KpBXE_gxXYl_FpfJue3t8SToiGYQbN47GqS76geVcb9_zR281pLFE2J-jMGeUEPr2sHUVuTR5kojyF-ymKW5V0iIZjLEW1qEye/s296/Kelly_Miller.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="Kelly Miller" border="0" data-original-height="296" data-original-width="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIbF6u7z1d8pxLTmSBzTLwiboiLaAETEOa801BLyN4N4KpBXE_gxXYl_FpfJue3t8SToiGYQbN47GqS76geVcb9_zR281pLFE2J-jMGeUEPr2sHUVuTR5kojyF-ymKW5V0iIZjLEW1qEye/s16000/Kelly_Miller.jpeg" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;">Miller’s view reflected those of his generational peers––Chesnutt, Du Bois, Pauline Hopkins, <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/anna-julia-cooper/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Anna Julia Cooper</span></a><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">––who were all opponents in some form of Booker T. Washington’s Hampton-based education plan. Washington (who was taught classics by Miller!) saw little to no value in Black students following the classical liberal arts curriculum. To be sure, he rightly understood that white people in the South saw the “negro uplift” that Miller, Du Bois and other were advocating to be linked to Black demands for political and social equality. He, however, erroneously assumed that Black people who only aspired to economic equality would somehow be spared the racial violence that those aspiring to social and political equality experienced. Accordingly, Washington encouraged the vast majority of Black students to pursue training programs that met the demand for jobs that the white industrialists were willing to offer Black workers within the emerging racial caste system.</span></span><p></p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial;">[<i>this was also cut from/condensed in the ESPN essay</i>]</span></span></p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The humanities give students what Black classicist and political scientist </span><a href="https://scholar.harvard.edu/danielleallen/home" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Danielle Allen</span></a><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> today calls </span><a href="https://tannerlectures.utah.edu/Allen%20manuscript.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">verbal empowerment</span></a><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. In the tradition of W.E.B Du Bois and others, Allen emphasizes that the critical reasoning skills that come from exposure to different perspectives and modes of thought are what an informed citizenry thrives on in a democracy. Classics is a microcosm of humanities education, its interdisciplinary scope encompasses all the liberal arts––history, language, literature, philosophy, art, natural sciences, and more. And because, as we have mentioned, ancient Greece and Rome have been made to serve American white settler colonial racescaping, a robust humanities education that includes the Classics, gives students, not only an additional vantage on human dilemmas from outside our modern pinhole-camera, but also the capacity to read, deconstruct and overwrite our cultural programing, as it were, in more equitable and just terms. </span></span></p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Being able to learn from the mistakes of history, being able to imagine a more just future does not come from whatever job training the next economy is clamoring for. The insight into how to change our world for the better comes from studying history, reading and writing literature, contemplating and making art, learning languages and different ways of thought. Thus verbally empowered, the </span><a href="https://www.pbs.org/tpt/slavery-by-another-name/themes/peonage/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">debt-peons</span></a><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> among today’s college graduates, even if they can’t effect real change in the world, can at least fend off the relentless anti-democratic white supremacist messaging bludgeoning of their psyche day in and day out. As Du Bois </span><a href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/592d8d61ebbd1a90f5c4d8ec/t/5cc87befb208fcc964b3e5e0/1556642800124/Dubois-ch-15.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">recognized long ago</span></a><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, to deny an full education (which to him included a strong classical education) only served to perpetuate illiteracy and poverty among Black and poor white people alike. </span></span></p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial;">As a discipline, Classics is undergoing a reckoning with its investments in whiteness. Some administrators see this moment as an opportunity to prune away more of the humanities at non-elite schools. Classicists have never really tried to justify the field’s existence without reaching for elitist and even racist discourses. However, cutting Classics at a place like Howard demands a response that makes no such appeals.</span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The loss of the classics program will contribute to the very educational apartheid that Hogan and Carter highlight. Today a tiny wealthy (predominantly white) minority notoriously hoards</span><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/04/private-schools-are-indefensible/618078/?fbclid=IwAR0-J3edjEQRZq_YPh1E79dh0xnfYsKFG-fVhYjxXAN7xe6CDP-sXIvc1yI" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> educational resources</span></a><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">––their money secures access to the most prestige-conferring institutions, which, not coincidentally, offer the fullest array of arts, sciences, and humanities. Poorer colleges and universities feel pressured to close their Classics departments or public high schools to eliminate their Latin programs. But these cuts only relegate Classics to predominantly white, elite-serving institutions, which process, of course, the reinforces the racist construction of Classics as “for whites only.” </span></span></p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This system is driven by the super-rich donors and corporate CEOs who sit on boards of trustees of elite- and non-elite-serving institutions, protecting the brand of the former for their offspring by pushing the latter to become glorified training centers for debt-laden graduates who will eventually flood the job-market of the very industries they represent, driving up the profits by driving down the wages of college-educated labor. University presidents are rarely ever academics who prioritize quality teaching and research. They are almost always pseudo-CEOs who are paid true one-percenter salaries and who treat higher education like widget-making for the labor market. Since their edu-factories that are supposed to produce highly-skilled, heavily indebted, and </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">docile</span><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> workers, in their calculus the arts and humanities, and classics in particular, are first to go. In Howard’s case, we are told that a department like Classics is too costly to maintain––</span><a href="https://twitter.com/hu_classics/status/1388929238619889667?s=21&fbclid=IwAR2qyVpVOsoLdSfStltmVmJxkCXJTTrgLq4MisWE_NPCwgi-gCAu0kdOBpo" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">a ridiculous claim on its face</span></a><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. What we aren’t told is that a</span><a href="https://www.chronicle.com/article/executive-compensation-at-public-and-private-colleges/?cid=gen_sign_in#id=19555_131520_2013_private" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> president making 7 times what a full professor </span></a><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">makes and an administration with a budget that dwarfs that of several departments two and three times over are too costly to maintain. </span></span></p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The closure of Howard’s Classics department as well as other humanities departments in public and non-elite colleges threatens to entrench educational and economic disparity. Poor and working class students go into debt to get training in a job that will be obsolete before they ever become solvent. Whereas if they earned along the way the skills that the humanities cultivate they would be more flexible and able to make</span><a href="https://www.aacu.org/sites/default/files/files/research/E-LASCIEMPL.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> earn in the long run</span></a><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. The (predominantly white) sons and daughters of the one-percent don’t have these problems: by virtue of their wealth, privilege, and status, they get access to the full range of educational options and graduate college as the heirs of “Western Civilization”, just like their Gilded age counterparts. </span></span></p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><br />Rebecca Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09189847760200499244noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2441584511996015550.post-7417312507027966742021-05-09T10:25:00.008-04:002021-05-09T18:21:21.988-04:00Why Culture War?<p><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtwea8huRaoo4SJ2tV-5MzTqfOqxMReA7KFi5eeD1iaJrY9j3nEbyXgwKHgmUIwD9Sm7d-NNUHs1owM2_b8E4ezNW4H562q3pI-6_6w_HShms2b6c9B2DGg61E0c3fZ_hXA-W0xUg3-q8i/s960/Screen+Shot+2021-02-22+at+12.03.16+PM.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="634" data-original-width="960" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtwea8huRaoo4SJ2tV-5MzTqfOqxMReA7KFi5eeD1iaJrY9j3nEbyXgwKHgmUIwD9Sm7d-NNUHs1owM2_b8E4ezNW4H562q3pI-6_6w_HShms2b6c9B2DGg61E0c3fZ_hXA-W0xUg3-q8i/s320/Screen+Shot+2021-02-22+at+12.03.16+PM.png" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><i>Some brief Sunday morning thoughts on Culture Wars. Not really developed and surely not original. But it woke me up, so writing it out seemed the best way to deal with it.</i></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Population management</b>: It isn’t just race, but gender, sexuality, class, disability--these are all ways of placing people into categories and using these categories to manage populations. The management of these populations is in the service of dominant groups in order to maintain power. Individuals can be coopted into power or be granted access to power, but the presence of those individuals neither undermines nor erases the fact of the population management system--they are the exceptions (granted in Plato’s </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Republic</span><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, for example) that demonstrate the myth of meritocracy that underscores the logic and propaganda of those with power. </span></span></p><p><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Gender, sexuality, race, class, disability are all systems of oppression in so far as they put people into categories that then position people as groups hierarchically in social, political, and legal practice. This serves people at the top of the hierarchy, who then use media and education as ways to naturalize the system and obscure its operations. </span></span></p><p><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Institutions of higher education and education in K-12 schools need to be controlled because over the course of the last few decades, areas of study have emphasized examination of the systems of oppression in an attempt to both reveal their function and dismantle them. Women’s Studies, Queer Studies, Black Studies, etc--these programs all undermine the standard narratives that were traditionally provided by Econ, Anthro, Soc, Poli Sci, Bio/Genetics, Psych, and humanities programs in general that served the needs of population management. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Example: Who is served by the standard use of the stock market and import/export measures and GDP to decide the health of an economy? Certainly not those who do not have capital or access to it. Certainly not those intentionally excluded (i.e. the working classes, i.e. the majority of the population). Who is served by the notion of humans as economic “rational actors”? Certainly not anyone except those who want to present their models of economic development as embedded in human nature, when they are, in fact, systems intended to concentrate wealth in the hands of a few. News programs like NPR and schools of economics in higher education generally support and naturalize this narrative. </span></span></p><p><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Culture Wars are one way to stamp out opposition to and revelation of the systems of oppression at work.</span></span></p><p><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial;">‘Socialist” is a Culture War slur tossed at anyone who questions the system, thanks to the use of media and higher ed to suggest that caring for a society generally and distributing wealth to those whose labor produce it is a social, economic and political bad. Using media and education to convince those left out of such distribution is a primary tool for population management. They do so using other forms, like race and gender and sexuality.</span></span></p><p><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Culture Wars around abortion are designed to obfuscate the ways women are oppressed through societal structures around reproduction (child care, health care, etc). “Bathroom laws” and “Girls' Sports laws” are ways of emphasizing the clear gender division that is necessary to maintaining the fiction of the “natural” order of men over women and reproduction as women’s primary (and only, really) natural function. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Culture Wars around race create a dominant block around whiteness that encourages ignoring the realities of economic and gender oppression as it functions in society in the name of shared racial superiority. The current attacks on “Critical Race Theory” are intended to prevent learning about the histories and realities of the use of “race” as a tool for population management. The propaganda pushes for the designated "white" part of the population to willingly sacrifice BIPOC communities in order to preserve a minimum of other privileges (which are not really privileges, just tiny morsels tossed out by those with power). If you can’t talk about race, you can’t reveal or understand its function. If you can’t see or understand it (if you are “colorblind” or “don’t see race”), then there is no work to be done to dismantle it. </span></span></p><p><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Because higher education has been moving in the last 50 years towards systemic critiques of power and of the mechanisms for population management, higher education must be contained and, if needed, the critical studies, dismantled. Humanities was once a bastion of power and privilege. As it has intentionally become more critical in its relationship to systems of oppression, it has been repeatedly attacked and undermined. These attacks play out in the media in no small part because of the investment by elite power in maintaining its control over its tools for population management--why does “Classics” matter enough to warrant debate in the national press? Because it has always been a tool for race, gender, and class control. As it more firmly slips out of the control of traditional power, it must be either brought back to heel (as in the past with yokings to Great Books and Western Civ curricula) or destroyed (along with critical race, gender,sexuality, and class studies). </span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; white-space: pre-wrap;">Happy Mother’s Day. </span></p>Rebecca Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09189847760200499244noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2441584511996015550.post-53404473930393403262021-03-19T12:16:00.006-04:002021-03-20T13:10:37.035-04:00How are you feeling?<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQQkX1FEw1sIsTHrllkiJdzrgaIL7QG1guz6dkewkPSVmTyv17TqiGxlBRzCg3iwkHsDp8rvId9BU5EnGuRdXEAmKJHwDaOgBGxX-xVk3mfq9wXIOmfRcQOL1ivwvrmkgLpHbUXhlaPM8R/s498/stitch+cry.gif" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="199" data-original-width="498" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQQkX1FEw1sIsTHrllkiJdzrgaIL7QG1guz6dkewkPSVmTyv17TqiGxlBRzCg3iwkHsDp8rvId9BU5EnGuRdXEAmKJHwDaOgBGxX-xVk3mfq9wXIOmfRcQOL1ivwvrmkgLpHbUXhlaPM8R/s320/stitch+cry.gif" width="320" /></a></div>Not that anyone asked, but I have feelings. Confused ones, some not particularly generous ones, some overwhelming in their fragility, some close to joyous, but tinged with sadness. Feelings abound and have been abounding for some time all around this one part of my life. i.e. I'm not sure how to feel these days about being part of the discipline variously called "classics", "ancient Mediterranean studies", "ancient studies", "ancient Greek and Roman studies", etc. It has nothing to do with the content or rabid White nationalism. It has to do with the way we act towards each other under the heading of "professionalism".<p></p><p>On the one hand, over the last few weeks, we have seen some of the worst type of racism rear its head under the guise of "civility" and "professionalism", where colleagues who are part of the elite Establishment and prestige networks have been trying to use those networks and their connections to hinder the work of, silence, and harm our current SCS president, who just happens to be the first Black woman president, and one of only a handful that have come from Small Liberal Arts colleges in my memory (though I will be honest that there are numerous past presidents I have never heard of). On the other hand, I witnessed an event last night that represents to me the best of what a field can offer if it chooses--community, care, even love. These two hands sit in constant tension and make me want to withdrawal into just a tiny corner, the corner of my direct relationships, but even here the ugly sometimes intrudes.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNxTxkmr7jeof-ZS7h-KhhpOx8NVZk6DvwGq_7FawznuYsEqSA1A4eiOFB-o7bdmUvtU8-n0o9lWK3VWcaETJ4i9xd5A2WDP1J3DHo8_R8wr-W3ViltsuuCm3bHMcZCsaGYTY7jZ61Yh_R/s244/stitch+angry.gif" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="174" data-original-width="244" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNxTxkmr7jeof-ZS7h-KhhpOx8NVZk6DvwGq_7FawznuYsEqSA1A4eiOFB-o7bdmUvtU8-n0o9lWK3VWcaETJ4i9xd5A2WDP1J3DHo8_R8wr-W3ViltsuuCm3bHMcZCsaGYTY7jZ61Yh_R/s0/stitch+angry.gif" /></a></div>I've been struggling with how to address the recent round of racism (the round that followed the still not quite expired previous round of the Discourse) because it has been ugly and is characterized by attempts of a small group within the discipline to use institutional power and authority to enact their harms. The failure of the institutional mechanisms to bend to their will as easily as they likely found it did in the past may be a further cause of consternation for them. The result is multiple ham fisted public statements by various people trying to justify their actions and choices either with hardly credible appeals to "liberalism v identity politics", rationalizations of "professionalism", or even charges of "reverse racism". And now there is word on the street that a group of past presidents of the SCS, unhappy that the interloper has not been properly put in her place (i.e. somewhere other than her current place) are planning a letter proclaiming that the SCS do so or else. The fixation on one, or perhaps two, unrelated tweets, reveals the petty, personal shallowness of the whole affair. Of course, it is true that aspects of the tweets caused one or two people to have <i>feelings</i>, but the reactions and behavior around those tweets is far uglier and unprofessional than anything within them. Everything about the reaction screams anti-Black racism. All of this has me trying not to gag.<p></p><p>I do not understand how anyone in our field can call themselves intelligent or astute or how we can trust their powers of analysis when they cannot see even through the lens of "optics" how bad it is for a whole gaggle of White or Whiteness-invested prestige wielding Establishment power players in the field to be using their names, networks, and institutional authorities to attack a Black woman colleague. And doing it so disingenuously. Because, of course, their bald uses of power and privilege are <i>civil</i> and <i>professional</i>. Except, of course, when it isn't. Because nothing screams "professionalism" or "civility" to me like screenshotting a tweet and attacking (or planning attacks upon) them among a "small group" of powerful, established members of the field. Except, of course, when attempting to undermine any authority being SCS president may have by declaring that the one currently holding the position is "illegitimate" over and over in personal and even professional communications--primarily because they think they themselves should be or should decide who is the proper president through institutional CHANNELS and not membership at large through a petition process and then popular vote. Except, of course, when using a public FaceBook group for a professional org to accuse "some Black classicists" of being anti-semitic while simultaneously using "other Black classicists" as cover (the worst sort of "I have Black friends"). All of this has me trying not to gag. </p><p>Did we not just live through the collective White backlash against a Black US president? Did we not just try to have some sort of reckoning with the continued fact of anti-Black racism in America? Do we not see how the dynamics work? Are we incapable of seeing the racism when we ourselves are enacting it? When it is dressed up in personal grudges or civility politics and claims to professionalism? Can we not see how this is our <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/08/28/tan-suit-scandal-obama-trump/" target="_blank">Tan Suit</a>™? Did we not live through the clearly and evidently unbalanced world of "antifa is the real enemy" BS? Why are we reenacting it in our discipline now? We are always a bit behind the times, sure, but the current displays to me are just stunning in their self-indulgence and lack of self-awareness. All this has me trying not to gag. It also makes me want to withdrawal even further from the mechanisms and institutions of the discipline than I already have. </p><p>But then something happens to remind me of all the very amazing people in this field, of the ones whose slow and steady and careful work and care make the spaces around them better for everyone, even though they owe this to no one and are often the ones most vulnerable in their positions or being. Last night, the AAACC-WCC held a Solidarity Against Anti-Asian Violence event over zoom. And there was truly solidarity in that space, a community of care. It was a good reminder that these are our colleagues as well (not only the Establishment ones) and they are the future of our field so long as the rest of us care enough to not drive them out, so long as the rest of us try harder to not use whatever power and authority we have to punch down at them (feel free to keep punching up or across). So long as the rest of us don't insist on taking over spaces with our loud voices, our "well, I've been an ally for a long time so you all know I am good" self-perception and self-promotion. So long as we do the work to make our actions match our words. So long as they can feel, truly feel, that they are valued, that they and their work matters. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgScYkOdbxVJ3Ev_JR8PXs8csGnKcSHXQAL2J-4gKwUKOqndBePAW2P3DJKvCIEmpn6Bf3foF2hRqhCfkG4oBATaTqXxSfbPR14Kgt7ZW2Ft1RXefUZIPN8hXtZ3r5MgFswrgoWzZi_PqGp/s660/stitch+hug.gif" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="394" data-original-width="660" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgScYkOdbxVJ3Ev_JR8PXs8csGnKcSHXQAL2J-4gKwUKOqndBePAW2P3DJKvCIEmpn6Bf3foF2hRqhCfkG4oBATaTqXxSfbPR14Kgt7ZW2Ft1RXefUZIPN8hXtZ3r5MgFswrgoWzZi_PqGp/s320/stitch+hug.gif" width="320" /></a></div>But how can they know this or feel this or think this when those above, at the very top of our field can't stop themselves from continually making it clear that they only value their own voices, their own work, their own positions and those whom they see as like them? When they actively try to engage our governing institutions in silencing, harming, violating those they deem unworthy, illegitimate, and a threat to the Establishment? I woke up this morning exhausted, worried about my family and friends, angry still. I wrote the first part of this post with that anger in my heart. But as I wrap up, I am filling up my heart with the faces and words and laughs of those friends and family. They are the ones who keep me going in the field. They are the ones who deserve our efforts and thoughts and energies. <p></p><p>This is how I am feeling today. </p>Rebecca Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09189847760200499244noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2441584511996015550.post-33040547786963825762021-03-07T09:37:00.003-05:002021-03-10T09:58:59.709-05:00"Classics": What is it, Who studies it, Why we do it?<p><span style="font-family: inherit;"> <i>I was asked to give opening remarks for the evening General Assembly on Day 2 of the Ohio Junior Classical League convention on March 6, 2021. Here is the text. There are many links I could add, but since it was an oral presentation, there are no citations. Apologies!</i></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyXOuFaDF-aDG9mk9J9xe4uWiaBa6N4oh2Vc7aFpExeM2qRnonoZWOvUb7m1m6MHfeDZOEpFMhj5kLt2xMcl77oRwWb6JATwshqeprcrl5ktOKwvRyMJf2g9-xlzE-hZkf0-L-FwyXxFZN/s270/Screen+Shot+2018-05-05+at+11.00.34+AM.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" data-original-height="54" data-original-width="270" height="40" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyXOuFaDF-aDG9mk9J9xe4uWiaBa6N4oh2Vc7aFpExeM2qRnonoZWOvUb7m1m6MHfeDZOEpFMhj5kLt2xMcl77oRwWb6JATwshqeprcrl5ktOKwvRyMJf2g9-xlzE-hZkf0-L-FwyXxFZN/w200-h40/Screen+Shot+2018-05-05+at+11.00.34+AM.png" width="200" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><p><span style="font-size: 12pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Hello, everyone! I am Rebecca Futo Kennedy and I am a professor of ancient Greek and Roman studies at Denison University here in Ohio. I am pleased to have this opportunity to address you all today, especially since this is the THIRD attempt for me to do so--the first time, I came down with the flu and couldn’t be there in person, last year, the convention was, of course, cancelled due to COVID. So, third time seems to be the charm. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I’ll start with a confession: I did not know what the Junior Classical League was until a few years ago. That is kind of amazing, if you think about it, since I got my PhD in 2003 and have been a professor since then. We didn’t have Latin or Greek in my high school. The only ancient Greek or Roman text I’d ever read until college was selections from Homer’s <i>Odyssey</i>. We didn’t have any Greek or Roman history at any stage. All my knowledge of myth and history came from films and TV. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I was a first generation college student who took ancient Greek because I wanted to understand the history of the early Christian church and ancient Judaism. I became a “Classical Studies” major because I slept through a final exam in one of my required history courses and was too ashamed to ask the professor for a make up exam. I tell you this because the fact that I am zooming into you now as a tenured professor and published scholar is kind of amazing. Because one of the things I learned starting in graduate school was that "Classics" was not really for people like me. It wasn’t until grad school that I also realized that it didn’t seem to be for non-White people either. As I have moved along my career, these two statements seemed to be reaffirmed as more and more true. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">As some of you may be aware, “Classics” has been in the news a lot lately. The New York Times Magazine did an article on my colleague Dan-el Padilla Peralta, a strong voice for those of us in the discipline who re working to make it this thing we call “Classics” more inclusive of ethnically and economically diverse students and professionals as well as opening up what we mean when we say "Classics” so that what we study more accurately reflects what the ancient Greek and Roman worlds were like. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">So, in light of this, what I want to do today is provide a bit of a provocation, something for us to think with--whether we are students or teachers or family members of this thing we call “Classics”: </span></span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I<i> want us to consider three interconnected questions: What is “Classics”? Who is “Classics” for? Why do we study it? </i></span></span></p></blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcySBFTBl3ZLfleGUYqxxCV7S5xnW0BbRkVUqoEOTE4C70d4PEUlTQknezP7WadW3HRU4fhJZnZ4eds8BRIA4kzatVH5sCpx0dTcvUI3SzhiArxHRl8D9f176dfYN5Wgoo0sITc7lv29gC/s270/Screen+Shot+2018-05-05+at+11.00.34+AM.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img alt="divider" border="0" data-original-height="54" data-original-width="270" height="40" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcySBFTBl3ZLfleGUYqxxCV7S5xnW0BbRkVUqoEOTE4C70d4PEUlTQknezP7WadW3HRU4fhJZnZ4eds8BRIA4kzatVH5sCpx0dTcvUI3SzhiArxHRl8D9f176dfYN5Wgoo0sITc7lv29gC/w200-h40/Screen+Shot+2018-05-05+at+11.00.34+AM.png" width="200" /></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></span></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjc1stnroSkLe56TKP8GT4Q5__kpQi_IrUZlgkM9QjYjxymF5bkYQTLbfdGPw-y9MVvxOtjB2aKepRsZ45SCtij39eoUxDrdyCNsuyZ2Za-UojwqkeKv1g22b7G0S2kQuzsPzgDdRGfxbY3/s2048/DSC01698.JPG" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img alt="Image of Jewish grave marker from Rome. Text is Greek, includes images of menorah and shofar" border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjc1stnroSkLe56TKP8GT4Q5__kpQi_IrUZlgkM9QjYjxymF5bkYQTLbfdGPw-y9MVvxOtjB2aKepRsZ45SCtij39eoUxDrdyCNsuyZ2Za-UojwqkeKv1g22b7G0S2kQuzsPzgDdRGfxbY3/w400-h300/DSC01698.JPG" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">Grave marker for Jewish woman named Faustina from Rome.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b style="font-size: 12pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">What is it:</b><span style="font-size: 12pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Some people think that "Classics” starts and ends with the study of the Greek and Latin languages. We learn the language so that we can read a few select canonical texts like Homer or tragedies and Virgil and Caesar--mostly literature from 5th century Athens and Late Republican and Augustan Rome. Some people recognize that there is a lot more out there that is worth reading, whether for fun or for understanding Greek and Roman culture. So, they expand the canon to include more--maybe some Plautus and Juvenal and Martial, too. Maybe some myth, often via Ovid and Homer. Some of us lean more towards history and so we assume Classics includes not just the languages and culture of Greece and Rome, but also social, political, and economic history. Some of us can’t depend on literary texts in ancient Greek or Latin to understand history or culture and look instead to material evidence-vases, sculptures, architecture, inscriptions, even bones. One of the things that becomes super clear as you learn more about the ancient Greeks and Romans is that “Classics” is a lot more than the languages and a few select texts. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This thing we call Classics, in fact, is made up of rich and complex intertwined worlds that criss-cross the Mediterranean and interact with peoples well beyond that sea. Those people we call Greeks and Romans lived on three continents. They came in wide ranges of skin colors from the palest “white” to brown to the darkest “black”. We know this because they tell us and show us. And because speaking Greek and writing Greek and, at some stage even calling oneself Greek ceased to be about whether your ancestors came originally from the cities of Athens or Sparta or Corinth, but about your cultural investments. Lucian, the great satirist was Syrian, even though he was also Greek. Herodotus came from a town settled by both Greeks and a local Asian people called the Carians. Greek philosophy was developed by Greeks living in the Persian empire, they borrowed many forms of mathematics and science from those in Babylon and Egypt. Many of our most important Greek documents come from Egypt and, though in Greek, were written by and record the lives of people who thought of themselves as Greek and Egyptian and Roman--all at the same time. Because they were--we often forget that! </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">To be Roman was even less about being from a specific location in Europe (Italy) than being ‘Greek’ in antiquity was. Roman, by the middle of the 1st century BCE was a name given to a political group with citizenship, whether they came from Italy, from Greece, from north Africa, or Gaul. The freedperson also become a citizen no matter where they came from--and we know that the enslaved men and women who became Roman citizens this way came to Rome from as far away as modern Ukraine, Sudan, Ghana, India and more. </span></span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxeJ6hKjRxqV28P235JFh1OWRI6bm2mC1JPWkA644dk6Gixmjx_pvrlMxZgQru_Gz5vndGCxSlrByD9I2RpVy_UqJaeNBDIYWFQ0_8Lm0O_il1DLdchKjcrJ0aRgs-UUGYW-d5foKj2c9-/s270/Screen+Shot+2018-05-05+at+11.00.34+AM.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" data-original-height="54" data-original-width="270" height="40" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxeJ6hKjRxqV28P235JFh1OWRI6bm2mC1JPWkA644dk6Gixmjx_pvrlMxZgQru_Gz5vndGCxSlrByD9I2RpVy_UqJaeNBDIYWFQ0_8Lm0O_il1DLdchKjcrJ0aRgs-UUGYW-d5foKj2c9-/w200-h40/Screen+Shot+2018-05-05+at+11.00.34+AM.png" width="200" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><p></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilVWaQ2zwMiOgn_6jzL5koWrnX-t279Otm1IxNlbaShBF962ABNOKGD9O3zRl1hmy74SyHmQZ2E6_jgf5pB8kAnM4kivY_QPcKUHs88P8FV8tfztJJGp7PelByR2D498LcCpccI4IEeGt5/s2048/740AD706-218A-410E-A1F4-D7555DDF0288.heic" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilVWaQ2zwMiOgn_6jzL5koWrnX-t279Otm1IxNlbaShBF962ABNOKGD9O3zRl1hmy74SyHmQZ2E6_jgf5pB8kAnM4kivY_QPcKUHs88P8FV8tfztJJGp7PelByR2D498LcCpccI4IEeGt5/s320/740AD706-218A-410E-A1F4-D7555DDF0288.heic" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">Our 2019 Summer Class at Aegina, Greece. </span></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p><span style="font-size: 12pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Who Can Study it?</b> So, “Classics” for many of us, if it means the study of ancient Greeks and Romans and their languages, literature, history, art and archaeology, means the study of this whole vast world. In the past, however, and, in some ways even still, who can study it is limited--either by economic inequalities or, in the united states, by racial and ethnic boundaries that often (but not always) fall along economic lines. I mentioned that we didn’t have Latin in my high school. I went to school in San Diego. The schools there that were mostly White and wealthier had Latin. My school was over 50% Asian-Pacific Islander and had a lot of military families. We could take Spanish or French. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Because I didn’t have access to Latin in high school, it is likely that, if I applied to graduate school in Classics today, I would not get in. If I had tried even just to go to college before World War 2, I likely would have been rejected from most places because I didn’t have access to Latin. If it had been the 19th century, even if my school had Latin, I wouldn’t have gotten into college because I didn’t have ancient Greek. Being a woman, of course, would have made all this even harder. Being Black in America would have made it near impossible (though, in both cases, of course, there were exceptions--exceptions don’t erase the rule). </span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">These historical exclusions were intentional and meant to keep the study of Classics and access to college restricted to elite White men. The impacts of those exclusions are still with us in who we see studying and then teaching and researching Classics--it is still not unusual to enter a “Classics” conference, classroom, or other space and see only a handful of non-White students or teachers or even none. In some cases, </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">who </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">studies Classics is linked to </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">what</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> we consider Classics. if Classics is just the Latin and Greek languages and a small canon of texts, it limits who might find it interesting and who might be able to enter into Classics or feel welcome in our classes. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b></b></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEHjSzSrYaa1Z0ZLYr9jyrpVFHUZyQZyvnVvxIWFGqOFotkl8f_6ZEam8NHeVewpGjEfkEOyKCyvXX8OI4G6AQyv-tLvXMCLnhXHgtks__ryWHcrw-qe0czUzA9xo2yWzXoLCq2cQEviPq/s270/Screen+Shot+2018-05-05+at+11.00.34+AM.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" data-original-height="54" data-original-width="270" height="40" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEHjSzSrYaa1Z0ZLYr9jyrpVFHUZyQZyvnVvxIWFGqOFotkl8f_6ZEam8NHeVewpGjEfkEOyKCyvXX8OI4G6AQyv-tLvXMCLnhXHgtks__ryWHcrw-qe0czUzA9xo2yWzXoLCq2cQEviPq/w200-h40/Screen+Shot+2018-05-05+at+11.00.34+AM.png" width="200" /></span></a></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></b></div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvUbZXzAnlGuo_zPybDDUm9PrGuv6Qv9mxAm68RQwzPhpYVn6Gl9O9BSJenl9AbzwwWKmVAUAdG-9mfpjRrNh6A_qGgUS6VZDAlQ6QAcigv9Q5WwJZ4AcpBQP_AOUPqyrA2dtb-ZjPC5Ih/s4320/P1010572.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4320" data-original-width="3240" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvUbZXzAnlGuo_zPybDDUm9PrGuv6Qv9mxAm68RQwzPhpYVn6Gl9O9BSJenl9AbzwwWKmVAUAdG-9mfpjRrNh6A_qGgUS6VZDAlQ6QAcigv9Q5WwJZ4AcpBQP_AOUPqyrA2dtb-ZjPC5Ih/s320/P1010572.JPG" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">T<span style="font-size: x-small;">omb of the metic ('immigrant') woman <br />Phanostrate. 4th c BCE Athens.</span></td></tr></tbody></table>Why Study Classics</b>: But it goes somewhat deeper than this: it also is a matter of <span style="font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">why</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> we study Classics. And here, I want to introduce you all to the notion of "Critical ‘Classics” or, as some of my friends and colleagues call it “Critical Ancient World Studies.”</span></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: 12pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In the past in the United States (and in the UK and elsewhere), ancient Greece and Rome were presented to us in idealized form: the Roman Republic was the model for our constitution and the Founding Fathers promoted it as, and we still often assume that is was, an inherent good. Ancient Athens was the “first Democracy” and we call ourselves a democracy and are good and so Athens’ democracy must have been good. Both the Roman Republic and the Athenian democracy are often presented to us in textbooks and TV and films as the homes of values like “freedom” and “justice” and “equality”. We were told to study them because they are ideal models for our modern world and because our society is founded upon those ancient ones. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">But this is a rosy colored picture that does a disservice both to the realities of antiquity and to the realities of our relationship to them. Critical Classics is about not promoting antiquity as idealized models to underpin modern American exceptionalism, but instead, encourages us to look to the broader realities of that past (warts and all) and to the various ways that past has been used and has influenced our present--not because we are the “natural” heirs of ancient Greece and Rome, but because we chose to build some of our political and social (and scientific) assumptions and practices upon parts of antiquity we liked. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Unfortunately, some of the most acclaimed and widely read ancient texts, like Aristotle’s <i>Politics</i> or Plato’s <i>Republic </i>or the writings of Hippocratic doctors, or Caesar’s <i>Gallic Wars</i> or, in some interpretations, Virgil’s <i>Aeneid</i>, were used to promote and justify enslavement, scientific racism, sexism, genocide, eugenics, economic class disparities, white supremacism. It is important for those of us who study and teach Classics to reckon with our past and the ends to which we have used the Greeks and Romans. Critical Classics--the stuff you see being represented in the popular press these days as “Cancelling Cicero”--actually helps with that reckoning. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">But Critical classics isn’t just a negative thing that seeks to dismantle our past complicities and, in fact, isn’t about “Cancelling Cicero” at all. We just want to expand what “Classics” means to encompass more people and to be more than learning how to translate the Catilinarian speeches. In fact, Critical Classics is what helps us learn about all that rich and complex variety of the ancient Greek and Roman worlds. It opens up new avenues of inquiry, new materials to enjoy and evidence upon which to help us understand the past. My research and teaching has for many years now focused on immigrant groups in ancient Athens and the broader Greek world. I track them using tombstones and then try to reconstruct their lives based on courtroom speeches and inscriptions. Their lives were often difficult and their treatment harsh, but they were real people and to get to know them even in the small ways our evidence allows feels like an honor to me.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I also teach and study how the ancient Greeks and Romans understood race and ethnicity and gender and sexuality by looking at how they talk about these things in texts spanning over 800 years and in images on vases, or in sculptural form, and other material arts. Because we take critical approaches to the past, the ancient world has become for me an endless pool of possibilities to learn about and understand the people we group together as Greeks and Romans. I don’t think of them as people to emulate or their ways of life a model for my own. But they are endlessly fascinating to me and reflecting on how they ordered their worlds help me be more cognizant and reflective on how we order our own. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And so, I’d like to end today by provoking you to reflect upon what it means to really study the ancient world, why we do it, who can do it and what limitations we put on who, how, what, and why. Our world keeps changing. Classics should too. And I hope that you all will be that better future of Classics. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Thank you.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></p><div><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></div>Rebecca Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09189847760200499244noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2441584511996015550.post-18106594866150897942021-02-22T12:06:00.016-05:002021-03-06T07:49:50.419-05:00Changing "Classics": What Do We Want? Not What Some People Keep Saying We Want<p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">By Rebecca Kennedy and Maximus Planudes</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpNJIcJ9ZVQzSpGJf975euiHgSxqyxTra6sHejldbTkeJC2kYUazeU0wa_k3bkn-UXfWrpGNve1JQRUfTPkNU6-zNlxM3RAPYTucRRpgwnDZhnVire0eNGdNzumYBKnMW0jnLPNJtBckai/s960/Screen+Shot+2021-02-22+at+12.03.16+PM.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="634" data-original-width="960" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpNJIcJ9ZVQzSpGJf975euiHgSxqyxTra6sHejldbTkeJC2kYUazeU0wa_k3bkn-UXfWrpGNve1JQRUfTPkNU6-zNlxM3RAPYTucRRpgwnDZhnVire0eNGdNzumYBKnMW0jnLPNJtBckai/s320/Screen+Shot+2021-02-22+at+12.03.16+PM.png" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">A</span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">t the end of my<a href="https://rfkclassics.blogspot.com/2021/02/some-things-are-too-embarrassing-to.html" target="_blank"> last blog post</a>, I (RFK) pleaded for an immediate halt to uninformative, poorly written, inaccurate responses to the recent <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/02/magazine/classics-greece-rome-whiteness.html" target="_blank">New York Times Magazine article</a>, which focused on our colleague Dan-el Padilla Peralta and current debates in the discipline known as "Classics". Why this heartfelt plea? Isn't open debate good?! Only if those involved in the debate understand the ideas and commit to representing them accurately. In many cases, the inundation of op-eds show either little understanding or disinterest in accurate representation. Some are plain <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_faith" target="_blank">bad faith</a>. </span></span><p></p><p><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In this post, we lay out a preliminary list of some of the criticisms and changes called for by scholars like Padilla Peralta, but by many, many others as well. We want, eternal optimists that we are, to ground the “discourse” in what people are in fact saying. Classifying these views as “attacks,” as some are apparently compelled to, requires a certain blinkered chutzpah when the majority of actual attacks on “Classics” come from outside the discipline by people hell bent on defunding the humanities and ancient world studies everywhere or insisting on a particular nationalist approach.</span></span></p><p><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">We start with what is being advocated for and then address some of the false narratives about attacks on the discipline. We should probably make it clear that when we say “Classics” we are explicitly talking about the professional study of the ancient world in educational/academic contexts. We are not talking about what some call “the classics”, which tends to refer to objects of study or enjoyment. In other words, we aren’t talking about Homer and Virgil, but about the discipline. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>*Note</b>: we have tried to link to relevant already </span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">existing</span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> writing, podcasts, videos, etc. if/where statements and arguments for the positions listed have been made. But, </span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">honestly</span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">, after about 20 of them, we got tired and just needed a break because SO MANY PEOPLE ARE WORKING TOWARDS AND SUPPORT INNOVATION-EVOLUTION-REFORM-WHATEVERYOUWANTTOCALLIT we can't keep up. We will continue to add links, though. Many are already listed on the blog here in the <a href="https://rfkclassics.blogspot.com/p/blog-page.html" target="_blank">anti-racism</a> and <a href="https://rfkclassics.blogspot.com/p/teaching-race-and-ethnicity.html" target="_blank">teaching resources</a> pages. Please also see the <a href="https://rfkclassics.blogspot.com/p/where-to-find-classics-community.html" target="_blank">Community</a> link for organizations within the field working for change. </span></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b><span style="font-family: inherit;">***</span></b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>1. Changing the Name</b></span><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: The disciplinary designation “Classics” is, of course, not used everywhere, but mostly in the US/UK where its obvious elitist connotations are somewhat balanced by the popular ignorance of its specific meaning in the academic jargon. “Oh, you teach Jane Austen and Mozart?” indeed. Recognizing this <a href="https://www.academia.edu/32638928/A_subject_that_was_designed_for_rich_white_men_Inclusivity_Diversity_and_Classics" target="_blank">elite connotation </a>and the historical usage that mark out literature from ancient Greece (basically Homer to Aristotle for many people) and Rome (with emphasis on works from the late Republic and Augustus) as superior to other world literatures, some would like to change the name to be less elitist. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Others wish to change the name because of the history of the discipline’s complicity in colonialist and white supremacist actions (see more below); others, because some students, unaware of the jargon meaning of Classics, think we teach the </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Scarlet Letter</span><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and Tribe Called Quest; still others, because the disciplinary jargon historically referred primarily to the language and literatures of ancient Greece and Rome, thus not reflecting the broader realities of how we study and teach today. Name changes frighten some people, but <a href="https://planudes.medium.com/what-is-classics-cc1ae82ea2a4" target="_blank">Classics is a relatively recent jargon term</a> and we support a change.</span></span></p><p><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This change, of course, will happen, if it does, locally. We are changing our department name to help our students more accurately and easily recognize what we do. It is also more respectful to certain colleagues who teach other “classical” topics, but do not get the name. We will become Ancient Greek and Roman Studies. It says where our focus is and, because we are limited to 3 full time and 2 part time faculty, covers what we can reasonably admit to teaching: We teach languages, literatures, histories, cultures, and receptions of ancient Greece and Rome. </span></span></p><p><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">A name change isn’t going to solve the problems outlined by advocates for structural and institutional changes to the discipline. It will not, it should not need saying, end racism. Instead, the change of name can function as a signal of willingness to change, of understanding (some of) the history of the discipline’s problems, and as a show of respect to our colleagues in other disciplines by not pretending that our field is inherently better than theirs (except for evo-psych; we are definitely better than them). </span></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">***</span></b></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><b></b></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiebPdfLKVrLFOrZ5dBuoQYhI8LKRHbmVQvRS18iOqSU7CppNjE3D-2UdVBkY2251XYTcBD8tCs_oOwfsvXDPZEostoMpUNKFZsHxda17-KG_MRfqi061uFxz5fVnmk7aBihAnifo0l2ffT/s994/Screen+Shot+2021-02-22+at+12.00.44+PM.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="564" data-original-width="994" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiebPdfLKVrLFOrZ5dBuoQYhI8LKRHbmVQvRS18iOqSU7CppNjE3D-2UdVBkY2251XYTcBD8tCs_oOwfsvXDPZEostoMpUNKFZsHxda17-KG_MRfqi061uFxz5fVnmk7aBihAnifo0l2ffT/s320/Screen+Shot+2021-02-22+at+12.00.44+PM.png" width="320" /></a></b></span></div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><br />2. Structural Changes</b>: A name change, however, may be bundled with suggestions for structural changes to programs and departments. Different suggestions imply different recommendations for structural change. e.g., Ancient <span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Mediterranean</span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> Studies, <a href="https://twitter.com/SarahEBond/status/1352966967234277376" target="_blank">Global Antiquity</a>, <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bcfVTSMR--nP4fKhLSFS7TIzJ_dO5wV8hOch1Elxg8c/edit" target="_blank">[Critical] Ancient World Studies</a>, [Ancient] Greek and Roman Studies, or [Ancient] Greek and Latin Studies. It should go without saying (alas) that changing the name Classics only addresses programs that are currently called such (many are not!) and is a local, not universalist project. Not all programs can or will do the same thing, nor should they. We do not expect changes to be free of controversy; we also do not believe it is helpful to frame them as attacks, except, I suppose, for certain reactionary purposes.</span></span><p></p><p><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Padilla Peralta (in the NYTimes article) and <a href="https://wcc-uk.blogs.sas.ac.uk/2017/10/27/against-classics/" target="_blank">Josephine Quinn</a> have suggested Ancient Mediterranean Studies, a suitable name for some programs which can, in fact, <a href="https://englianos.wordpress.com/2021/02/08/meet-the-new-boss-same-as-the-old-boss/" target="_blank">do what this name entails</a>. Programs taking up that name should (ideally) do so because they are broadening their programs beyond ancient Greeks and Romans to include west and central Asia, the Levant, and north Africa. They explicitly want to extend their departments to be more inclusive of non-langauge/literature based approaches, giving equitable emphasis to material culture, specifically by expanding the number of archaeologists and material-based historians. </span></span></p><p><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">We have also seen advocates for Global Antiquity or “[Critical] Ancient World Studies”, encompassing even more places like China, India, Nubia, Axum, Arabia, the Black Sea, the Americas, etc. Anywhere where there is accessible ancient material for study. </span></span></p><p><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Suggestions such as these are ideas, subject to debates. One might imagine a program focused narrowly on Latin, but covering its full history of use. In fact, it is not even clear that it is advisable for every program to look the same. At the same time, broader discussions help shape local ones, since the dynamics facing programs have many similarities. It is also important to acknowledge that structural changes of any sort have obvious staffing consequences. Some changes de-center Greek and Latin languages and/or add other languages like Sanskrit, Hieroglyphs, Akkadian, Hebrew, etc. These are hard issues.</span></span></p><p><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">We imagine that the staffing consequences entailed by proposed reconfigurations may encourage the (unmerited) charges that people want to “cancel languages” or “cancel Plato”. Departments or programs that opt to embrace a broader view of “Classics” under the auspices of AMS or GA or [C]AWS may reduce the centrality of these texts, but won’t abolish or abandon them. And, of course, any changes that would occur would occur at the local level of individual departments and in specific institutional contexts--Harvard may not be interested in such changes, but UCLA might and it would provide more avenues for people to enter graduate study and then, jobs willing, the broader profession. It would be nice also, of course, if, instead of the continuing use of “trickle down” approaches to defining the discipline’s parameters, where graduate programs decide their requirements and undergraduate programs feel compelled to shape themselves around them, they looked to see what sorts of changes these smaller and often more nimble programs are doing and <a href="https://rfkclassics.blogspot.com/2021/02/changing-classics-to-save-classics-view.html" target="_blank">adapt to us for a change</a>.</span></span></p><p><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">There is, simply put, more than one way to do “Classics” and many are advocating for changes that reflect that simple reality. The fact that material culturalists and historians in our discipline have been advocating for these changes for DECADES shows this isn’t some fiendish, cultural Marxist, post-modern, far-lefty wokeness attack, but the perennial request for equal valuation. </span></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">***</span></span></p><p><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b></b></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmYw-oyUBUTs-WbyjXVlEu0p_fApYBSdw4lD60uCMksYmC6gsN3D0b_L0HoscHdQfrVabnp8retb9-NckdK9xMSH-d0JYzo8RSIOWvQEmWMjkLKKFTjRQfnGNw_VUiiAqD1J8SYswE2qxc/s1000/Elmo.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="946" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmYw-oyUBUTs-WbyjXVlEu0p_fApYBSdw4lD60uCMksYmC6gsN3D0b_L0HoscHdQfrVabnp8retb9-NckdK9xMSH-d0JYzo8RSIOWvQEmWMjkLKKFTjRQfnGNw_VUiiAqD1J8SYswE2qxc/s320/Elmo.jpg" /></a></b></span></div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>3. Racism and Whiteness</b>. The structural changes discussed above are a long-standing issue in the field and they may leave untouched a core issue for many: racism and a history of <a href="https://eidolon.pub/we-condone-it-by-our-silence-bea76fb59b21" target="_blank">disciplinary complicity</a> with <a href="https://planudes.medium.com/classics-white-supremacy-again-1d4ec508fc37" target="_blank">white supremacism</a>, <a href="https://eidolon.pub/western-imperialism-in-the-classics-classroom-75190bd6eb39" target="_blank">colonialism</a>, and <a href="https://everydayorientalism.wordpress.com/2017/02/01/the-classics-postcolonialism-and-reception-studies-an-interview-with-phiroze-vasunia/" target="_blank">imperialism</a>. This issue is likewise not new, but has taken new urgency in many places, with different underlying dynamics. Colonialism and imperialism, for example, are more prominent terms in debates in the UK and other European and European colonized countries. In the US, we generally speak of <a href="https://planudes.medium.com/classics-and-white-supremacy-df8e95324c15" target="_blank">White supremacism</a>. </span><p></p><p><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The diversity of situations should not lead, as it too often does, to outright dismissal. It is far too easy to ignore the discussions of racism. They are uncomfortable and ignorance is easy. We all, us included, could do more listening, a lot more listening, to those who generously share their experiences and ideas.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There have been many many excellent discussion of these issues by our colleagues. For framing of the issue in the UK and how it and the US differ, we suggest these </span><a href="https://eidolon.pub/more-than-a-common-tongue-cfd7edeb6368" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">excellent</span></a><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><a href="https://eidolon.pub/fragile-handle-with-care-66848145cf29" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">essays</span></a><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> by Mathura Umachandran. We also highly recommend attending events held by </span><a href="https://christiancolesociety.org/events/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Christian Cole Society for Oxford Classicists of Color</span></a><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. There is also the manifesto of the </span><a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bcfVTSMR--nP4fKhLSFS7TIzJ_dO5wV8hOch1Elxg8c/edit" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Critical Ancient World Studies</span></a><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> group. We will also happily add links for other contexts if anyone can provide them. Our own knowledge and experience is of the state of the question in the US, so this is where we will provide the most info. </span></span></p><p><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Most in the US advocate for changes to the discipline to address historical complicities with white supremacism. There is a lot of work to do. What is being sought: </span></span></p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">acknowledge how the academic discipline and scholarship </span><a href="https://youtu.be/C5d0kMOaSak" style="white-space: pre-wrap;" target="_blank">has facilitated and encouraged racism</a><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">, especially anti-Blackness, by serving as a vehicle for slavery apologism, educational gatekeeping, forms of scientific racism, elitism, “Western” and American exceptionalism, Islamophobia, and other forms of white supremacism. </span></span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: inherit;">recognize that white supremacism exceeds far right extremism, that it exists in institutional practices, <a href="https://intersectionist.medium.com/american-power-structures-white-columns-white-marble-white-supremacy-d43aa091b5f9" style="white-space: pre-wrap;" target="_blank">even in our landscapes</a><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">. The far right appropriations are insidious and harmful to the public image of the field, and public facing scholars are doing good work in </span><a href="https://eidolon.pub/this-is-not-sparta-392a9ccddf26" style="white-space: pre-wrap;" target="_blank">combating them</a><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">. They are, in some senses, an easy distraction because we can write about how they are wrong, mock them, </span><a href="http://pages.vassar.edu/pharos/" style="white-space: pre-wrap;" target="_blank">document them</a><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">. None of this addresses white supremacism in our institutions or discipline. We acknowledge, however, that our students sometimes come to us influenced by these views and we must be prepared to confront them.</span></span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: inherit;">discuss and advocate for changes to how we work <span style="font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">within</span><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> the discipline to promote our programs and discuss the ancient past so that we do not provide facile narratives that can and have been used to support racist policies and institutional forms of white supremacism, i.e. the practices and policies within academic institutions and professional “Classics” that work to exclude Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color (BIPOC) students and professionals. </span>Some examples:</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><ul><li><span style="font-family: inherit;">An appeal to the “<a href="https://rfkclassics.blogspot.com/2017/11/his-western-civilization-is-not-my.html" target="_blank">foundations of Western Civilization</a>” narrative. This critique is often misunderstood as a rejection of the works often included in the narrative or of the idea of influence itself. It is, rather, a critique of the narrative, a relatively recent (19C) myth of a continuing trajectory of cultural inheritance from the time of Homer to now in certain modern European, but mostly Anglophone, nations (including the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand). It is a particularly toxic origin myth, <a href="https://rfkclassics.blogspot.com/2019/04/on-history-of-western-civilization-part.html" target="_blank">a just-so story</a> designed to explain a <a href="https://rfkclassics.blogspot.com/2019/08/ancient-identitiesmodern-politics.html" target="_blank">relationship to the past</a> that justifies modern power hierarchies and socio-political exclusions. </span></li><li><span style="font-family: inherit;">An appeal to a color-blind “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_meritocracy" target="_blank">Meritocracy</a>,” another just-so myth frequently used to avoid talking about racism in admissions, hiring practices, publication access, and more.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: inherit;">Citational practices and peer review problems within our scholarship that <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/742076" style="white-space: pre-wrap;" target="_blank">privilege a closed circle of white, mostly male authors</a><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> and approaches, that reproduce elite hierarchies of scholars, and that reject certain types of analysis and critical methodology, approaches that are often central to disciplines focused on critical race studies, gender and sexuality studies, or ethnic studies. Things like the forthcoming </span><a href="https://classicalstudies.org/scs-news/cfp-race-and-racism-beyond-spectacular" style="white-space: pre-wrap;" target="_blank">TAPA special issue edited</a><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> by Patrice Rankine and Sasha Mae Eccleston are moves to combat this. It is also a place where Padilla Peralta has done important work (</span><a href="https://youtu.be/lcJZCVemn-4" style="white-space: pre-wrap;" target="_blank">he presents the data starting at min. 32</a><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">). Curiously (?), this work is rarely discussed. </span></span></li><li><span style="font-family: inherit;">Writing and talking about the ancient <a href="https://rfkclassics.blogspot.com/2019/07/e-pluribus-plures-identities-in.html" target="_blank">Greeks</a> and <a href="https://www.americanacademy.de/the-roman-roots-of-racial-capitalism/" target="_blank">Romans</a> as if they were White. The Whitewashing of the ancient Mediterranean by Classical scholarship has a long history. The assumption that modern racial categories were perennial and would have been used and understood in antiquity is based, in part, of mid-19th century <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/slavery-platonic-origins-anti-democracy-cedric-robinson/e/10.4324/9781351305129-2" target="_blank">slavery apologism</a> works like Nott and Gliddon’s <span style="font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Races of Mankind</span><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. and promoted to the general public through museums, <a href="https://rfkclassics.blogspot.com/2017/12/classically-white-supremacy-american.html" target="_blank">world's expos</a>, and other institutions. When we avoid engaging in serious study of ancient identity formation processes, we perpetuate the myth of ancient Whiteness and the idea that “Classics” is </span></span><span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">the inheritance or history of White people only. We also impose the idea of Europeanness onto the Greeks and Romans, many millions of whom (including many famous ancient authors) would neither have identified as such (and never as White), but as from places in Asia and Africa. This ties back also into the “Western Civ” narrative and use for promoting our programs or as frameworks for our scholarship.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: inherit;">In this same vein, expanding what count as “mainstream” topics by working to normalize teaching and studies that focus on <a href="https://everydayorientalism.wordpress.com/2020/08/03/eotalks-6-teaching-race-and-ethnicity-in-the-greco-roman-world-by-rebecca-futo-kennedy-and-jackie-murray/" style="white-space: pre-wrap;" target="_blank">race and ethnicity</a><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">, gender and sexuality, slave systems, </span><a href="https://rfkclassics.blogspot.com/2020/12/race-and-athenian-metic-modeling.html" style="white-space: pre-wrap;" target="_blank">immigration</a><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> and mobility, economics from below, the experiences of people and not just the processes, etc. Instead of avoiding these topics that often require us to set aside triumphalist and nationalist narratives of the past, advocates argue that they should be embraced in order for us to have more accurate understandings of the past. </span></span></li><li><span style="font-family: inherit;">Using more diverse theoretical and methodological frameworks--much of “Classics” still thinks reading <span style="font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Discipline and Punish</span><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is cutting edge and trendy. They actively ignore and even discourage engaging with Critical Race Theory, in particular. This is a major talking point for the political right generally, not just in op-eds on “Classics.” See the “<a href="file:///Users/kennedyr/Downloads/Report%20of%201776%20Commission%20Statement.pdf" target="_blank">1776 Report”.</a></span></span></li><li><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://www.eosafricana.org/announcements/the-fall-after-the-summer-of-solidarity" style="white-space: pre-wrap;" target="_blank">Reading and discussing</a><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">, holding </span><a href="https://www.archaeological.org/aia-seminars-critical-conversations-on-race-teaching-and-antiquity/" style="white-space: pre-wrap;" target="_blank">workshops</a><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> and </span><a href="https://resdifficiles.com/register/" style="white-space: pre-wrap;" target="_blank">conferences</a><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> on, and </span><a href="https://rfkclassics.blogspot.com/" style="white-space: pre-wrap;" target="_blank">creating resources</a><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> around teaching and writing about “difficult subjects” that appear in our sources like rape, genocide, enslavement, xenophobia with more nuance and care for how our students may interact with the texts. This is often dismissed as “coddling” or creating “safe spaces” when it is, in fact, just being a conscientious teacher and scholar.</span></span></li><li><span style="font-family: inherit;">Acknowledging and working to <a href="https://crossworks.holycross.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1023&context=necj" style="white-space: pre-wrap;" target="_blank">change language textbooks</a><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> rooted in slavery apologism—</span><a href="https://eidolon.pub/the-slaves-were-happy-high-school-latin-and-the-horrors-of-classical-studies-4e1123649916" style="white-space: pre-wrap;" target="_blank">lazy and happy slave narrative</a><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">s are a particular problem in the </span><a href="https://medium.com/ad-meliora/a-conversation-about-slavery-in-the-latin-classroom-57a7c55f49a8" style="white-space: pre-wrap;" target="_blank">Latin textbooks</a><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">, but show up in Greek ones as well. This is a problem that spans the US and UK language textbook industries. </span></span></li><li><span style="font-family: inherit;">Encouraging more respect for the study of and engagement with both reception studies and disciplinary history and not treating them as ancillary to the primary discipline and a hobby for people who already have tenure and have proved themselves “Serious Scholars” with more traditional publications. In this sense, we debate how “Classics” has historically been used as a gatekeeper to elite education, how needing extensive pre-graduate training in both Greek and Latin can inhibit access to the field by those who come from economically distressed backgrounds, which frequently falls along racial lines because of the US history of red lining and other anti-Black policies that date back to Emancipation and the end of Reconstruction. The overwhelming Whiteness, middle-upper classness of the field is well-documented. The numbers hardly budge decade after decade regardless of outreach efforts because the disciplinary structures themselves (some mentioned above) can make participating in “Classics” departments or programs toxic for BIPOC. Here is the data from the most <a href="https://classicalstudies.org/about/scs-newsletter-may-2019-harassment-survey" style="white-space: pre-wrap;" target="_blank">recent survey of the US</a><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> (there is also </span><a href="https://cucdedi.files.wordpress.com/2021/01/cucd-equality-and-diversity-report-2020.pdf" style="white-space: pre-wrap;" target="_blank">data from the UK</a><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">). </span></span></li><li><span style="font-family: inherit;">As part of disciplinary history, focus in on those histories that have been occluded and erased, like <a href="https://www.eosafricana.org/" style="white-space: pre-wrap;" target="_blank">Black Classicisms</a><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">, the </span><a href="https://rfkclassics.blogspot.com/2020/12/race-and-athenian-metic-modeling.html" style="white-space: pre-wrap;" target="_blank">place of Afrocentricity</a><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">, and “Classics” as it has been done in contexts outside of Europe and the US and Canada, for example, by </span><a href="https://everydayorientalism.wordpress.com/2020/07/28/eotalks-3-egypts-comics-superheroes-confronting-egyptologys-colonial-legacies/" style="white-space: pre-wrap;" target="_blank">Egyptians</a><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> in Egypt or in </span><a href="https://everydayorientalism.wordpress.com/2020/08/25/eotalks-8-classics-and-africanisation-in-postcolonial-ghana/" style="white-space: pre-wrap;" target="_blank">post-colonial Ghana</a><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> (EO Talks)</span></span></li><li><span style="font-family: inherit;">Acknowledging the experiences of racism that our BIPOC/BAME, but in particular Black-identifying, colleagues encounter within academic classrooms, conferences, publication, departments, social media, etc. Claims that these experiences aren’t “really racism” (yes, these statement have been made) because they are subjective are dismissive and reproduce racism in the discipline. Attempts to sideline or interfere with anti-racism initiatives by organizations and departments because they “overly focus” on the problems our Black colleagues and students <span style="white-space: pre;">face </span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">(yes, this also happens) ignore disciplinary history and the history of the US generally. </span></span></li><li><span style="font-family: inherit;">And, on the languages front, recognizing that in this broader “Classics”, not everyone will need to have training in ancient Greek and Latin. Maybe they need both, maybe one, maybe (gasp!) neither. Or, understanding the role the languages play in gatekeeping by race and economic status and adjusting how much experience students are expected to have in them before they start a graduate program. Or <a href="https://eidolon.pub/why-students-of-color-dont-take-latin-4ddee3144934" style="white-space: pre-wrap;" target="_blank">changing how languages are taught</a><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> based on local conditions and <a href="https://youtu.be/RnsBAysn4F4" target="_blank">reconsidering what it means to have language mastery</a>. Again, this one isn’t about ending study of the languages, just being more thoughtful of how and when we require them and recognizing how access to language training falls along racial and economic lines and so leads to unequal access to professional training in graduate programs.</span></span></li></ul></ul><p></p><p><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">These are some examples of what is being advocated for in the debates around “Classics” and its historical ties to and complicity in White supremacism. These are complex problems that need serious engagement. We recognize that even just this list is large and it would be impossible for any op-ed to address them all. It is telling, however, that they address none of them. </span></span></p><p><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Some of the problems will take decades to solve, even with the will to change. Advocates are asking that we have these discussions, listen to the experiences of BIPOC who are in (or have left) the professional discipline (as students or faculty), and problem solve ways to unbind ourselves from this past and move forward in (re)building an academic field that is more equitable, self-critical, inclusive of the variety that is the ancient world, and better for more people. Ignoring it or pretending it doesn’t exist hasn’t worked for decades. No reason to think it will start working now. </span></span></p><p><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">So, we can have serious discussions or, we don’t know, complain about cancelling Homer. </span></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">***</span></span></p><p><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">We struggle to see within the ideas discussed above the <a href="https://planudes.medium.com/" target="_blank">strawmen</a> planted to scare people while sowing division and crowding out meaningful discussion. Where, we wonder, are the “attacks”? We know of no one within the discipline advocating a halt to teaching the languages or our favorite ancient texts. No one is suggesting “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dont-yield-ancient-history-and-literature-to-the-alt-right/2021/02/03/3632ad7a-6635-11eb-886d-5264d4ceb46d_story.html" target="_blank">yielding” Juvenal and Aristotle to the far right</a>. We know of no administrators or funding organizations who are cutting Classics <i>because</i> it is attempting to reckon with its racist past—administrators at colleges don’t need this as an excuse to shutter programs, when they have for decades used under-enrollment in language courses, dropping numbers of majors, and strategic plans that focus on STEM and job placement initiatives. We don’t know everyone, though, so perhaps these mythical beasts exist. </span></span></p><p><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The people we know are suggesting that we might continue to broaden the canon, accept a more broadly defined classics, embrace a diversity of methods, recognize the importance of reception and history of the field, and -- importantly -- support those in our field from underrepresented groups who feel the alienation that comes from being made to feel they do not belong. They also suggest that these changes might help our field weather the series of financial crises that have enabled dismantling of the humanities writ large in academic institutions while also making Classics programs in particular more equitable.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It is possible that many of these op-eds are addressing things that have happened outside of the discipline proper, such as removing the Odyssey from a middle school general language arts curriculum (not linking because all articles are attacks and are not fully honest) or protests by undergraduate students groups (like at <a href="https://www.reed.edu/reed_magazine/march2017/articles/features/hum-110.html" target="_blank">Reed</a>, <a href="https://www.columbiaspectator.com/opinion/2015/04/30/our-identities-matter-core-classrooms/" target="_blank">Columbia</a>, and <a href="https://www.browndailyherald.com/2020/09/28/town-hall-explores-function-history-browns-statues-monuments/" target="_blank">Brown</a>). There are solid reasons why middle schools may want to change/update their curricula. Also, student groups have legitimate reasons for feeling like “Classics” is yoked to White supremacism. Or, in the case of Columbia, that Ovid’s poems can read like incel handbooks when taught badly. We should not dismiss these concerns out of hand because, after all, they are coming from students and we teach them and want them in our classes (see Sarah Ahmed's <a href="https://thenewinquiry.com/against-students/" target="_blank">Against Students</a>). They don’t think these things because advocates for change within the discipline are telling them the field is racist. Advocates for change often have their own experiences of racism in the field and are still in it </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">despite</span><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> the racism. They want to make it so other BIPOC students don’t have to have those same experiences of alienation and, instead, can see the ancient world more accurately and find it interesting and worth study. </span></span></p><p><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In fact, the only person within the discipline we have seen who has explicitly said “let’s dismantle Classics departments” in a <a href="https://twitter.com/SarahEBond/status/1352818110320041984?s=20" target="_blank">longer twitter convo</a>, in which they advocated for Classics department members to ask to be reassigned to other disciplinary departments (history, languages, art history, philosophy, religion, etc), which I (MP) <a href="https://planudes.medium.com/burning-classics-down-b99e2a4d0c97" target="_blank">discussed here</a>. [UPDATE: Walter Scheidel has also advocated this and may be the originator of the idea.] </span></span><span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">We don’t think this is </span><a href="https://twitter.com/SarahEBond/status/1359862720707837953?s=20" style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;" target="_blank">intended to be taken literally</a> (or is a serious recommendation in any sense)<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">, but is best understood as another discussion about the nature of the field—what would a “Classics” look like without departments. This is the reality for many programs at smaller and non-elite state colleges already. Best to discuss it on its merits. That is how fields stay relevant. </span></p><p><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Sure, the “<a href="https://eidolon.pub/burn-it-all-down-182f5edb16e" target="_blank">burn it down rhetoric</a>” is incendiary, and White Classicists tend to be <a href="https://eidolon.pub/fragile-handle-with-care-66848145cf29">a bit fragile</a> and think <a href="https://eidolon.pub/white-people-explain-classics-to-us-50ecaef5511" target="_blank">we own the discipline</a>, but it’s better to be the person who <a href="http://notesfromtheapotheke.com/yes-classics-is-toxic-or-in-defense-of-burning-it-all-down/" target="_blank">reads the whole article</a> before commenting and not just the headline. Because, it is, in fact, nearly impossible to find people within the discipline who want to “destroy Classics.” Instead, we see increasing numbers within the discipline (every link here represents at least 2 more also advocating similar change), ranging from <a href="https://talesoftimesforgotten.com/2021/01/24/heres-why-the-1776-report-is-nonsense/" target="_blank">undergraduates</a> to full tenured professors at a wide range of universities and secondary programs, working to make “Classics” more accessible, more equitable, more self-reflective, and open to innovation and new ideas. </span></span></p><p><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Burning, after all, is part of the agricultural cycle. Sometimes you have to clear out the brush in order to prepare the ground for new crops. When our colleague Dan-el Padilla Peralta says that <a href="https://youtu.be/PnWlsjSfj88" target="_blank">maybe Classics should die</a>, he explicitly says “Classics in its current form”. That isn’t “attacking” Classics, that is begging Classics to (once again) change itself or risk irrelevancy and continuing down the path of white supremacism. In this, we are with him as are many many others within the discipline. </span></span></p><p><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSPg9zWaJRRNgU3G7EsEVw-SmWnVrurvOoMPMH2ja8vNI0ng3U5w993WOW_k3pga_Vs9rusD4CEI6gf1Tq_sWTJdq3roqhNMGcC9OxiJbyJt5WSFVz85WUmj2R789sC_lLqu1pMRPY6Sq_/s960/elmo+rise.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="960" height="334" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSPg9zWaJRRNgU3G7EsEVw-SmWnVrurvOoMPMH2ja8vNI0ng3U5w993WOW_k3pga_Vs9rusD4CEI6gf1Tq_sWTJdq3roqhNMGcC9OxiJbyJt5WSFVz85WUmj2R789sC_lLqu1pMRPY6Sq_/w640-h334/elmo+rise.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><br /></p>Rebecca Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09189847760200499244noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2441584511996015550.post-65293178783154672102021-02-19T20:41:00.009-05:002021-02-20T19:47:22.182-05:00Some Things are too Embarrassing to Talk about or Ignore<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjPIbo7ysffL-lGK47rEoWxar9G3ZMm-loX8GvIKbE9dqT4jJXEty3SsOAYRhA_dxMdFU6OhMe9lbLolxGMImmq8M3T5ZrmKlzwjtE3b7zgwZVI6R_gFdOKKVj8C4UIVPyECK_jjZGiiRl/s1024/LAsino-DOro-1stMenu1-764x1024.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="764" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjPIbo7ysffL-lGK47rEoWxar9G3ZMm-loX8GvIKbE9dqT4jJXEty3SsOAYRhA_dxMdFU6OhMe9lbLolxGMImmq8M3T5ZrmKlzwjtE3b7zgwZVI6R_gFdOKKVj8C4UIVPyECK_jjZGiiRl/s320/LAsino-DOro-1stMenu1-764x1024.jpg" /></a></div>I tried not to read this last one. They have all been so bad and I am aware that anything about "Classics" published in the National Review regardless of who writes it will be at the least subliminally racist and stuck in the worst Dreams of Whiteness. This most recent one by well-known translator Sarah Ruden is no exception. It is also long, which means I simply cannot do justice to all of it in a response, so, I won't even try. Instead, I want to point out some of the most egregious moments. Some of it is undoubtedly unconscious--living lives insulated from people who are different, who have to navigate the world as not White can put blinders on people and make them miss lots of things. But other parts? I can't believe anyone is that naive and uncritical and poor at basic analysis. So, anyway, here we go:<p></p><p style="text-align: center;">***</p><p>I appreciate that from the beginning, we are informed of which elite halls the author has been traveling down. I hate it when they wait to flex the Ivy credential until the 3rd or 4th paragraph. When it is in the first sentence, I know how the narrator is positioning themselves and how I should feel about my own state school PhD: "Clearly, the [author] wanted me — a [working]-class, [midwestern/west coaster], very young woman — to contemplate what a glorious opportunity I had [not] been given, my [lack of even a] small share in so much wealth, power, and prestige." [changed from the original].</p><p style="text-align: left;"></p><blockquote><i>"And in fact nothing ever moved me to denigrate or pity classics as a discipline, though I had already seen, and would keep seeing, hardship of all kinds, phaseouts, and accusations of irrelevance and iniquity inflicted on institutional classics." </i></blockquote><p></p><p>It's called <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome" target="_blank">Stockholm Syndrome</a>. Joking (not really), but no. "Classics" is not a person to be pitied. And critical assessment is not "denigrating". Its...critical analysis and engagement. And the things you describe are neither actions of pity nor denigration. They are institutional actions around an academic discipline within the structures of the modern university. Can you pity an institutional structure? That is just odd.</p><p>Nice that we can skip all that stuff about origins of Harvard and stuff and Puritans and Classics. I've read a lot of better and more accurate histories. You can, too. (Maximus Planudes suggests, however, that Panine's Sanskrit grammar would have better accomplished the goals that she ascribes to early Harvard education, but they chose Greek and Latin for some reason. Probably the Christianity thing or something, right?). </p><p></p><blockquote><i>"But this is not the fault of the classics, which are just a set of sturdy and
adaptable tools." </i></blockquote><p></p><p>Not very adaptable if moves within the field to change it are treated as hell freezing over. But, perhaps more accurately, it is just wrong. "Classics" is not a set of tools. "Classics" (see above) is an academic discipline moored within academic institutions. Maybe this is where we can see the beginning of the source of our problems--conflating "Classics" the discipline that people want to change--change the educational goals and institutional structures of and extend the content we include within it--with objects of study like languages. Also, as one colleague said on Twitter, "Pretty sure there is something about this tool stuff in Plato's <i>Gorgias</i>." But no one ever reads the <i>Gorgias</i>. </p><p></p><blockquote style="font-style: italic;">A century later, the Founding Fathers came
to their clear thinking about governance by way of the classics.</blockquote><p>Wow. Clear? Have you studied our government? Or read the Federalist papers? Or been engaged at all in the the last few decades of American politics? CSPAN is always on for you. <i> </i></p><p><i><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span>***</i></p><p></p><p>This next paragraph is a doozy:</p><p></p><blockquote><p><i>The prevailing accusation in cancel-culture America is that the classics are
inherently authoritarian, and never even a potential tool of liberation. But a look
back at the beginning of the modern Western tradition, where classics merged
with Christianity, suggests the opposite </i>[side note: I thought Kagan taught at Yale]<i>: Classics is tantamount to the prize
itself, so that you might as well righteously resolve to keep money away from the
poor.</i> </p><p></p></blockquote><p>Sentence one is pretty much just all filled with wrongness. Cancel culture? PLEASE STOP WATCHING FOX NEWS. If there are people saying "the classics"--which I think is meant to be different from "Classics", no?--are <i>inherently</i> authoritarian, they are wrong. But, just no. Almost no one says this. The only thing most of us say is inherently authoritarian is the political machinery seeking to silence criticism of entrenched power (you know, White supremacism?). If by "the classics" you mean books like the <i>Iliad</i> or <i>Aeneid</i> or Herodotus' <i>Researches</i>, then this is a willful misrepresentation of any serious person in our discipline's assertions when we speak of the complicity between the academic discipline of Classics and White supremacism. It's the most useful straw man y'all can trot out though, because then you can get headlines like "Wokeness Brigade Hates Homer". It's a lie, but it riles up the base. </p><p>I don't even know what that last sentence means. If Classics does mean giving money to poor people, I am all for that. </p><p style="text-align: center;">***</p><p>The (rather long) point of the Augustine passage is hard to see. As a translator of Apuleius, I would have hoped that '"the docile mule" of "Classics" would have hidden something more interesting. Skipping it. </p><p style="text-align: center;">***</p><p><i></i></p><blockquote><i>All
of this was on my mind as I read about a present-day clash in the field
of classical studies.</i></blockquote><p></p><p>Not surprised she totally misunderstands Dan-el's position, if all that muddle is in the way. </p><p></p><blockquote><i>If you can master the hard, linguistic part of classics — the
inner structure, as necessary as anatomy is to medicine — you are by rights the
master, the magister or “teacher,” in the M.A. abbreviation; it would be tough
for any racist politics to deprive you of that distinction...</i></blockquote><p></p><p>Well... for many of us, the languages are the easy part. For some people, the hard part is synthetic analysis across genres, chronologies, and materials. I never found the languages difficult (neither did the author, apparently, but says it way later in the essay because the structure of this thing is awkward). I found them fun. The hard work for me was always ideas and figuring out how to make the initial idea into something more substantive and meaningful. Reading most of the responses to the NYT article, I can see this is a struggle for many others as well. </p><p>More importantly, yes, people do dismiss the credentials of BIPOC scholars ALL THE TIME. There are DOZENS OF STUDIES ON THIS. We are watching it happen in real time. It happened in the NR essay. I don't know why people think it is totally ok to makes such insipid statements that are easily countered by evidence. </p><p></p><blockquote><i>Without the language
standard for advancement, classics becomes — has to some degree already
become — a mere soup of feelings about the past and its influence on the
present, a soup heated or cooled by whoever commands the institutional stove.
In his classroom, Poser observes as Padilla directs a mash-up enactment of
Roman power struggles, with a student in a football shirt eventually winning the
empire by seven votes.</i></blockquote><p></p><p>HOLY NON-SEQUITUR, BATMAN! But, seriously, the ignorance and absolute dismissal of demonstrably good pedagogy is depressing. Like, do people not spend any time actually doing the research on how students learn? And does the author really think that reading Caesar's propaganda is the best way to understand Roman history? If so, no wonder so many people who have done a Classics degree think authoritarianism is good. (OOPSY. I used the word authoritarianism, but I think it is ok, because Caesar actually <i>did</i> overthrow the Roman Republic with his legions and set himself up as Dictator for life). </p><p>Not gonna talk about the soup.</p><p style="text-align: center;">***</p><p>I am going to say something that may make the author of the op ed livid with me, but I get her. I really do. I too live(d) in the midwest (in Ohio even!) until I was 13 (and again later) and understand how utterly depressing it can be as a place. I am sorry the midwest hurt you. But, your inability to write a check properly or heat up pizza at the age of 21 is not even remotely connected to or similar to experiences of racism. You felt ignored? Its nice to be White in the midwest that way. You can just blend right in. Try doing it while not White. I'll wait for the detailed description of <i>that</i> experience. </p><p>I should stop with the running commentary. I am being needlessly cruel here. Instead, I will just list the remaining moments in the essay I found where the Whiteness of the author reared its head and the (unconscious?) racism pops through. Because, honestly, a lot of this just reads like sour grapes (luscious overseas grad student mistress? trading desirability for publishing translations? WTF? Did you not have someone edit this for you?) because someone who thought they were superior to others turns out to be just like the rest of us in most ways--non-celebrities plodding along. Some of us are, however, interesting-- I just want to point that out. </p><p>1. <i>"I’m sorry, <b>but I do
understand what it was like for the young Padilla to have someone (in his case a
photographer who was semi-homeless himself) make sacrifices for the sake of
his talent</b>: I can’t count the number of hours of off-the-clock, one-on-one tuition
and classroom auditing teachers gave me over the years. These people stocked
my brain and pushed me forward. As I was finishing my B.A., Berkeley offered
me the country’s leading fellowship for graduate study, but I matriculated at
Harvard instead, as its placement record for new Ph.D.s was better."</i> Unnecessary flex (as my Gen-Zer would say). Also, please stop pretending your experience was anything like Dan-el's. It's almost worse than the multiple invocations of MLK. I mean, if only Dan-el had written a book about his experiences that could help us truly understand him better. </p><p>2. <i>(Racism could be daintily avoided; none of us had ever heard
of “minorities” except on TV.)</i> WOW. This is a deeply damning critique of your education that might suggest that BIPOC in our discipline, like Dan-el (who, ya ya you totally get), actively experience racism in the field. Why do you not frame it that way instead of just tossing it out as an aside and quickly moving on?</p><p>3. The entire section on South Africa and Zimbabwe. I think a commentator on Twitter summed it up best with something like "I needed European literature to remind me what beauty was after being subjected to Black violence in Africa." Like, this is just so so bad. But, of course, if plays right to the base audience of the <i>NR</i>, who are invested in the notion of "western" chauvinism and in a European-only "Classics". Interesting coming from a person who is well-known for translating African authors from antiquity. </p><p style="text-align: center;">***</p><p>I admit that I have not been particularly gentle in my comments. Do such badly written, bad faith misrepresentations of our colleague and his hard work trying to turn the discipline towards a more productive, equitable, innovative, "sturdy and adaptable” future deserve such? It's angry-making. It's frustrating. It's fundamentally dishonest. Please make it stop. </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Rebecca Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09189847760200499244noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2441584511996015550.post-83187135897849764192021-02-15T18:23:00.004-05:002021-02-17T13:43:01.493-05:00Changing Classics to Save Classics? A View from Below <p><span face="Belleza, sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2cxFS-PtA3Uhl3HvGSjn854J__O7qpENVfr1Fm9S9fC0RerRGN47fm4AeGisQeNMEXYyo1Vt_NIjY81FIZdQ9vfGbSdKm3NHvXjRjFOH2MMli3rydl8Y2BSaCAWsw6g5qXzRkiR0civ6v/s2048/F110C48F-E2E4-489B-9D08-E34D81EF7788.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Statue from Herodias Atticus' mini-Nile River installment near Marathon, outside of Athens." border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2cxFS-PtA3Uhl3HvGSjn854J__O7qpENVfr1Fm9S9fC0RerRGN47fm4AeGisQeNMEXYyo1Vt_NIjY81FIZdQ9vfGbSdKm3NHvXjRjFOH2MMli3rydl8Y2BSaCAWsw6g5qXzRkiR0civ6v/w240-h320/F110C48F-E2E4-489B-9D08-E34D81EF7788.jpeg" width="240" /></a></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;">By Rebecca Kennedy and Maximus Planudes</span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: inherit;">Changing classics?! <span face="Belleza, sans-serif" style="font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Un argomento trito e ritrito</span><span face="Belleza, sans-serif" style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, worn out, beaten as only a dead horse can be. It has urgency, however, for those whose livelihood depends on teaching, especially the contingently employed who only have jobs so long as classes are offered and there are students in the seats. As the pandemic worsens an already terrible academic labor market, humanists are likely to see even more difficulty in finding work as teachers and researchers. The numbers are bleak all around for the humanities, including “Classics.” People are rightly scared, an emotion not helped by the op-eds dropping every 10 minutes, insisting that we fear the “radical far-left wokeness brigade” who is killing the discipline. “Ignore,” they imply, “institutional disinvestments or the pressures of transnational capital. The real worry is wokeness ‘canceling’ Virgil.” Unhelpful.</span></span><p></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-6cbac0dc-7fff-433b-ec3e-672480bc71f8"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 8.5pt; margin-top: 8.5pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This post is not a response to any of the “Discourse.” We’ve been thinking for a while about humanities in the university, the place of “Classics,” and what shape it may take under continuing disinvestments. MP, for example, thought about it as a member of the SCS’s committee for contingent labor; RFK, when trying to reconfigure a museum slated to be closed because “there just doesn’t seem to be any energy around it right now.” And our attention focused again when our college president and provost started to hold meetings with various humanities faculty to discuss, ominously, “the future of the humanities.” </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 8.5pt; margin-top: 8.5pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We want to fill a gap, as it appears to us, by explaining a bit about the situation in our small liberal arts college. Many conversations, online, in the national press, and at our disciplinary conferences focus on Classics' complicity with white supremacism and our continued efforts to change the problems of racism that ravage our discipline. They focus also on the Ivy Leagues or Ph.D. granting institutions, or other traditional elite private colleges, where there are endowments and traditions and lots of faculty to fight with. And yet, many humanists work unnoticed because they fall below this prestige threshold or lower in the Carnegie classifications. They work in smaller programs and colleges, in community colleges, in secondary or primary schools. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 8.5pt; margin-top: 8.5pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span face="Belleza, sans-serif" style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Though starting small and local, we do offer some ideas for the academic “thought leaders.” Because t</span><span face="Belleza, sans-serif" style="white-space: pre-wrap;">he pressures on Classics don't only come from our entrapment with white supremacism but also from more mundane problems. What we hope our readers will see is that change is coming to Classics. It is, in fact, already here for many of us. </span><span face="Belleza, sans-serif" style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Although we know that our specific situation does not necessarily generalize everywhere and that the US system will seem bizarre to many, we hope that the detailed local focus can (mutating the mutandas, </span><span face="Belleza, sans-serif" style="font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">ut ita dicam</span><span face="Belleza, sans-serif" style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">) prove some value to the conversation. </span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 8.5pt; margin-top: 8.5pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">***</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 8.5pt; margin-top: 8.5pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Before 2009, Classics at our small college had 2 faculty (philologists), housed in history (in the ‘80s), anchoring a program with colleagues in Art History, Religion, Political Science, and Philosophy. It was an interdisciplinary “studies” program. In the ‘90s, the classicists were moved into their own 2-person department. This division came from an initiative by the then provost, who was pushing hard for departments to create majors that would track into graduate programs and was made after an external review by 2 esteemed members of the discipline (one from a SLAC, one from an R1) recommended a stand alone department. Since entry to graduate programs in Classics is essentially determined by language preparation, the revised major centered on Greek and Latin. Even at that time, the number of language students was not overwhelming, but they dropped precipitously after the financial crisis of 2008. This was not a unique situation--check the minutes of the last decade of Small Liberal Arts Chairs meetings from the SCS; it is a problem for many. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 8.5pt; margin-top: 8.5pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I (RFK) arrived in 2009 as the first department historian. Even with three faculty, Classics remained and remains one of the smallest departments on campus (it will not get any bigger). The pre-professional major was 14 total components--9 courses in Greek and Latin, 2 courses in translation (history survey or myth), and a senior symposium where students presented their senior thesis, along with a comprehensive languages exam. With 3 faculty and this structure, we offered a total of 15 courses per year (when all of us were there) and 10 of those courses were in the languages. The remaining 5 were distributed in myth, civ, and contributions to the university writing program. Our students were good at the languages, but had very little knowledge of the broader content or context. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 8.5pt; margin-top: 8.5pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span face="Belleza, sans-serif" style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Even then, the language-based major was just getting by, graduating about 4-5 majors a year (but our courses in translation were always full, just not with majors). But it was shrinking, and after 2012, the numbers dropped again. The enrollments in advanced language classes, the core of the major, could not enroll the minimum six required to run a class. Perhaps someone might say, “wait it out! The numbers may return” or “Bring them in through a large general course!" -- small program enrollments and majors are often built upon “cults of personality” of the professors and positive word of mouth among the students” helps -- or “New pedagogies and better marketing would resolve the problem of lowering enrollments.” Basically, “Do something to allow the status quo to continue!” </span><span face="Belleza, sans-serif" style="font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Campa cavallo! </span><span face="Belleza, sans-serif" style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">How many years until a provost comes knocking on one’s department doors and asks whether you really need that 3rd tenure-line or those spousal positions? </span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 8.5pt; margin-top: 8.5pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A change in administration allowed the department to shift from a pre-professional program, changing its course offerings and educational goals by emphasizing classes in translation, which were (and remain) popular. The department decided not to scaffold or make prerequisites for these courses--mythology, Greek and Roman history, literature surveys, special topic seminars; this openness allows non-major students to take any class that strikes their interest. We all had to adjust our pedagogy and reframe our expectations of what sort of background the students will have. They typically have none. The one class they take with us may be the only class on antiquity they ever take. We want them to get as much out of it as possible. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 8.5pt; margin-top: 8.5pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPK_rdkkTNOd30YnuF5n9gaUxYQwlXEEqdgINLIbV7G-dBFYQhoqxmkKOBVJkydm2PU3HvcGqUiK2awRsdDC7yTCqgEIugc_QI-fG6dAOVEZaGEWpAuhYVp8PXBXoklIoDvW6V1rPdznAI/s2048/+DeptLogo.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1992" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPK_rdkkTNOd30YnuF5n9gaUxYQwlXEEqdgINLIbV7G-dBFYQhoqxmkKOBVJkydm2PU3HvcGqUiK2awRsdDC7yTCqgEIugc_QI-fG6dAOVEZaGEWpAuhYVp8PXBXoklIoDvW6V1rPdznAI/s320/+DeptLogo.jpg" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br />We want to note that our most popular courses are Myth (easily the most popular), Greek and Roman history (which include role-playing pedagogies), and thematic courses on <a href="https://rfkclassics.blogspot.com/2020/05/correcting-nonsense-about-ancient-greco.html" target="_blank">race and ethnicity</a>, gender and sexuality, law and democracy, war and society. Students love that most of our courses feature modern reception or explicit connections to the modern world. We often eschew the traditional research paper for more creative assessments. They love thematic courses and projects that have them thinking across genres, times, and spaces. The lowest enrolling classes are traditional seminars in translation on Roman authors like Ovid and Vergil, although Athenian Drama still fills. It seems to us that most students want courses that touch on issues of contemporary concern and allow for synthetic, critical, and creative engagement with the past. </span><p></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 8.5pt; margin-top: 8.5pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But what about Greek and Latin, you ask? Students still must take two semesters of one language for the major, and minors in both Greek and Latin still exist. We still teach first-year classes, although Greek often struggles to meet its minimum six. The rest of the language classes we teach as independent studies, that is, as overloads. We typically have about three to five students doing various independent studies for language work per semester. These classes are often 1 on 1 or in small groups of 2-3. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 8.5pt; margin-top: 8.5pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span face="Belleza, sans-serif" style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span face="Belleza, sans-serif" style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[</span><span face="Belleza, sans-serif" style="font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Begin rant: we get frustrated when people say we don’t care about the languages: dude, we teach them unpaid! We don’t even get to bank the credit hours towards future course releases (and we already teach five courses a year as full time and have to do general advising). Our life would be so much easier if we didn’t care about them. End rant.</span><span face="Belleza, sans-serif" style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">]</span></span></blockquote><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span face="Belleza, sans-serif" style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></span><p></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 8.5pt; margin-top: 8.5pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Our program is clearly no longer a pre-professional program. A student wanting to continue to graduate school will struggle to find programs willing to provide them with additional language training to meet their minimum expectations. We have had students, even underrepresented students, rejected from terminal MAs and new bridge programs for insufficient language preparation (e.g. a BIPOC student with 1 year of Greek, 3 of Latin, and French). For many, the costly post-baccalaureate programs are out of reach and who can recommend in good conscience that a student move to a new city or state and pay thousands of dollars on the off chance they may get enough experience to get accepted to a terminal MA next time? Even so, we aren’t upset that our program is no longer pre-professional; we do not believe the study of the ancient world needs to end in a Ph.D. for students to be successful. Rather than invest everything in a small handful of students who might get into graduate school, we believe our program should be welcoming and open to anyone, regardless of whether they take one class, five classes, complete the major, or only take a language for the general education requirement. #classicsforall</span></p><div style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 8.5pt; margin-top: 8.5pt; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span face="Belleza, sans-serif" style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Still, we are conflicted about graduate school. On the </span><span face=""Helvetica Neue", sans-serif" style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">μέν</span><span face="Belleza, sans-serif" style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> hand, we fully support students who want to continue their studies and do what we can to prepare them and help them, despite the lack of good teaching jobs (we are honest with them). On the </span><span face=""Helvetica Neue", sans-serif" style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">δέ</span><span face="Belleza, sans-serif" style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> hand, it seems irresponsible to structure our work around a system that, even when it is not exploiting student labor, will not end in an academic job. Graduate schools still occasionally admit our students, so we hope that programs work hard (1) to provide robust job assistance for students to leave academia (we now </span><span face="Belleza, sans-serif" style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">have </span><a href="https://g.co/kgs/eTSAVM" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Christopher Caterine’s Leaving Academia</span></a><span face="Belleza, sans-serif" style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">) and (2) to de-stigmatize not getting a tenure-track job (</span><a href="https://planudes.medium.com/success-in-classics-3dac05022ec4" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">success in Classics</span></a><span face="Belleza, sans-serif" style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">). And in the current environment, we do not mean just alt-ac jobs. We mean any god</span><span face="Belleza, sans-serif" style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">damn job. Normalize humanities PhD-holders outside the academy in all and any form!</span></span></div><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 8.5pt; margin-top: 8.5pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Our Classics (soon to be Ancient Greek and Roman Studies) program has de-centered the languages, not because we do not value them, but because broader social changes made it necessary. We would happily reinstate full languages course work if someone gave us a large endowment that allowed us to teach 1-2 person classes, but we would not go back to a pre-professional, language-centered program even if we could. We like and believe in our program. Classics should be for everyone and not just the few who will continue into a graduate program. For a while, it looked like ancient studies would not survive on our campus. We are surviving because we adapted on our own terms to the pressures facing not just Classics but the Humanities more generally. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 8.5pt; margin-top: 8.5pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Not only small departments but even some middle and larger humanities departments are struggling on our campus. English, History, Religion, Philosophy all face similar pressures and are losing tenure lines or having them “held up.” A major factor is reduced student interest, while the typical academic department infighting continues to wreak its usual havoc. The administration has also been reallocating a small number of lines to our new interdisciplinary majors such as Global Commerce, Global Health, and Data Analytics. The first two majors are staffed primarily by qualitative social scientists and historians and even the third has social scientists and humanists involved. As skeptical as we were at first, these programs enroll and attract students to our campus.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 8.5pt; margin-top: 8.5pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We do not think, we should be clear, that these moves are some evil, neoliberal attempt to destroy civilization. They are pragmatic attempts to provide students and families what they want, ensuring the survival of a small midwestern college in an increasingly hostile landscape. Our sister colleges are closing departments, reducing faculty and staff lines dramatically, and even, in some cases, face the risk of bankruptcy and closing in the years ahead. There is a demographic drop in college-aged students coming, and many schools are simply unprepared to face it. College is also increasingly out of reach financially for many families, so we have to increase financial support to meet our enrollment goals because there are just fewer families who can full-pay, while recognizing that the pool of applicants is going to be shrinking. These new majors are helping us to bring in students who are skeptical of the traditional humanities thanks to decades of negative publicity and also want to study interdisciplinary subjects that they think will help get them jobs after they graduate.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 8.5pt; margin-top: 8.5pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Students and their families consistently cite these new majors as reasons to choose this college over others. It might be fair to say that if I (MP) am still employed in the Fall, I have these departments to thank. Not only do these students come to our college, but, because of the structure of the Global Commerce major, every single one of our department’s non-language courses counts towards the major--it’s basically a humanities major with a few business classes attached (taught, in fact, by the qualitative humanities and social science faculty). And these students love classes on Greco-Roman antiquity. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 8.5pt; margin-top: 8.5pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">***</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 8.5pt; margin-top: 8.5pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span face="Belleza, sans-serif" style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We lay all of this out because, in part,</span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> small college programs face</span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> pressures that the prestige programs may not be facing, at least not yet. Many small departments, more subject to </span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">market forces and student demands,</span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> have already made the sorts of changes that some of our colleagues are now suggesting for the prestige programs. These suggestions scare a lot of people, who think it will destroy the study of Greco-Roman antiquity. Our experience, however, suggest that making those changes may be the thing that gives new life and energy to its study. </span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 8.5pt; margin-top: 8.5pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Certainly, such changes fundamentally alter the way Greco-Roman antiquity is studied and taught, primarily by de-centering the reading of a few selections from golden-age Latin or Classical Greek authors. These traditional advanced language courses, often seen by our students as the last thing they can add to overwhelmed schedules, play a smaller role in programs. The numbers are anemic in many small programs already--we can no longer justify to our administrators emphasizing them in case one or two students might want to go to graduate school. We do not want or think the languages should disappear from our campus or from the discipline, but the number of students going to graduate programs with 3 or 4 years of both languages (especially from small programs like ours) is going to continue to diminish whether graduate schools change their requirements or not. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 8.5pt; margin-top: 8.5pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">These changes will also change the way we hire and are, in fact, the way we will justify to administration why they should let us retain our third tenure line when a colleague retires in a few years. We won’t hire another philologist. We don’t need one; all of the current faculty (including the spouses) can teach both languages and all of our core courses. We will justify hiring another faculty member by pointing to the excitement around and enrollment in our history and special topic courses. We will hire a material culture specialist who can add to what we already do and integrate with our colleagues in Anthropology, International Studies, Global Commerce, Black Studies, MENA, ENVS, or even Data Analytics. We will hire someone who can stretch us out of Europe further into Asia or Africa and past Alexander. Because this is what the university will most likely give us. In the end, we have and will have students that have a much broader and well-rounded understanding of the ancient world than our previous language-focused majors did.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 8.5pt; margin-top: 8.5pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Classics is changing whether people want it to or not. Graduate programs will have to decide what they will do about the situation. Under the current structures, the pool of possible students who even meet the minimum language requirements is going to continue to narrow. Eventually, it may be that only students from PhD and MA granting schools and a few select east coast privates remain who can enter the profession. How this will impact the continuing desire to make Classics less white and elite remains to be seen. But Classics is not defined by graduate schools and a classicist isn't limited to someone who has advanced levels of Greek and Latin only. We already know this.</span></p><div><span face="Belleza, sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div></span>Rebecca Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09189847760200499244noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2441584511996015550.post-63857076589920129072021-01-13T16:35:00.004-05:002021-01-15T08:51:03.230-05:00Accountability, Unity, and Political ForgettingA few years ago, I gave a talk on my campus about the idea of elections as accountability mechanisms in ancient Athens. I subsequently <a href="https://rfkclassics.blogspot.com/2012/05/elections-accountability-and-democracy.html">posted it to my blog</a>. I had actually originally written that talk and presented it as a job interview talk in 2007 and had in my mind while writing it 1. the discourse around the “free and fair” elections being touted by the Bush administration in Iraq after the US invasion, and 2. the calls by many many many people to not hold anyone in the Bush administration accountable for war crimes, for lying about the Iraq invasion, for...anything. Basically, what people were saying was that the 2004 election was an accountability moment in and of itself and that would be sufficient. Because Bush was re-elected, there was nothing more to say about it. <div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixroaDam3x4zRO8nb0Py3H1UdnSbZ839tSxXtPy8Kl7Fou0SdXVheJuFvnKqDbmvvJrNaZaPCxx1Aiq3XoNrts8fXp_IwVVu-dabh7_gQVixtBOeZh8sf6NB-zTyzqOY5DxqGrar5A7TCg/s672/Screen+Shot+2021-01-13+at+2.43.41+PM.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="243" data-original-width="672" height="232" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixroaDam3x4zRO8nb0Py3H1UdnSbZ839tSxXtPy8Kl7Fou0SdXVheJuFvnKqDbmvvJrNaZaPCxx1Aiq3XoNrts8fXp_IwVVu-dabh7_gQVixtBOeZh8sf6NB-zTyzqOY5DxqGrar5A7TCg/w640-h232/Screen+Shot+2021-01-13+at+2.43.41+PM.png" width="640" /></a></div><div><br />As we all sit riveted and terrified by the current political crises--domestic terrorists attacking the Capitol, incited by a sitting president, with numerous members of Congress themselves both supporting the lies that incited the terrorists and even being part of the hate groups and facilitating harm against their colleagues--I think of this idea that elections are supposedly accountability moments. Especially when what brought us to this moment is that the terrorists and their enablers want to ignore the election.<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div>What is even more troubling, of course, is that the only mechanisms we have for actual accountability are not elections, but impeachment, expulsion from Congress, and prosecution, and these same enablers and people who call elections accountability moments want us to put aside any accountability in the name of “unity”. Instead of rallying in unity behind those who want to demonstrate some real accountability, they want to pretend these terrorist actions never happened. They want a unity with amnesia, not unity with accountability.<br /><blockquote><i>“Instead of moving forward as a unifying force, the majority in the House is choosing to divide us further... Let us look forward, not backward. Let us come together, not apart. Let us celebrate the peaceful transition of power to a new president rather than impeaching an old president.</i>” ~ Rep. Tom Cole (R).</blockquote><blockquote>"<i>Last week, I hid in an office for hours, terrified to open the door because I did not know </i><i>if a rioter was on the other side ready to attack, kidnap, or murder me ... they were </i><i>radicalized by the president ... Donald Trump must be held accountable.</i>" ~Rep. Judy Chu (D)</blockquote><div>Although I do not want to live this moment in our history through the lens of Classics, it is becoming inevitable and, really, it would be wrong for me not to since I am simultaneously watching impeachment hearings, FBI/DOJ updates and preparing my class on Athenian Democracy and Law, which starts in two weeks. I am surprised that no one yet has made the ancient analogy of this moment to Athens in the aftermath of the Thirty Tyrants and the Amnesty that was granted as part of the reestablishment of democracy. <br /><br />Of course, I don’t want anyone to make this analogy. Because the situations are not analogous. But I need to be prepared to engage with my students in this moment about how and why the situations aren’t the same.</div><div><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxAWeMyaShuf5XPN8F2jBBJXHr_A-imHUgnjV2E0MU6X9nBEiy2GKJkf4MBT3xEeiIjCuhMWI7qG5cg_AKyEVGXox-CTVtkVCkXBtNemfDETeuzyHgYSG5pDH0O9hvJxvdAzyIIjELHY8V/s960/fake+unity.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="484" data-original-width="960" height="322" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxAWeMyaShuf5XPN8F2jBBJXHr_A-imHUgnjV2E0MU6X9nBEiy2GKJkf4MBT3xEeiIjCuhMWI7qG5cg_AKyEVGXox-CTVtkVCkXBtNemfDETeuzyHgYSG5pDH0O9hvJxvdAzyIIjELHY8V/w640-h322/fake+unity.jpg" width="640" /></a></div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I guess I should first describe the Amnesty to those who aren’t historians of ancient Greece. The Amnesty was a legal “forgetting” (amnesia) of crimes committed by some citizens against other citizens and resident foreigners (metics) under the reign of a group known as the Thirty. At the end of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peloponnesian_War" target="_blank">Peloponnesian War </a>(431-404 BCE), the Athenians lost and the Spartan victors set up in Athens in place of its democracy a small oligarchic government of elite men, many of whom had been students of Socrates or who feature in Plato’s dialogues as friends and family, that was tasked with keeping Athens from interfering with Spartan hegemony. The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty_Tyrants" target="_blank">Thirty Tyrants</a>, as the primary leaders came to be called, were brutal. They stripped citizenship away from 80-90% of those who had been previously granted citizenship under the democracy and targeted wealthy resident foreigners, who under the democracy had been granted various privileges (like tax exemption) for support of the people. By targeting, I mean, they murdered them and stole their wealth and property. Thousands of Athenians fled the city and gathered among their former military enemies in Thebes and Corinth and put together an army to reclaim their city and reestablish their democracy. <br /><br />That’s a bare outline of the events that led to the Amnesty. Needless to say, it was a horror show. The idea behind the Amnesty, therefore, was that the crimes committed were so pervasive, that so many people (whether through active participation or passive complicity) were implicated, there was no way society could move forward. There would be no way to move past, they thought, the continual use of the courts by people to exact revenge for crimes committed against them or by people who were silently complicit who might use the system to enrich themselves by laying false claims. There was too much death, too much exploitation, too much harm. They thought the only way forward was to wipe the slate clean. <br /><br />This, in effect, is what Republican lawmakers and many “centrist” pundits and people who write and talk all the time and get paid for it for reasons that escape me, are asking for--a clean slate for themselves and even for the President who incited it. Fine, prosecute the people who did the actual storming, the terrorists themselves, they say, but not the leaders who pushed them, paid them, encouraged them, egged them on to do it. But this is exactly what the Athenian amnesty was not. <br /><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-ddi9hyX-VyOr0vO-lpwX0i4ELxvLaBMfEdxgpun4_nmnunprtaUeIDGQXUJxOGkest3KetJsWYKNfdPhBNiQqshCsWYv4cJqebwnvxGGnB4PJ-2eRtl35UargvYltAARasYV5ES2oi_-/s2048/IMG_0420.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1228" data-original-width="2048" height="384" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-ddi9hyX-VyOr0vO-lpwX0i4ELxvLaBMfEdxgpun4_nmnunprtaUeIDGQXUJxOGkest3KetJsWYKNfdPhBNiQqshCsWYv4cJqebwnvxGGnB4PJ-2eRtl35UargvYltAARasYV5ES2oi_-/w640-h384/IMG_0420.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: left;">The Thirty, you see, were the “leaders.” They didn’t show up at <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_of_Salamis" target="_blank">Leon of Salamis</a>’ house to arrest him and take him off to execution. No, they sent Socrates to do it. And even though Plato tells us in his Apology of Socrates, that Socrates didn’t do it, what he does tell us is that Socrates just “went home”. He didn’t stop the fellows he went with from arresting Leon. He didn’t tell his students who were among the Thirty that they should’t do it. Leon was arrested and killed. For his money. And Socrates went home. Although, some will say that Socrates was eventually held accountable for his complicity with the Thirty, technically, he could not be prosecuted for it under the Amnesty. The Amnesty didn’t hold accountable the people who were sent to do the storming and arresting and stealing and terrorizing. The Amnesty let them go and insisted only that the leaders who had sent them be prosecuted.<br /><br />Under the Amnesty, you see, there was accountability. It wasn’t a clean slate. Any of the Thirty who had not died in the battle for Athens had to stand trial and make an accounting for their action if they wanted to return to Athens. They had to face justice. So did the so called “Eleven” who were set to control the Piraeus, Athens’ port, under the leadership of the Thirty. It was, in essence, a true accountability moment for the political leadership that incited the mobs to kill their fellow Athenians and neighbors. The political leaders who sent them and incited them and benefited from the actions of those they manipulated, encouraged, paid, egged on to crimes--they were the one the Amnesty held responsible. <br /><br />We are not in a moment that calls for amnesty. We are in a moment that calls for accountability. Those who led the mobs of terrorists and rioters to the Capitol, those who supported the fantasy of Trump’s lies, those who continue to do so and say we should move on by forgetting the past and looking forward, they want this because they do not want to be accountable for their own actions or words. They aren’t leaders. Leaders are responsible for what they do.These are leeches on society, cowards, and, exploiters. If there is anything to learn from Athens and the Amnesty it is that unity and forgetting can only come after the politicians and leaders who led people down these paths are held to account. And the only mechanisms we have for this are impeachment, expulsion from Congress, and, in some cases, criminal prosecution. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNivhLVeK_coCEvjq5ZcdAtoY1ClWtyTAIQelTw8lHzYVDaFwe_z7yufW8JEQRxtmrLD21JqIbepiumTZveCrFCJBiN7yvO-JzJRkV3lhseBek_r1f_wFWQ9e9m7IL5p79WQPlbOc2dr2W/s1348/IMG_0429.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1107" data-original-width="1348" height="526" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNivhLVeK_coCEvjq5ZcdAtoY1ClWtyTAIQelTw8lHzYVDaFwe_z7yufW8JEQRxtmrLD21JqIbepiumTZveCrFCJBiN7yvO-JzJRkV3lhseBek_r1f_wFWQ9e9m7IL5p79WQPlbOc2dr2W/w640-h526/IMG_0429.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><br /></div></div>Rebecca Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09189847760200499244noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2441584511996015550.post-65460401623786571942020-12-03T15:31:00.011-05:002022-07-30T11:46:16.098-04:00Race and the Athenian Metic--Modeling an Approach to Race in Antiquity<p>A few months ago, I finished a chapter for an edited volume on the concept of foreignness in antiquity on the Athenian system of <i>metoikia </i>as an enactment of race in antiquity. I've been working on this idea now for about 4 years, trying to find ways of expressing 1. what we mean when we say 'race' in any context, 2. whether it can be seen in antiquity (contrary to the beliefs on both the majority of classicists and of scholars of modern race), and 3. how a model of race in antiquity might look. Many years ago (spring of 2019), I posted a <a href="https://rfkclassics.blogspot.com/2019/04/is-there-race-or-ethnicity-in-greco.html" target="_blank">talk I'd given at Duke-UNC</a> Center for Late Antiquity that attempted a beginning of articulating what this might look like. The chapter on <i>metoikia</i> is the culmination of that work. </p><p>In this blog post, I am going to provide a shortened version of that chapter that will hopefully lay out the model in an accessible way. I also gave a talk in this shortened form at a recent <a href="http://monitoracism.eu/2433-2/" target="_blank">Monitor Racism</a> conference. The audio recording can be found <a href="https://youtu.be/h8JDxupOqnU" target="_blank">here</a> (I begin at around the 2hr 11min mark. Denise McCoskey precedes me with a discussion of the history of race in the discipline of Classics). The images provided here are from that talk as is much of the text. This work builds from my last book, <i>Immigrant Women in Athens</i> and looks forward to research in other aspects of race and ethnicity in antiquity that I am currently working on or planning. </p><p>I present this abridged version of my model and research as a proposal for what studying race in the ancient past can offer to understanding race in the modern world, but also as reflection of what deep engagement with critical race studies can help us understand about the ancient world as well. We must simultaneously dismantle the centuries of accretion of white supremacist world view from our understanding of the ancient past while also seeing where modern race systems borrowed and adapted their own ancient models. We have to be in conversation with, not borrowing from, modern critical race, if we want to change our discipline and also more accurately understand the past. </p><p>I am willing to share the full version of this chapter for classroom or research use. I am still awaiting revision suggestions from the editors, so it is not yet in its final form. Contact me, if you are interested.</p><p style="text-align: center;">***</p><p>Let's start with who or what was a "metic". It isn't as easy a thing as we think. The term is frequently translated as either "resident foreigner" or "immigrant", though you can see from the the slide below that "immigrant" is a metaphorical use for many people who fell into this legal category. Essentially, it was a legal category that sat in between a citizen and the enslaved in Athens (and in some other Greek poleis, but we don't have as much information about how their systems worked). It contained free people, but free people whose status as "free" was not inalienable. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsWCASANldNpnw-w1d4WCbODdE8hpP4_tGvFoJX-Is2PNYbbtZffbp5V5Hk-PfZOmgs928rxTOmOWO_uVdBZokBgzOeMjvq8maj-YUuoosmWemsKRVtbeh3bpUNf2qimZ5yvM6qO96hY-Y/s2048/Screen+Shot+2020-12-03+at+2.53.04+PM.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="List of groups included in metic status including free immigrants, freed former enslaved persons, illegitimate children of citizens, refugees, and the descendants of all these groups" border="0" data-original-height="1153" data-original-width="2048" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsWCASANldNpnw-w1d4WCbODdE8hpP4_tGvFoJX-Is2PNYbbtZffbp5V5Hk-PfZOmgs928rxTOmOWO_uVdBZokBgzOeMjvq8maj-YUuoosmWemsKRVtbeh3bpUNf2qimZ5yvM6qO96hY-Y/w640-h360/Screen+Shot+2020-12-03+at+2.53.04+PM.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p>When the category was first established, it was defined by a series of restrictions that set those counted as 'metics' and those who did not apart from each other. Central to the definition of metic is that it encompasses any free person in the city who has been there for about a month and intends to stay longer. They must register themselves with a local official (the <i>polemarch</i>) and pay a special tax. This separated them out from citizens (who did not pay a special personal tax), enslaved, and visitors from other places, including merchants just passing through. These initial restrictions will increase over time, which I will discuss below. </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFLSYgyDhXPZHj5-e3OggFUkIYbCdgn97gK3AMrUQlRW-E2g6DjLVK7wZGey_OhyR2XBTedKEROv5UzSKbcVeLJaN55eZTQ-FYUv_8dq9nNn7X7iRHxGRzhLytXLWkDuT0FLhw2PU8Yn_m/s2048/Screen+Shot+2020-12-03+at+2.57.29+PM.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="A list of legal restriction placed on metics including bans on land and building ownership and special tax exemptions" border="0" data-original-height="1146" data-original-width="2048" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFLSYgyDhXPZHj5-e3OggFUkIYbCdgn97gK3AMrUQlRW-E2g6DjLVK7wZGey_OhyR2XBTedKEROv5UzSKbcVeLJaN55eZTQ-FYUv_8dq9nNn7X7iRHxGRzhLytXLWkDuT0FLhw2PU8Yn_m/w640-h358/Screen+Shot+2020-12-03+at+2.57.29+PM.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Proxenia = honorary quasi-citizenship, isotelia = tax equality with citizens (don't have to pay the metoikion), enketesis = right of property ownership.<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p>These are the basics. Now, for the details and how this legally defined group of people from ancient Athens can help us in articulating a transhistorical concept of race.</p><h2 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;">Metoikia as Race</span></h2><p>Scholars have used race, a concept given to a frustrating multivalence, with different meanings when discussing the ancient Greek world. I must clarify both what I do not mean by ‘race,’ as well as explain the technical meaning I use here, adapted primarily from the work of Falguni Sheth and Karen and Barbara Fields--though their own definitions are rooted in long histories of critical race. Race as I use it here is a technology or doctrine of population management that institutionalizes ethnic prejudice, oppression, and inequality based on imaginary and moving signifiers for human difference, signifiers that manifest differently in different times and places (i.e. it is transhistorical and fluid). </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiud-MGjgoQbBzpT36XnQoRqFz7iiJjFJfKtH0eJLpyDzpMef-sI5I0xLyPJINTXXf3a0R5h9GdV0MzFiwDq-vH5u7Py43gbP8AA-nWnJ1qamVuQgBKP2MIYgD4iOpDZ-oE4yrh80ADNuP/s2048/Screen+Shot+2020-12-03+at+3.00.00+PM.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Summarizing the 3 definitions of race, racism, and racecraft listed in the following paragraphs" border="0" data-original-height="1147" data-original-width="2048" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiud-MGjgoQbBzpT36XnQoRqFz7iiJjFJfKtH0eJLpyDzpMef-sI5I0xLyPJINTXXf3a0R5h9GdV0MzFiwDq-vH5u7Py43gbP8AA-nWnJ1qamVuQgBKP2MIYgD4iOpDZ-oE4yrh80ADNuP/w640-h358/Screen+Shot+2020-12-03+at+3.00.00+PM.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p>The imaginary and moving signifiers in the case of the Athenian and metic eventually follow what Fields and Fields define as the ‘doctrine that nature produced humankind in distinct groups defined by inborn traits that its members share and that differentiate them from the members of other distinct groups.’[1] Because these groups are imaginary, they can be constituted from those who might, in a different classification system, be very diverse. </p><p>Race, then is the doctrine or technology for creating distinctions in institutions. In our Athenian case, I will focus on law thats crafts political institutions that create and then support a doctrine of inherent superiority of the citizen population while casting others as inferior. In this framework, we might define ‘racism’ as the ‘practice of applying a social, civic, or legal double standard.’[2] For the Athenians, the double standard inheres in the application of law (and particularly the right to enslave) between citizens and metics; racism is the application of law to enforce distinctions between political classes and their risk of experiencing state-moderated violence. The distinctions between Athenians and metics are then reproduced through what we call ‘racecraft, ‘the practical, day to day actions that reproduce the imaginary, pervasive belief in natural distinctions between the groups.’[3] Some examples of racecraft would be daily reminders of second class status like having to pay special taxes: the <i>metoikion</i> itself, ‘foreigners only’ taxes for using the port (<i>pentekoste</i>) or selling in the markets (<i>xenika tele</i>),[4] in limitations on contracts and ownership, bans from civic spaces, or segregation when participating in city rituals.[5]</p><div><div>Race forms and reproduces through a process that begins with defining a political community. This community then must recognize internal threats, which Sheth refers to as the ‘unruly’.[6] This recognition instigates a ‘taming of the unruly’ through the imposition or refining of laws that have the threat of violence as their mechanism for enforcement. These laws create distinctive racial categories into which the community is sorted. Next, the racial divisions are then naturalized[7] (or justified) within the community, frequently through narratives of biological sameness or purity, giving rise to ‘race.’ The system is then reproduced through the ‘enframing’[8] of vulnerability and violence as the defining characteristic of the group’s place within the community and ‘racecraft.’[9]</div></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTx1HlOamfNFk86t37tdVEtkpGezIaZHXryPsNIhgmRWlOI1dZllKx12doM-GIgh_3-lCvvwNxdVgd4MfqUtU3JrTgX1hzOHwbDTZPZn48uciahNgHfEmDMTHPaoQ50UNa37BK7sftrXMS/s2048/Screen+Shot+2020-12-03+at+3.01.31+PM.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="visualization of the 5 steps of race making listed in the above paragraph" border="0" data-original-height="1146" data-original-width="2048" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTx1HlOamfNFk86t37tdVEtkpGezIaZHXryPsNIhgmRWlOI1dZllKx12doM-GIgh_3-lCvvwNxdVgd4MfqUtU3JrTgX1hzOHwbDTZPZn48uciahNgHfEmDMTHPaoQ50UNa37BK7sftrXMS/w640-h358/Screen+Shot+2020-12-03+at+3.01.31+PM.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div><div>This understanding of race is different from what we might consider ‘folk’ ideas of race in a modern context, what has been called ‘somatic’ or ‘epidermal’ race or ‘bio-race’.[10] This modern folk definition appears within my framework as a signifier of difference, but one that is historically contingent—it may not mean in one context the same as it means in another. For example, the specific modern signifiers of skin color, used as a shorthand to change racism into ‘race’ in the modern US, is not relevant as a component of race, racism, or racecraft in Greco-Roman antiquity.[11] Any biological fiction used as shorthand for ‘race’ is created as part of that process and is just that, a shorthand. </div><div> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDX312XVaY_aggj_LeDNrLK1iVr6enVkzOsvJkf2WLl7LiK9lZcoG3z1UYW-ok04tCpvX0B3hLWbTEpNxnQ0r8lAvELn7aKS6h_28xk1oRa0kQS2SLPPIVeZMZDCoi1qJAWhxi1m6Tr2q5/s2048/Screen+Shot+2020-12-03+at+3.03.00+PM.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Tomb of Demetria of Kyzicus. 4th c BCE. Mid-fourth century BCE. Athenian Agora I 3174 and Tomb of Melitta the nurse, daughter of Apollodorus, an isoteles. IG II2 7873/SEG 30.235. 4th c. BCE. BM 1909,0221.1." border="0" data-original-height="1147" data-original-width="2048" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDX312XVaY_aggj_LeDNrLK1iVr6enVkzOsvJkf2WLl7LiK9lZcoG3z1UYW-ok04tCpvX0B3hLWbTEpNxnQ0r8lAvELn7aKS6h_28xk1oRa0kQS2SLPPIVeZMZDCoi1qJAWhxi1m6Tr2q5/w640-h358/Screen+Shot+2020-12-03+at+3.03.00+PM.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div>By focusing on the process and technology as race, we can retain the term ‘ethnicity’ as productive and meaningful in discussing antiquity.[13] When I use the term ‘ethnicity’ or ‘ethnic’ in discussions, I am referring primarily to self- or other-defined groups based on ideas of shared culture, language, or political affiliation that are not embedded within legally enforceable hierarchies of oppression. Here we might think of the difference between the two images above. One tomb, on the left, is for a woman identified through her "ethnic"--she is Demetria of Kyzicus. The image on the right is the tomb of Melitta, identified as the daughter of an <i>isoteles, </i>a privileged status granted to some metics in Athens. The tomb on the left was likely put up by a member of Demetria's family who self-identified as Kyzican. The tomb on the right was likely put up by the Athenian family Melitta worked for who identified her through her place within the Athenian metic system. The tomb on the left tells me about the ethnicity of Demetria. The tomb on the right tells me where Melitta fit in a racial hierarchy. </div><div><br /></div><div>In order for race to exist as most scholars of critical race suggest, it must exist within a political order, not simply as an abstracted category. Without the creation of hierarchies and the ability to enforce oppressions, we have prejudice or ethnocentrism—it is the power of a state or institutions to enforce socio-political Otherness that determines race. Ancient Athens eventually used a myth of indigeneity (autochthony) linked to biological descent as their justification for the segregation of their population, but it is the institutionalized (threat of) violence for enforcing a form of segregation or caste that makes the case for metics a type of ‘race’ in antiquity.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div>For the Athenians, the metic was perhaps the most salient ‘other’ in their daily lives in so far as they had another free population against which to rank themselves. It was certainly more operational than than the ‘barbarian’ and it cut across and dismantled on a regular basis the notion of unified “Greek” identity. Demetra Kasimis has discussed this aspect of the metic in the political theory of Plato (mostly) in the 4th century, for those interested.</div><div><br /></div><div>How did the ‘metic’ (and so the ‘Athenian’) became racialized? For, it is my contention that the Athenian is only racialized as a result of the process that created the metic.[14] We see the following historical steps: first, the constitution of the Athenian demos (i.e. male citizens) through patrilineal citizenship (510 BCE), next, the creation of the metic as a legal category (ca. 460s BCE), followed by dual-descent citizenship (451 BCE), and, finally, the elevation of the myth of autochthonous ancestors to a myth of full Athenian indigeneity and ethnic purity (starting in the 430s BCE).[15] Later laws, like the requirement for deme registration (410s BCE), reinstatement of the Citizenship Law (403 BCE) and the ban on marriage (380s BCE), are refinements and reassertions of the system. In the first step, we see the construction of a political community, in the second, the identification of what Sheth refers to as ‘the unruly’, a group within a community identified as a threat to the political order. This is followed by the group’s segregation in an attempt to reduce their potential harm to the political order.[16]</div></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWH1wULa8GR43rElKwj9ssyg0b4HD04aRZgrzNRabei0x4tltpA-slnCKjQzKhB0EXDO_Ib4w4fI1oLrshHHQgb_1m01Fmof2PUkLMoSBKuuJ14ZUeGwM7X0ve8wv7AIZvizQNIDLGTGhv/s2048/Screen+Shot+2020-12-03+at+3.11.27+PM.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="A timeline visualizing the dates listed in the paragraph above." border="0" data-original-height="1148" data-original-width="2048" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWH1wULa8GR43rElKwj9ssyg0b4HD04aRZgrzNRabei0x4tltpA-slnCKjQzKhB0EXDO_Ib4w4fI1oLrshHHQgb_1m01Fmof2PUkLMoSBKuuJ14ZUeGwM7X0ve8wv7AIZvizQNIDLGTGhv/w640-h358/Screen+Shot+2020-12-03+at+3.11.27+PM.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div><div>The physical and even cultural sameness of the metic, their Greekness or, even more broadly, Mediterraneanness, may be what made the ‘metic’ threatening; there were only subtle differences that could be sensed, but not easily identified.[19] In the case of the metic, the original unease centered, perhaps, on the basic premise of them not being citizens. We do not know how large this population was.[20] Whatever it was, in consciously creating and defining through legal restrictions a category beyond ‘not citizen’ and designating certain individuals within the community as members of it, the Athenians succeeded in also re-emphasizing their own identity as citizens and the political order upon which their own status rested. They continues to shift the laws over time to adjust policy as prejudice was naturalized.</div><div> </div><div>The next phase of the process of racialization after ‘taming the unruly’ is naturalizing the distinctions. The original definition of metic rested on a patriarchal justification; the citizenship law focused on a more purely biological justification. This shift in policy and in definition of the legal category crafted the underlying framework for the racialization of Athenians through the metics. The ancient rationales for the passage of the law (“too many citizens,” Aristotle & Plutarch) are unsatisfactory as a full explanation. I think, in fact, an important element came from an upswing in prejudice, prejudice that resulted from viewing the metics as a distinctive class after the 460s when the legal category came into being--racist ideas and policy precede race. This increased prejudice led to the development of a concept of Athenian indigeneity (autochthony), which functioned as the naturalizing, retroactive justification for the metic’s status.</div><div> </div><div>Although laws initially segregated metics, the idea of Athenian autochthony naturalized the category of citizen, grounding the fiction that the law simply reinforced a division made by and through biology or the environment.[21] This naturalization process appears reasonable and rational when we recognize that indigeneity in Athens was a type of environmental determinism, a broadly held idea that the geography, topography, and climate of places shaped and defined the peoples who resided there.[22] The Athenians, indigenous to the land and imbued with certain characteristics from the land, came to identify themselves with a closed kinship group invested in an idea of a ‘real’ or ‘pure’ Athenian.[23] Autochthony myths were the metaphorical manifestation of this doctrine, a racial doctrine, as Susan Lape has argued, that demonstrated the superiority of the Athenians.</div><div> </div><div>The process of racializing the metic did not end with either the passing of the 451 Citizenship law nor with the naturalization of the metic as inherently and threateningly different that we see emerging with the development of indigeneity and autochthony as identity. While much scholarship has treated the 451 BCE citizenship law as a ban on marriage between Athenians and non-Athenians, it likely did not. Rather, the evidence suggests that marriage was not banned between citizen men and non-citizen women until the 380s. And, in fact, the law went either unenforced or even was relaxed or repealed for decades during the Peloponnesian war.[24]</div><div> </div><div>In 403 BCE, however, the laws requiring that Athenian citizens have two Athenian parents and restricting land ownership to only Athenian citizens were reinstated as foundational laws of the newly revived democracy after the brief government of the Thirty, a reactionary oligarchy that had aggressively and violently dismantled the Athenian democracy in 404 BCE.[25] In the aftermath of this reinstating of the law, the demarcation between metic and citizen became increasingly harsh (eventually leading to the marriage ban in the 380s), suggesting that the prejudices that inhered in the status of metic that required segregation previously did not disappear even under the extreme circumstances of the wars. Relaxing the laws and allowing metics (and even enslaved persons) access to citizenship may have been blamed, in part, for the loss.[26] Once the metic had been racialized and this racialization naturalized, they would always be deemed inherently threatening. That the metic population in the 4th century was increasingly made up of formerly enslaved persons may have contributed to this prejudice.</div><div> </div><div>Because of the variety of persons and origins and statuses that made up the metic class, however, and although metics were defined as a single class by law, the laws were not experienced equally by all metics. While scholarship on metics has done a good job at recognizing class distinctions among metics and acknowledging that privileges offered to metics rarely accrued to those who had been freed enslaved persons or working class metics, most scholarship on ‘metics’ talk of the laws and structures surrounding them as if they are default male (i.e. gender neutral) and also absent most forms of ethnic prejudice.[27] But this was not the case for any but the wealthiest or most useful male metics and mistakenly assuming that prejudice diminished because more elite men were granted access to citizenship points to why we need intersectional analysis. Metic was a racialized category that included lots of different groups. It was founded upon and enforced through threat of violence, which some metics were more vulnerable to than other. Nonetheless, even those who did not directly experience that violence were conditioned by its possibility.</div></div><div><h2 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></h2><h2 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;">Race and Violence</span> </h2><div><br /></div><div>By 403 BCE, the legal structures were in place for the perpetuation and reproduction of race in Athens through the metic. In other words, the process of racializing the metic (and the Athenian) had been mostly completed. The reproduction of race, which may be understood through the ‘racecraft’ of everyday life, happened in many ways but often through violence or the threat of violence. To be a metic was to be vulnerable to such violence. The penalties (enslavement and execution) enforced segregation and submission to the metic system in Athens, classifying the metic as inferior to the Athenian and closer to enslaved. Metics received only alienable humanity, according to Jackie Murray’s usage of race.[28] Discussing Homer’s <i>Odyssey</i>, Murray places race and ethnicity on a continuum, with ‘ethnic others’ granted a higher level of humanity while racialized groups, who are further away from the inalienable humanity of the dominant group, are granted less humanity. Thus, in the Athenian context, a Milesian visitor or business partner was closer to Athenian to the extent that they still functioned as their ‘ethnic’ self. But once they became ‘metics’ their racialized status meant that they were subject to Athenian institutional violence in ways visiting foreigners were not. Metics could not appeal to shared Ionian or Greek identities or even to being from an Athenian colony to mitigate their being metics. Such distinctions were erased once they became a metic in law and the Olynthian was no different from the Thracian or the Skythian (or any other ‘barbarian’) in their status and their being subject to state violence.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsOTNZ54AxlAjSiynFodwIROnApbh-ni12Wymou_JX6IbFAZRFnrXbuZeLWOTnCwGx5x7glGVnmIvWkfiP6Wbfh4gbbJKzGibeftq_25RZJ3L4nlq7DaFHT79UtohYYiw1cf7dkcruGONa/s2048/Screen+Shot+2020-12-03+at+3.19.33+PM.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="list of types of violence permitted against metics and the modeling race and ethnicity on a spectrum from inalienable humanity to alienated" border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsOTNZ54AxlAjSiynFodwIROnApbh-ni12Wymou_JX6IbFAZRFnrXbuZeLWOTnCwGx5x7glGVnmIvWkfiP6Wbfh4gbbJKzGibeftq_25RZJ3L4nlq7DaFHT79UtohYYiw1cf7dkcruGONa/w640-h360/Screen+Shot+2020-12-03+at+3.19.33+PM.png" width="640" /></a></div><div> </div><div>Obviously, not all metics (and, in fact, the majority) would ever have experienced the violence of being sold into enslavement or being executed for breaching their status. They were also, as Ben Akrigg has pointed out, theoretically subject to torture for evidence.[29] We do not have evidence that this was very common, but, this is one of the fundamental characteristics of race—the experience of violence is not necessary, only the threat, which is validated by the fact that others within the group do experience this violence as part of their everyday existence and within the scope of the law.[30] The threat is what allows for those metics with privileges to have them and to feel them as privileges and even argue against the interests of their class as a whole in order to maintain them. </div><div> </div><div>Wealthy metics and those who arrived in Athens as refugees were granted a series of privileges within the scope of law that could mitigate their vulnerability to violence. For some metics, living in Athens approached citizen status, but without assembly attendance and voting: they performed liturgies; they dined with (and in the 5th century still intermarried with) their social peers; they participated in the Panathenaiac procession. And the reward system of privileges, like grants of <i>isoteleia</i> and <i>enktesis,</i> rewarded those metics who not only followed the rules but were deemed most useful to the polis.[32] They became, in some ways, ‘model minorities’, whose privileging could encourage them to become complicit in the enforcement of violence on others within the metic group.[33]</div><div><br /></div><div>The vulnerability to violence inherent in the status of metic did manifest on a daily basis for metics who were not of the privileged economic classes or who had not been granted special status through grants to specific refugee groups, because of their gender, economic status, or status as formerly enslaved. As I demonstrated in <i>Immigrant Women in Athens</i>, women metics were especially vulnerable to all sorts of violence in law and through loopholes in the laws.[37] Let me offer an example (you can read Chapters 4&5 of <i>Immigrant Women</i> for many many examples). The so-called phialai inscriptions. These are most likely inscriptions that record dedications made by metics who had been charged with not registering or paying their tax, but successfully defended against it.[38] </div><div><br /></div><div>Extant are over 400 names, including men, women, and children, some appearing as families. The inscriptions list over 100 different professions, all of them what we would call ‘working class.’ The inscriptions are broken and only a small percentage of those originally carved are extant. They record, likely, about seventy or so years of cases. Hundreds of them. Any citizen could prosecute them and they had incentives. What this suggests is that metics, especially those without wealth or connections to citizens, could be subjected to regular surveillance by citizens, could not trust that a citizen would not turn on them, and were always vulnerable to the violence inherent within their legal status.[39]</div><div> </div><div>I would like to end with a quotation from Falguni Sheth, who for me, sums up what the process in Athens looked like over the course of the 5th -4th centuries, a summary which I think would be even more obvious if I could provide for you in this abbreviated space the dozens of legal cases and acts of violence leveled against metics, especially women. Sheth says: </div><div><blockquote>And so we see through any number of legal judgements, race is never merely about ‘race.’ It is in the drawing of the lines between ‘evil beings’ and ‘moral beings,’ between persons and nonpersons, human beings qua citizens and those who cannot be citizens because they are ‘not human like us,’ where we find the salience of race. Understood as a vehicle by which to draw and redraw the boundaries by which select populations are assured the protection of the law, race becomes deployed as a technology. It is when we understand it as a technology that we begin to understand how race locates and domesticates the ‘unruly,’ and in so doing, ‘reveals’ the apparatus by which the normative ground of racial classifications was once naturalized and concealed.[43] </blockquote></div><div>My hope with this analysis is that if we can see it happening clearly in the case of metics in Athens, we can better articulate and reveal how it functions at the level of institutions today and elsewhere in our histories, where too many people and governments insist that because race is not a biological fact, it somehow isn’t still real and embedded in our laws and everyday practices.</div></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi90SbXwy_v3Am_d6R4lTXn6t93NCbhozZTpLom7O2eoWH0ET1Oe9MTSyfRJGdPIEtUC2co78FnniCufj_qzmeY2b99pWLwgShVTqHY7cCh7d9__VPq24sTm0G4QhtxCuM19C3HRaD8iWtz/s2048/Screen+Shot+2020-12-03+at+3.24.11+PM.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="A list of works mentioned in the talk with their full citations." border="0" data-original-height="1142" data-original-width="2048" height="356" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi90SbXwy_v3Am_d6R4lTXn6t93NCbhozZTpLom7O2eoWH0ET1Oe9MTSyfRJGdPIEtUC2co78FnniCufj_qzmeY2b99pWLwgShVTqHY7cCh7d9__VPq24sTm0G4QhtxCuM19C3HRaD8iWtz/w640-h356/Screen+Shot+2020-12-03+at+3.24.11+PM.png" width="640" /></a></div><div><br /></div><h2 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;">Endnotes</span></h2><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><div>[1] Fields and Fields 2013, 16. This is their definition of ‘race.’</div><div>[2] Fields and Fields 2013, 17.</div><div>[3] Fields and Fields 2013, 18-19.</div><div>[4] Blok 2017, 273. Blok sees these as reasonable taxes for non-citizens and does not agree with Whitehead’s assessment that the tax was meant to be a humbling and even humiliating reminder of their second-class status.</div><div>[5] On marching in the Panathenaia as a mark of privilege, see Wijma 2014. Obviously, the metics selected would have been from among the privileged class. This does not make the segregation a mark of metic privilege. See Fields and Fields 2013, 33-4 for a discussion of sumptuary laws and enforced clothing distinctions historically as racecraft.</div><div>[6] “This is the element that is intuited as threatening to the political order, to a collectively disciplined society. As the term suggests, this element threatens to disrupt because it signifies some immediate fact of difference that must be harnessed and located or categorized or classified in such a way so as not to challenge the ongoing political order” (Sheth 2009, 26).</div><div>[7] After the initial ‘processing’ of the unruly through the production of certain categories, the process—the political context—of classifying becomes forgotten, concealed, or reified. Thus, it appears as a ‘natural foundation’ for racial categories (Sheth 2009, 28).</div><div>[8] “Enframing refers to the cultural, political, social, moral, methodological apparatus that both shrouds and infuses our current quest for the meaning of race” (Sheth 2009, 35).</div><div>[9] The enframing of race exemplifies not merely division, but a method of using the unruly as a way to “cultivate vulnerability or the threat of potential violence among its populace in connection with a certain mode of political existence, namely one in which our relationship to society must be understood as one of vulnerability and violence” (italics original) (Sheth 2009, 36). For ‘racecraft’, see below.</div><div>[10] On the idea of bio-race, see Fields and Fields 2013, Ch. 2, especially discussion of the idea of ‘blood’ equaling ‘race’.</div><div>[11] Somatic race, however, has been usefully deployed, e.g. by scholars such as Shelley Haley, Frank Snowden, and, now, Sarah Derbew (both in her dissertation and now in a forthcoming book), to undermine and reverse the ‘whitewashing’ of the ancient Mediterranean. Scholarship and popular representations of the ancient world since the 19th century have been engaged in this ‘whitewashing,’ and we need to engage with the work cited earlier and produce more.</div><div>[12] See Lape 2010, 1-7 and 31-52 for her conceptualization of race through Appiah’s idea of racialism, which she calls a ‘quasi-biological paradigm.’ For my own earlier conceptualization of race in early Greek thought, see Kennedy 2016. I would not now use the term ‘race’ to discuss genealogies and descent outside of enforceable hierarchies, but ethnicity. I agree with Jácome Neto (2020) that what many scholars are discussing under these headings is not ‘race’, though I disagree that ‘race’ is a particularly modern concept. See Heng 2018 for thorough discussion and examples of pre-modern race.</div><div>[13] pace McCoskey 2012, 31 who uses ‘race’ exclusive of ethnicity to ‘force[s] us to confront our all-too-frequent idealization of classical antiquity. In the recent Oxford Classical Dictionary entry, McCoskey uses ‘race’ for any system of classification regardless of the ability to enforce any hierarchy based on the classifications and fuses etic and emit forms of identity formation. Yet many scholars of modern race reject its presence in antiquity precisely because the dominant theories of human variation (environmental determinism, descent-based, cultural) lack any institutional structures for enforcement.</div><div>[14] Lape 2010 provides a strong argument for the Athenians as ‘racialized,’ but within a framework of ‘before race.’ She devotes only 5 pages to the metic.</div><div>[15] Shapiro 1998. </div><div>[16] Sheth 2009, 26.</div><div>[17] Kennedy 2014, p and forthcoming (a) 2021. On the relationship between Suppliants and the development of metoikia, see Bakewell 2013.</div><div>[18] A primary argument of Kennedy 2014.</div><div>[19] “That which is unruly can be evasive enough to be ‘intuited’ or ‘felt’ rather than seen or perceived—because the ‘intuition’ is one of ‘danger’” (Sheth 2009, 26). We might here think also about the statement in the Old Oligarch that one of the problems of Athenian democracy was the impossibility of knowing the difference between a citizen and a slave (citation). Missing from the equation, of course, is the metic, who would also be indistinguishable.</div><div>[20] Efforts to calculate the metic population over time have been attempted by Patterson 1981 and then Watson 2010. Both population estimates were used in the service of arguments for the date of the creation of the metic as a class as if once the threshold of foreigners in a place reaches a certain level, citizen anxiety demands action. On the psychology of this phenomenon in the contemporary US, see Craig and Richeson 2014.</div><div>[21] The scholarship on Athenian autochthony is large. See Roy 2014 for a recent summary of the scholarship. Most scholarship following Rosivach 1987 have generally accepted his timeline of the development of the concept, but see also Blok 2009, 251-75. I find Loraux 2000 to be the best discussion of the ideology underpinning autochthony. Though see also Lape 2010, 95-136, who discusses it through the myth of Ion.</div><div>[22] On archaic and classical concepts environmental determinism, see Kennedy 2016 and Kennedy and Blouin 2020. For discussion of the broader reach of environmental determinism theories in antiquity, see the essays in Kennedy and Jones-Lewis 2016.</div><div>[23] For specific ways the autochthony myth appeared in Athenian public discourse and in the landscape, see Clements 2016 for discussion of the Erechtheion, autochthony, and the landscape of the Acropolis. On the visual catalogue of autochthony on pots, see Shapiro 1998. On funeral orations and autochthony, see still Loraux 1986. On Euripides’Ion and the deployment of myths, see Lape 2010, 95-136. The discussion in Kasimis 2018 follows a similar path to Lape’s.</div><div>[24] See Kennedy 2014, pp for discussion and bibliography.</div><div>[25] On the basic outlines of Thirty and restoration after the civil war, see, Carawan 2013.</div><div>[26] Bakewell 1999. See also Lape 2010, 262-74.</div><div>[27] E.g. Rubenstein 2018. Carugati 2019a.</div><div>[28] Murray 2020.</div><div>[29] Akrigg 2015, 166.</div><div>[30] As Sheth writes: “When race is deployed through law to demarcate distinctions between populations, violence per se is not immediately manifested through these categories. But more accurately…the sheer capacity to instantiate such distinctions gains its power of enforcement through the potential violence that is inherent in it” (Sheth 2009, 37).</div><div>[31] Carugati 2020.</div><div>[32] Carugati 2019a, Ch 4.</div><div>[33] See Lee 2020 for definitions and debates over its efficacy as a concept.</div><div>[34] Bakewell 1999 discusses this period from Lysias’ perspective using Lysias 12 and 31. See also Wolpert 2002.</div><div>[35] On the ancient debates, see [Arist.] Ath.Pol. 40.2; Aesch. 3.187– 90.</div><div>[36] Loraux 2002, 246-264 is a most illuminating discussion of the restoration of the laws in the context of the amnesty, though see also Wolpert 2002 and Carawan 2013, though Carawan hardly mentions metics.</div><div>[37] See Ch 4 in particular for discussion. My analysis of violence as it impacts non-citizen and working-class women is inspired primarily by Crenshaw’s legal concept of intersectionality.</div><div>[38] See Meyer 2010 for a detailed reappraisal and updated edition of the inscriptions.</div><div>[39] There are also cases of men recognized by their demes as citizens being challenged under the law of graphe xenias. Two particularly interesting orations recording or referring to these cases are Dem 57 (Euxitheus) and Isaeus x (. ). In the former, the speech is his defense of his citizenship and we do not know the outcome. The latter is an inheritance speech and we are told that the father of the heiress was charged but won his case (if only by a slim margin).</div><div>[40] Fields and Fields 2013, Ch. 2.</div><div>[41] As Schapps 1977 has demonstrated, the naming of women in public for a like the courts or stage was typically reserved for women who were being targeted as ‘not respectable’ and so being classified in these discourses as women who could be targeted. His arguments have been frequently misinterpreted as saying that the women named were somehow shameful. For further discussion, see Kennedy 2014, pp and Kennedy forthcoming (b) (specifically on the courts).</div><div>[42] Although there is no space to discuss it, Apollodorus’ attacks on his brother Pasikles (a natural-born citizen), mother Archippe (a woman with quasi-citizenship status; see Kennedy 2014, pp), and step-father Phormio (also a naturalized citizen and former enslaved person) are remarkably enlightening in understanding how the Athenian legal system can be used to police race.</div><div>[43] Sheth 2009, 38.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Rebecca Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09189847760200499244noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2441584511996015550.post-88846852515587620032020-08-16T15:20:00.010-04:002020-12-03T11:20:15.801-05:00An Ethics of Citation <p><span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">By Rebecca Kennedy (RFK) and Maximus Planudes (MP)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>“The intellectual seeks to be attuned to the multivalent meanings of silence, to the names that never rate footnotes and citations, to pro forma, perfunctory nods in acknowledgments pages, to the erased thinkers in the hinterlands of the metropole.”</i> -- Omedi Ochieng*, <i>Theses on the Intellectual Imagination</i></span></blockquote><span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i></i></span><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">***</span></i></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Interrupting Lovemaking to Answer the Door.[1] </b></span></span></p><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrURa2PhVARmsq1FIw6sqn83QhcKwu8Fswlfhrt9v9976cwlCuNswkRm5OsGr4kS1RLchisxqo_mHJIlSQPL8SBZkk6OngrpUlwBW5Bk_E9806ocn-BtdISCG_ML_k65ppF6rrQzRJFVaQ/s2048/footnotes-cartoon.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1889" height="262" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrURa2PhVARmsq1FIw6sqn83QhcKwu8Fswlfhrt9v9976cwlCuNswkRm5OsGr4kS1RLchisxqo_mHJIlSQPL8SBZkk6OngrpUlwBW5Bk_E9806ocn-BtdISCG_ML_k65ppF6rrQzRJFVaQ/w242-h262/footnotes-cartoon.jpg" width="242" /></a></div>There has been discussion of late about best practices for citation in scholarly works. Is it a problem if our citations are limited to mostly white male scholars from elite universities? If so, are we to use a quota system of scholarly citation to ensure a diversity of voices? Do we cite scholars who have proven 'problematic,' as the saying goes today? Anyone who believes that these questions are silly or have obvious answers probably has not thought much about the history and purposes of citation. There is a lot more diversity in practice than our training would admit. Even the two of us, who agree on everything except Euripides Hippolytus [2], have different views on citational practices (as will be made clear below). </div><div><div><br /></div><div>Two recent blog posts--one from Mary Beard (MB), the other from Joel Christensen (JC) at <i>Sententiae Antique</i>--have addressed this issue of citations from a similar, but slightly different position. MB’s offering is titled “<a href="https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/footnote-politics-blog-post-mary-beard/" target="_blank">Footnote Politics</a>”, JC’s “<a href="https://sententiaeantiquae.com/2020/08/14/good-words-from-bad-people/" target="_blank">Good Words from Bad People</a>”. They consider whether one should cite work by “scholars who are tainted (politically or sexually or however)” (MB) or when “a scholar or artist of some renown is a terrible person” (JC). In both cases, the focus is on the behavior or morality of the individual. For example, JC asks if we should cite the work of a convicted pedophile. The answer is, of course, complicated: is the work about sexuality and children? If so, the work may be tainted by the biases of the person. But what if the situation is like MB imagines: What if THE “most authoritative recent work on a particular subject ... were written by (eg) someone whose public remarks have been taken to be racist, or who is plausibly alleged to be a harasser.”[3] Can you NOT cite them?</div><div><br /></div><div>We have written this blog because we feel that it can be unproductive to focus on the immorality of a “great” scholar or the idea of “key work” in abstract. We often emphasize the character of the person (not) cited. We find it is more helpful to consider citations from the perspective of the person (not) citing--you. It may be useful to bring our focus to the writer, to the scholar in the process of composition, and their ‘ethics’ of citation. We call it an ethics, and not a politics of citation because we frame it within a community of scholars rather than within individual political commitments. </div><div><br /></div><div>We explore the problem from the perspective of the scholar mediating between the work of others and their audience, acknowledging that they are producing and shaping knowledge and not just funneling the ideas and words of others. We write this, then, for two reasons: (1) to bring awareness and understanding to the fact that citation methods have always varied widely and (2) to provide some ideas for a practical ethics of citation that is aware of this variety instead of turning every footnote into a moral conundrum. </div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Why cite at all?</b></span> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div><div><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numa_Denis_Fustel_de_Coulanges" target="_blank">Fustel du Coulanges</a>, the 19th century ancient historian known primarily for his fine sideburns [4], complained about having to document his research, lamenting that in his day people just gave the results of their research. Nowadays (19th c), however:</div><div><blockquote><i>The scaffolding matters more than the structure... learning wishes to make more of a display of itself. Scholars wish above all to appear learned</i> (cited in Grafton <i>Footnote</i>, p.70-1).</blockquote></div><div>This complaint reminds us that the norms and practices of citation that we encounter today have a history. As practices with a history, we have more freedom in modifying them than our training in graduate school might have led us to believe. If we are going to think about our citational practices, particularly in relation to the endlessly prolonged growing pains of the field, we should really explore them with an awareness both of their historical contingency and from the perspective of what citations do and what we might want them to do.</div><div><br /></div><div>Most students arrive in first-year college writing seminars believing that they should cite to avoid plagiarism. While not wrong, it is an impoverished justification for a core scholarly practice.[5] To understand citation better, it helps to look at the footnote, whose history and practice is tied to citation without being coterminous with it. Grafton writes about how footnotes allow historians to tell two stories: the main story of the text and the secondary story of the research behind it. He also points to how it transforms a monologue into a conversation. Unlike historical narrative, however, scholarship tends to elevate some conversations to the main text, while relegating others to the footnotes . This practice suggests that the idea of ‘two stories’ cannot be pressed too schematically. We should, however, continue to think about how citational practice serves to highlight conversations and to reveal the story of the research. </div><div><br /></div><div>Grafton also documents the variety of citational practices, both historically and nationally. Although footnotes cannot bear all the weight we imagine they should--will we really be denied tenure for a refusal to cite Holt Parker in a work on Roman sexuality?--, they do serve to "convince the reader that the historian has done an acceptable amount of labor" and "indicate the chief sources the historian actually used."</div><div><br /></div><div>Footnotes (or the dreaded endnote), as repositories for citations, thus serve essential functions: they provide the intellectual context for our arguments, refer to other related scholarship or different points of view, and acknowledge our debts. This last function, the most important, perhaps, overlaps with the practice of Acknowledgments (in articles, these are usually in the initial footnote, of course). </div><div><br /></div><div>Citations also supposedly signal the professional competence of the author. In "<a href="https://www.academia.edu/5111437/Fussnoten_Das_Fundament_der_Wissenschaft" target="_blank">Fussnoten: Das Fundament der Wissenschaft</a>," Steve Nimis demonstrates the fundamental role footnotes play in the professionalization of scholarly knowledge.[6]</div><div><blockquote><i>The documentation of the work of predecessors can be one of the most odious tasks of the professional scholar, but there is no other requirement which is more insisted upon than this one. To be trivial, to be over-speculative, to be downright boring are all minor failures--often they can be endearing traits--in comparison to the failure to demonstrate a comprehensive knowledge of what in literary studies is called "secondary literature," but is more generally referred to simply as "the scholarship."</i></blockquote></div><div>Nimis sees citation as the nexus of scholarly and professional authority, the key space where academic relations of power are expressed, as Reviewer #2 knows all too well. Nimis calls our attention to the professional, disciplinary functioning of citation as a form of virtue signaling--especially in what he calls ‘the pile,’ the long list of books on a topic that the author feels obligated to include--and the traditional, but unnecessary reference to Wilamowitz. </div><div><br /></div><div>Recognizing that citation is a form of professional positioning, however, need not be negative. It can also serve to remind us that in mastering this scholarly practice, it becomes a tool we can control, rather than be controlled by, in the creation of the academic community we want to see and be part of. So, what are some practical considerations?</div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>A Golden Rule: Acknowledge Obligations </b></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div><div>In the course of research, we are bound to incur debts to people, to institutions, to ideas found in other works. These debts are obligations that we should acknowledge. There is naturally leeway on what counts as a serious enough debt to warrant citation in our scholarly notes, to be listed in the acknowledgments section versus what can be passed over. It is, however, a fundamental principle of honesty, the golden rule, if you will: acknowledge obligations. If your work is built from or dependent upon the work of another, you must cite it--even if this person is a horrible monster. </div><div><br /></div><div>One can acknowledge hindrances too, of course, like the person who promised to read your chapter but never got around to it or the douche professor in grad school who tried to have you kicked out, but there is no obligation here. Some people have suggested stating alongside any acknowledgment of debt that the person is a horrible monster. This may or may not make it past the editorial stage. Maybe a more practical approach is to include a statement of your ethics of citation, perhaps in your initial note or in your methodology section. It might be as simple as “citation =/= endorsement of the person, it only acknowledges a scholarly debt to someone’s work.” </div><div><br /></div><div>Other than this golden rule (and working in tandem with it), we suggest thinking in terms of two principles in considering the way our choices of citation situate our work within a scholarly conversation. The first is an ethics of inclusion, the second an ethics of exclusion. Both have risks and value. </div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Ethics of inclusion</b></span></span></div></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div><div>Let’s start by distinguishing this ethics from ‘the pile’ criticized by Nimis. By ethics of inclusion, we do not mean that one should cite everything ever written on a topic in a paragraph-long list in one’s notes. Instead, consider it this way: How might the idea of citation as the creation of a scholarly conversation inform the way we approach the problem of who to cite? </div><div><br /></div><div>In other words, should we care about citations limited to the predictable set of scholarship, the greatest hits parade of top 40 classics? As MB points out, we do have a problem here:</div><div><blockquote><i>More important there is a real concern that the range of works cited in academic books and articles is inward looking, self-reinforcing and circular. To parody slightly, the line-up of footnotes in some books consist mainly of the author and his stale, pale, male friends all citing each other’s work.</i></blockquote></div><div>It is important to make sure that our footnotes don’t participate in an elite, prestige-invested circle jerk--even if those “stale, pale, male scholars” are the ones we were told while writing our dissertation (or by reviewer #2) that we MUST cite in order to prove our professional competency. The truth is, we do not have to cite them unless we have a direct intellectual debt to them, even if we read them (out of some sense of scholarly obligation). We will naturally read more than we cite in any research. The question we should ask, however, is: Who constitutes our ideal scholarly conversation? </div><div><br /></div><div>In the prestige bound world of academic classics, it is natural to want to set ourselves in the context of the most well-known scholars. And the gatekeepers may insist on certain names being present. But you can ask yourself: is that citation to Wilamowitz a debt I owe or the display of membership that I can do without? In fact, we argue, it is more important for younger researchers and more recent scholarship to be centered in our conversations, even if our debt to them might be small. We want them to be included in the conversation more than anyone else. Also, citing more recent scholarship will most likely incorporate engagement with those older ‘foundational’ or ‘key’ works (e.g.”See X 2020 with bibliography”) and it puts you more directly in contact with the current state of your question. Thus, it is not about reaching some quota, ostentatiously performing some sort of scholarly affirmative action--as is a frequent accusation against those who support an i<a href="https://digitalfeministcollective.net/index.php/2018/01/13/the-politics-of-citation/" target="_blank">ntersectional feminist politics of citation [7].</a> It is an ethics of inclusion where we consider, in the broadest possible way, who we want to be a part of this scholarly conversation, who we want to be in conversation with.</div><div><br /></div><div>And it doesn't have to be only about today. Can you find that hidden gem from the past, a work neglected that still has value for the conversation? Perhaps that work, because it has been excluded in the past and their ideas ignored, struck something new and exciting within you? As we conduct our research, it typically becomes clear relatively quickly who the standard voices in a conversation are, who we find ourselves in disagreement with, who we vigorously agree with, whose work we find compelling and engaging even if we aren’t talking about exactly the same thing. We are willing to bet that if instead of playing the prestige game, we focus on neglected voices from the past, from different national traditions, and younger voices, not only will our own scholarship be enlivened, but our citations will be far broader than the “stale, pale, male.” An ethics of inclusion will encourage us to add these voices to the conversation and in this way we can work to create the scholarly community we want to be part of, which is especially important if we are doing work that is non-traditional or seeks to revise previous closely held ‘foundational’ scholarly doctrines.</div><div><br /></div><div>RFK was long ago informed by an editor (while revising her oddly underestimated first monograph)[8] that it was better to present oneself as a part of a rising tide than a voice in the wilderness. The idea was that positioning oneself as the only or the first may grant some personal satisfaction and feed the ego, but it doesn’t do much to invite people into your ideas or include you within their already existing conversations. By choosing the community we want our own work to be positioned within, we invite them to also include us in theirs. And such invitations don’t come by positioning ourselves in opposition to our community, but as part of it. </div><div><br /></div><div>Senior scholars can practice an ethics of inclusion by inviting new voices into their work and early career scholars can decide where they want their work to be situated and whose they think it intersects with the most. An ethics of inclusion means not being afraid that your ideas are “too close to” or might overlap in places with those of others. It means looking specifically for those intersections and leveraging them to make your arguments and ideas better and then acknowledging it. This ethics can work in tandem with the Golden Rule, but also (maybe surprisingly) with the second principle, the ethics of exclusion. </div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></div></div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">Ethics of exclusion</span></b></div><div><br /></div><div>We might think of the gate-keeping scenario of citation as an exclusionary practice. It is. But this is not what we mean by the ethics of exclusion. Nor, really, do we mean here a type of ‘cancel culture’ that seeks to eliminate the personally problematic scholar. Instead, we mean here a practice of notable non-citation that, partnered with an ethics of inclusion, can speak quite loudly.</div><div><br /></div><div>Grafton (because of course MP must cite Grafton) points to a particular Italian tradition of the polemical non-citation. We might think here of an example in the study of ancient disability. A scholar working on this topic might read, but then refuse to cite R. Garland’s <i>Eye of the Beholder</i> because he frames the study of ancient disability within the study of monstrosity. The non-citation of this work would stand out as it is often considered a ‘foundational’ or ‘key’ work in bringing disability studies into Classics. This pointed absence would tell the audience everything it needed to know--that the author does not consider the book a work on disability at all. </div><div><br /></div><div>This is not to say that this exclusion is fair to Garland or that we would advocate it (we aren’t advocating here, just suggesting options). What it would not be, however, is unheard of. In the Italian tradition (and given the difficulty of obtaining modern secondary works in some Italian cities), Grafton seems right to express his admiration:</div><div><blockquote><i>The combined precision and obscurity of the Italian citation code compels admiration -- especially in light of the practical difficulties that confront any Italian scholar who wants to read a given work before not citing it.</i></blockquote></div><div>When we consider the ethics of not citing something, it is helpful to remember simply that non-citation may indeed be an option. In our view, if you owe a debt to a work, however, you should acknowledge it. But outside of that, there is significant space for non citation. It doesn’t mean refusing to read something. It means reading the work and then deciding that it is NOT a work you want yours to be in conversation with. </div><div><br /></div><div>Let's look at what seems to us an easy example: Tenny Frank. <a href="https://rfkclassics.blogspot.com/2018/08/why-classicists-avoid-talking-about-race.html" target="_blank">Tenny Frank’s arguments</a> that ‘race-mixture’ caused the fall of the Roman empire are racist and do not hold up to scrutiny. They also have a large following in deep dark places in the internet that promote ideas like race-mixture = white genocide, that white women who marry Jews are ‘race traitors’, etc. Do we really need to cite something (unless it is the primary source under scrutiny) as a potentially valid explanation for why Rome fell? His work has been superseded in every way, including in the collection of tombstones he relies upon. And yet, it was still being cited in a serious work of scholarship in 2018 and was reprinted by D. Kagan in a history textbook in 1990! Why? Why? Why? Just read Emma Dench’s <i>Romulus’ Asylum</i> and save yourself the trouble of associating yourself with Nazis or of wanting to stab your eyes out to cleanse them after reading it. We care not about the possible personal, moral failings of Dr. T. Frank. He could have been a monster or not. But his scholarship in this case is racist and promotes racist, unfounded, and inaccurate ideas. There is no value in citing it unless the Race and IQ crowd is the community you want to be a part of. </div><div><br /></div><div>The question is tricker when we are considering not citing something because the author, not the work, is objectionable. Here, to be clear, we are not talking about evading an obvious debt: if, in presenting your research, you find that you have incurred an obligation to a person or piece of scholarship, this obligation should be acknowledged. While I (MP) can understand how that might put us sometimes in an awkward position, I am not particularly bothered by it because I see it as acknowledging a debt incurred rather than promoting a whole person. While I (RFK) take a somewhat different approach--if the problematic scholar produces scholarship that is directly related to or promotes the problematic behavior (i.e. if one argues for certain types of male-boy relationships in antiquity and uses this to advocate for their legality today), then we can question the value of the scholarship, especially if some of it is published on a ‘press’ that is actually the front for an advocacy group or clearly and dangerously biased think tank. This is different from a person expressing racist ideas whose scholarship is to produce critical commentaries on Lucretius.</div><div><br /></div><div>Yet in the broader sense of imagining the scholarly conversation we want to be part of there is leeway for simply not citing something. Your personal ethics of citation may lead you to cite it because you believe that a person is not defined by some act, however horrific. Or, your personal ethics of citation encourages exclusions of some people from the scholarly community. Not everything must be cited and passing over in silence is also an age-old venerable scholarly practice. Our goal is not to dictate the correct practice, but to provide a way of thinking that may help you navigate choices that have to be made. For that purpose, we suggest that your citations create as well as possible the community of scholars you want to be part of. If you can pass over something in silence or if your silence can be its own statement, then having a practice that includes an ethics of exclusion can help. This is scholarship. It is neither unusual nor radical.</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Conclusion</b></span></div><div><br /></div><div>There is no obligation to cite everything. Acknowledge your debts, yes. But mostly, build the community you want your work to be read and considered within through your practice of citation. Let’s not assume that there is a clear and obvious standard for citation that you deviate from by not citing the Princeton-Harvard-Oxbrige set, by passing over in silence some reviewer’s idea of the ‘foundational’ work and instead citing the forthcoming work or dissertation of a new voice in the field (who you know was obligated to include the lit review!). Something you can consider, however, if it helps, is noting your citation ethics in the methodology section in the introduction of your book or in the acknowledgment footnote of an article. That way, your audience can understand your silences and your inclusions and can better see the community of scholars you envision your work being a part of. </div><div><br /></div><div>Perhaps, more important, we ask that you consider why you write. Why <i><b>do</b></i> you write? As a student, you wrote often to demonstrate your mastery of the scholarly tools. The dissertation has its own role and is really designed to show your committee that you have jumped through all the hoops, crossed all the ‘T’s and dotted all the ‘i’s, that you are professionally competent. Later, you may need to publish for a job, for tenure, if you are one of those few scholars who 1. has a TT job, 2. is at an elite research university, and 3. has a tenure and promotion committee that cares about whether your work is liked by Prof. Y at Yale. But there is another way to think about it, one that centers our scholarship as writing in and for people and not for the elusive, abstract, and increasingly unattainable ‘tenure’ or the achievement of other metrics. </div><div><br /></div><div>One of the authors of this blog post is tenured, but works for a school that privileges teaching and service above scholarship--one of her colleagues has written only one article since 1999 and the other has only published 4 or 5 in 35 years. Neither has ever published a book and the campus is filled with dedicated teachers who only publish the minimum to get tenured and then devote themselves to serving the college and students. Literally no one at the college cares if she ever writes anything ever again nor do they care about the content of what she has already written. The other author has never held a TT position and is in his second decade of being contingent; he only gets reviewed based on teaching. As a result, he writes whatever scholarship seems interesting to him and has the CV of a spectacularly unmotivated magpie. One of us loves discursive notes and over-cites regularly, once producing a 14 page bibliography for a 177 page book. The other is a minimalist who hates any citation that can’t fit in the main text. We both still write scholarship--not because we have to fulfill some metric, but because we want to participate in the conversations happening on topics we enjoy. For most members of our field today, the only reason to write is because we want to be part of a scholarly community. We embrace an ethics of citation that helps us be part of our chosen communities.</div><div><br /></div><div>In other words, there is no universal standard for citation. You have the ability to decide your own ethics of inclusion and exclusion, as long as you acknowledge debts owed. Hopefully, this short (haha) excursus helps.</div><div><br /></div><div><i>*We acknowledge no one in the production of this post, except Omedi, who had nothing at all to do with the writing of this. We just really wanted to cite this quotation from his work.</i></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b style="font-size: x-large;">Notes</b></div><div><br /></div><div>[1] This description of footnotes by Noel Coward is related by Grafton, 1997, The Footnote: A Curious History, p.69-70. Grafton's "oddly underestimated" book is a major inspiration of MP and the source of most quotations here. RFK has not read the book on footnotes, but feels like she knows it based on how much MP citesplains to her from it all the time. </div><div><br /></div><div>[2] We have a major dispute, which has on multiple occasions led to the slamming of doors and at least an hour of not talking, over whether or not the letter accusing Hippolytus of rape could have been written by the gods as part of the plan to ruin Hippolytus and not by Phaedra. On the possibility of this, we disagree. Through no fault of his own, the work of David Konstan (who may never even have stated an opinion on this issue) has been cited as part of this dispute. Often citations are more symbolic than substantive.</div><div><br /></div><div>[3] As part of her discussion, MB brings up this conundrum: “Suppose the best work on the subject on the coinage of Roman Bithynia was written by a convicted gangland murderer.” We are wondering why it has to be a “gangland” murderer. Could it just be “murderer”, ‘Ndrangheta side hustle in Roman Bithynian coinage notwithstanding. </div><div><br /></div><div>[4] He famously refused even to read Mommsen until the end of his groundbreaking “Ancient City” was completed, and then he didn’t even cite it, or really any modern scholarship at all. See Momigliano, Studies in Modern Scholarship. </div><div><br /></div><div>[5] RFK assumes she is not alone in writing all of the citations at once after the main body of any article is written, going back to fill in all the notes of “CITATIONS” left dangling in the footnotes during the process of writing? </div><div><br /></div><div>[6] MP would regularly assign this article to graduate students, back when it was part of his job to help <strike>radicalize</strike> professionalize them. RFK has never taught graduate students but remembers reading this article and using it as the justification for her refusal to ever cite Wilamowitz (which she has never done) and for her random announcement while writing her dissertation that she would not cite any work on tragedy written before 1929.</div><div><br /></div><div>[7] Ahmed, Sara. Living a Feminist Life. Duke University Press Books, 2017. </div><div><br /></div><div>[8] Published on a non-prestige press, but with a pretty hefty royalty arrangement, unlike what seems to be the standard with certain unnamed university presses that think first books should not come with much of anything for the author. The book also contains some pretty awesome typos--7 of them in total--including one in German. </div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></div></div>Rebecca Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09189847760200499244noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2441584511996015550.post-46142109128315614512020-07-13T12:42:00.003-04:002020-12-03T14:08:43.783-05:00"No Higher Law"<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBMppPQvxGkd5VDFnz9PIyxpa7FCv9UokjxCFg8HYx33NVucOxky3igL0iSHvz1Hw1I884dsN3spoZDZkukDO5ubHi9GzpxW6KIBrGJrJVf9J1CvJhHTxkK8v7edwRs_X7iNn3Qx1Zd2dT/s1602/Screen+Shot+2020-07-13+at+11.39.56+AM.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1262" data-original-width="1602" height="493" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBMppPQvxGkd5VDFnz9PIyxpa7FCv9UokjxCFg8HYx33NVucOxky3igL0iSHvz1Hw1I884dsN3spoZDZkukDO5ubHi9GzpxW6KIBrGJrJVf9J1CvJhHTxkK8v7edwRs_X7iNn3Qx1Zd2dT/w625-h493/Screen+Shot+2020-07-13+at+11.39.56+AM.png" width="625" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><font face="arial">I inherited this image from a recently retired colleague in History. According to the New Hampshire Historical Society, it is a reproduction of an etching from 1851 created by an unknown artist but likely published by William Harned (publishing agent) of New York City. Harned is probably most well-known for his distributions of anti-slavery publications. It is a useful image for understanding some of the ways that the Classical was connected both to pro-enslavement and abolitionist arguments. </font></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><font face="arial"><br /></font></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><font face="arial">Here is the description from the New Hampshire Historical Society:</font></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><font face="arial"><blockquote><i>In center, throned figure (Slavery) leaning against a table of four skulls supporting a closed Bible covered with a scroll titled, "Fugitive Slave Bill"; figure is wearing a crown of finger bones, holding whip up in air with right hand, left hand bent supporting head, two guns tucked into belt of robe. In front of central figure (allegorical wild beast) appears as an altar decorated with a cat's head, rosettes, urns, two crossed rifles, and flanked by knives with flames at top; labeled, "SACRED TO SLAVERY / LAW".Three crouching slaves and a man (Daniel Webster) standing on the right looking at viewer, holding a scroll of paper that reads: "I propose to support that / bill...to the fullest extent -to / the fullest extent." To the far right, profiled male figure (Liberty) with long hair and beard, hunched over, holding a crown in his right hand that reads "FREEDOM", and in his left a liberty pole and cap. Figure to left is robed figure (religious minister) arguing at central throned figure; left hand pointing toward flag; right hand pouring incense on the fire. Left middle ground, bare-chested (fugitive) slave fights pack of dogs spurred on by two horse and riders. In background, slave family flees into open arms of white family on left; on right toppling statue (Goddess of Liberty) on hill.</i></blockquote></font></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><font face="arial"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyLXrW1BpnqOk58gKYpR2aGDg434pg67AD0zlUtfzNNO4I7dWXPDcRwNfHS7adjcElKaZUvRz0qcv6VvK3SQooyO1-g8S6u91EYKNlwhcaebk8YX5iC0AD1PNH9sdEfr-oknq_QiRFVhkE/s600/Ingres_-_Zeus_and_Thetis+1811.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="465" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyLXrW1BpnqOk58gKYpR2aGDg434pg67AD0zlUtfzNNO4I7dWXPDcRwNfHS7adjcElKaZUvRz0qcv6VvK3SQooyO1-g8S6u91EYKNlwhcaebk8YX5iC0AD1PNH9sdEfr-oknq_QiRFVhkE/w310-h400/Ingres_-_Zeus_and_Thetis+1811.jpg" width="310" /></a></div>The image shows "Slavery" styled as Olympian Zeus, surrounded by the appropriate clouds on his elevated throne, a slavers whip in his hand, while the religious-looking figure to his lower left (maybe representing Christian Abolitionists, in contrast to the Bible resting under his right elbow) is positioned very much in the manner of Ingres' 1811 Zeus and Thetis, pleading with him. Of course, this plea will be unheard and this may be manifested in the separation between the pleading figure and Slavery as opposed to the closeness granted Thetis to her Zeus. <br /><br />While Daniel Webster looks at the viewer with his declaration of support for the act, "Freedom" (looking kind of like an Orthodox priest?) is taking off his crown and his Liberty cap (a French Revolution reference) is hanging at the end of its pole (is it glued on?). </font></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">I</span><span style="font-family: arial;">n the background, we see a statue tumbling, which is said to represent the Goddess of Liberty, but it styles very much as an Athena,with spear and shield. As an Athena enthusiast, I should look for more of these obvious uses of her as Liberty.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><font face="arial"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGAKNZVCCNONR7QJ2cqLDpodXAEZ9Q6ApVxzseTb1I27de0GTr628zHp4NqgEZytx8Y6rgNFHOIGfZatXJTiEgEyQp58iUGHqvomfpbaQOsJVmVrXw4ZebkoPqtJD59La0wU6JvaQfLfNz/s150/Screen+Shot+2020-07-13+at+12.07.38+PM.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="150" data-original-width="140" height="235" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGAKNZVCCNONR7QJ2cqLDpodXAEZ9Q6ApVxzseTb1I27de0GTr628zHp4NqgEZytx8Y6rgNFHOIGfZatXJTiEgEyQp58iUGHqvomfpbaQOsJVmVrXw4ZebkoPqtJD59La0wU6JvaQfLfNz/w219-h235/Screen+Shot+2020-07-13+at+12.07.38+PM.png" width="219" /></a></div> <br /></font><span style="font-family: arial;">The representation of Slavery as a Zeus-like Olympian brings to mind the Zeus of Promethean reception, maybe here we see the influence of </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prometheus_(Goethe)" style="font-family: arial;" target="_blank">Goethe</a><span style="font-family: arial;"> or </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prometheus_Unbound_(Shelley)" style="font-family: arial;" target="_blank">Shelley</a><span style="font-family: arial;"> or some other Romantic version inspired by [Aeschylus] where Zeus is tyrannical and the tone </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misotheism" style="font-family: arial;" target="_blank">misotheistic</a><span style="font-family: arial;">? <br /></span><br /><font face="arial">There is a lot to say about such a positioning of Zeus and the Romantic idealisms that influenced and inspired ideas of Freedom (Liberty) and American Slavery--how does the Romantic impulse interact with the supposed Enlightenment ideals of the Constitution? Does the image seek to make clear that those supposedly natural rights and ideas that kept Black Americans enslaved and ineligible for Freedom were in fact fits of temper and tyranny? I keep coming back to Prof. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nj_kTHa3Ggk" target="_blank">Danielle Allen's "Our Declaration"</a>, in which she argues that the ideas of liberty and equality are not in opposition and that they were intended in the Declaration to be mutually supportive--there is no "Separate, but Equal," an argument made by Southern enslavers to prop up first, enslavement, and then Jim Crow. To quote from <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/06/books/review/our-declaration-by-danielle-allen.html" target="_blank">Steven B. Smith's 2014 NYTimes article </a>on Allen's reading:</font></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><font face="arial"><i><blockquote>"Separate and equal implies mutual respect and reciprocity; separate but equal, hierarchy and domination. To paraphrase the great Dinah Washington, what a difference a word makes!"</blockquote></i></font></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><font face="arial">Images like this one made to comment on the place of Slavery as an institution in America suggest that not only is Allen correct, but that in the debates over the continuation of slavery, slavery apologists knew it and needed to find ways to combat it and erase that 'self-evident' truth in order to support the continuation of a tyrannical, non-democratic practice. They won this war of words and meanings, as the history of our country since 1865 makes clear, but we should never forgive any of those who fought for enslavement and Black oppression--because it is pretty clear that as 'men of their time', they knew damn well it was evil. </font></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><font face="arial"><br /></font></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><font face="arial">As for the use of the "Classical", this one is getting added to my collection for discussion. The image makes it very clear what Olympian Zeus/Slavery means to the enslaved--death, torment, despair. How much of this characterization is purely an appeal to the Romantic Prometheus myth? And how much of it reflects the centrality of Greco-Roman classicism to Southern defenses of enslavement? Someone who has done more work than me on these types of images may be able to answer that. For now, I am just putting it out there. </font><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><font face="arial"><br /></font><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><font face="arial"><br /></font></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><font face="arial"><br /></font></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><font face="arial"><br /></font></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><font face="arial"><br /></font></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><font face="arial"><br /></font></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><font face="arial"><br /></font></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div></div>Rebecca Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09189847760200499244noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2441584511996015550.post-83097685725043077782020-07-11T18:44:00.018-04:002021-02-05T10:37:26.876-05:00"Calling Your Students 'Terrorists' is not 'Brave'" and Other Things One Should Not Need to Tell a Colleague <div style="line-height: 1.5;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-8486e68b-7fff-bed3-2176-d61951814b49" style="line-height: 1.5;"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; line-height: 1.5; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3A0kr8QJpaatGy3n958KBX4puMCifHtzLwxuK5bscUjTbZrw-3BQsGKw3eexu8hF6AHGjO048BHaixNBQel3iMbsueALYBbskEXeGt9-MXsl8lyN3_BEs6zyTc8s8P_O9MAExZM0zrbWq/s300/7AFDB89D-E2E1-4E02-9117-38C70F5B4476_4_5005_c.jpeg" style="line-height: 1.5; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="159" data-original-width="300" height="311" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3A0kr8QJpaatGy3n958KBX4puMCifHtzLwxuK5bscUjTbZrw-3BQsGKw3eexu8hF6AHGjO048BHaixNBQel3iMbsueALYBbskEXeGt9-MXsl8lyN3_BEs6zyTc8s8P_O9MAExZM0zrbWq/w586-h311/7AFDB89D-E2E1-4E02-9117-38C70F5B4476_4_5005_c.jpeg" width="586" /></a></div><p></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: 1.5; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">By Rebecca Kennedy and Maximus Planudes</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: 1.5; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: 1.5; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It is never surprising (sadly) when a member of the discipline of Greek and Roman studies outs themselves fully as a willing participant in and peddler of traditional White supremacist ideas. It is even less surprising when the person doing it is a member of the Heterodox Academy. And when they (of course) publish their screed in Q***ette, we come full circle. No one should be shocked. But everyone should be (in the words of one former student in the department of said Classicist) "appalled." And, of course, it is always disappointing in the extreme when we see people who have made their careers on being insightful and smart readers write things that are so full of common errors and ignorance. It always makes us question how very insightful and smart as readers they ever really were. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: 1.5; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The most recent installment in the annals of Classicist Gone White Supremacist is <a href="https://classics.princeton.edu/people/faculty/core/joshua-katz" style="line-height: 1.5;" target="_blank">Prof. J. Katz (Princeton) </a>"A Declaration of Independence by a Princeton Professor," a response by Katz to a letter written and signed by hundreds of his colleague at Princeton and published as an <a href="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfPmfeDKBi25_7rUTKkhZ3cyMICQicp05ReVaeBpEdYUCkyIA/viewform" style="line-height: 1.5;" target="_blank">Open Letter</a>. And it is all the more appalling because it, as these things often do, presents itself as a work of reasoned thought and correction instead of the ignorant, shallow, and racist opinion piece it actually is. This post is a response to it, co-authored by myself and Maximus Planudes. We write this response for a few reasons. The first is that Katz just has some things wrong, specifically about the history of the US generally and of academic research and knowledge in the last 60 years. He should be corrected. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: 1.5; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Secondly, because he is in a position of power and authority and situated in the heart of the prestige economy of Classics and academia in general. He has had the ability and continues to have the ability to cause harm to many within the field and on his campus--no one who ever speaks of their students as "terrorists" (see below for further discussion) should be allowed in ANY classroom, let alone working in "Freshman Seminars in the Residential Colleges" and "Teacher Preparation," as he lists on his faculty page. <a href="https://rfkclassics.blogspot.com/2020/05/power-authority-who-has-is-how-do-we.html" style="line-height: 1.5;" target="_blank">We may not have much real power and authority</a> (and will surely never be Fellows at All Souls, as he was), and we do not have nearly the <i style="line-height: 1.5;">auctoritas</i> and prestige of Prof. Katz, but we have a platform and those of us who have these should speak out when and where we can. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: 1.5; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We must recognize that Katz is positioning himself as a "voice of reason" and "neutral" arbiter and only deems those things that can be fit into the "</span><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/09/color-blindness-is-counterproductive/405037/" style="line-height: 1.5; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: 1.5; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">colorblind</span></a><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: 1.5; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">" category as appropriate responses. His op-ed is a textbook case of colorblind racism wrapped up in smugness, self-righteousness, and historical inaccuracies being deployed to neutralize any race-conscious anti-racist reparative action. On the other hand, we are cognizant that this is not a fair and balanced response to his response. But, it is neither bullying nor a call for firing nor cancellation. We are merely engaging in robust debate with some occasional snide commentary.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: 1.5; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Just be warned: We are not linking to it. You have to do that search yourself. We hate driving traffic to drivel, but feel the op-ed must be addressed. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: 1.5; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: 1.5; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">See also now, <a href="https://medium.com/corona-borealis/the-haunting-of-joshua-t-katz-on-tantric-mammification-liquid-symptoms-32bc832338b7" target="_blank">this somewhat different response to Katz</a> by Vanessa Stoval. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">***</p></span></div><div style="line-height: 1.5;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Let's start at the beginning. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; line-height: 1.5; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiaOwxnqN9LS7EcVOPXH0JuZlKTxrJsotupibp0TQZnpsZdbXY0JkKgi5pvLcZiFXpQocFUTHU1t1S9FaYQa0X2KIqsfrrn0boFkEPKXxEFfoRqrtbEeCSbU2Pj3aM1O90a_BQ6sJ4NH0b/s874/Screen+Shot+2020-07-11+at+10.39.21+AM.png" style="line-height: 1.5; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="420" data-original-width="874" height="241" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiaOwxnqN9LS7EcVOPXH0JuZlKTxrJsotupibp0TQZnpsZdbXY0JkKgi5pvLcZiFXpQocFUTHU1t1S9FaYQa0X2KIqsfrrn0boFkEPKXxEFfoRqrtbEeCSbU2Pj3aM1O90a_BQ6sJ4NH0b/w500-h241/Screen+Shot+2020-07-11+at+10.39.21+AM.png" width="500" /></a></div><div style="line-height: 1.5;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-46baf2bb-7fff-0d12-bb8f-bc48dd599fd7" style="line-height: 1.5;"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; line-height: 1.5; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"whom were considered heroes just a few minutes ago"</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: 1.5; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: Our colleague opens his piece with what he likely views as a clever comment on "cancel culture". What he misunderstands is that there exist decades (not minutes) of scholarship on these numerous "Founding Fathers," scholarship that questions and, indeed, dismantles their status as "national heroes." For example:</span></p></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; line-height: 1.5; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikY0lWVSo49VH5lgiRXqShl-womzW2r5idCTkP97fbhMpzrc1l30PMa4uMtfe2N1_pmzzaSd_ORKFrf_Oc9h4nVBiFz7Ga3VIltNSuqg1XgEzRTsBgM0VN_y_xbU8AwttuYQuN6N1PYJEb/s1074/Screen+Shot+2020-07-11+at+11.08.14+AM.png" style="line-height: 1.5; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="840" data-original-width="1074" height="489" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikY0lWVSo49VH5lgiRXqShl-womzW2r5idCTkP97fbhMpzrc1l30PMa4uMtfe2N1_pmzzaSd_ORKFrf_Oc9h4nVBiFz7Ga3VIltNSuqg1XgEzRTsBgM0VN_y_xbU8AwttuYQuN6N1PYJEb/w625-h489/Screen+Shot+2020-07-11+at+11.08.14+AM.png" width="625" /></a></div><div style="line-height: 1.5;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-76178d96-7fff-6183-cb38-eef5414f280b" style="line-height: 1.5;"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: 1.5; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: 1.5; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This is the opening of William Freehling's 1972 "<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1856595" style="line-height: 1.5;" target="_blank">The Founding Fathers and Slavery</a>." </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; line-height: 1.5; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">1972</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: 1.5; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Freehling is, of course, pushing against the negative views of the Founders (specifically Jefferson)--which Katz himself likely agrees with--, but we cite this only to point out that this "cancellation" has been happening for over half a century. That it is only gaining any traction outside of academic circles now is a measure of how powerful our White supremacist institutions are. Katz either does not know that this debate has been around since his birth or is just trying to be cute and failing. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: 1.5; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; line-height: 1.5; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b style="line-height: 1.5;"><i style="line-height: 1.5;">"In Princeton, New Jersey on July 4th, 2020"</i></b></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; line-height: 1.5; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 1.5; white-space: pre-wrap;">Although the Faculty Letter only made the slightest allusion to the Declaration of Independence (it was released on July 4), Katz makes it the conceit motivating his piece, with some confusing consequences. His only comparison does not make much sense. He appears to be aiming at wit with his notion of capitalization (united States vs United States), but the Faculty Letter nowhere says United States. (Incidentally, the Declaration uses 18C conventions of capitalization and the articles of confederacy did capitalize United). </span></p></span><span id="docs-internal-guid-025935a5-7fff-585f-e6c6-a907a4e4cbb5" style="line-height: 1.5;"><div style="line-height: 1.5;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg23mlXX34SZ8mA4KIU0RVFjiEw4sVJQDKwTwrkZPbOuJ3cz2VqqzlTwcfYmVvntehNLWNuAElBwpEBLWcYXjNHE5ppVqNiAvykExp-DBiGNtcYO5pX7BniFsj7-QDr0tqnkXgLhUmop_wr/s1122/6B899C04-26CF-408C-B29D-B127F1B9B6F9.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="389" data-original-width="1122" height="218" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg23mlXX34SZ8mA4KIU0RVFjiEw4sVJQDKwTwrkZPbOuJ3cz2VqqzlTwcfYmVvntehNLWNuAElBwpEBLWcYXjNHE5ppVqNiAvykExp-DBiGNtcYO5pX7BniFsj7-QDr0tqnkXgLhUmop_wr/w625-h218/6B899C04-26CF-408C-B29D-B127F1B9B6F9.jpeg" width="625" /></a></div></div><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: 1.5; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">None of this, of course, addresses the quoted first sentence of the Faculty Letter.: “<b>Anti-Blackness is foundational to America.”</b> It’s worth taking the claim seriously, something Katz seems unable to bring himself to do. Let’s hear from the man once referred to by historians as “the first professional racist in American history,” <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_H._Van_Evrie" style="line-height: 1.5;" target="_blank">John H. Van Evrie</a>. Evrie was well known as a popularizer of scientific racism and had a great deal of influence on politicians in his lifetime. He was the author and editor of a weekly magazine called the Weekly Day Book, with its publication masthead “White Men Must Rule America." He was a slavery apologist who often put slave and slavery in quotation marks because he did not consider the condition of enslavement to be forced, but was simply the natural order of things. In particular, we find his 1867 book <i style="line-height: 1.5;"><a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/White_Supremacy_and_Negro_Subordination.html?id=3EjEjHP4pUMC" style="line-height: 1.5;" target="_blank">White Supremacy and Negro Subordination, or Negroes, A Subordinate Race and Slavery Its Normal Condition</a></i> helpful to make our point. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: 1.5; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It seems (based on his later comment that anyone who believes this will teach the 1619 project as dogma) that Katz considers the statement obviously false. But! The man who helped popularize scientific racism begs to differ! Let’s see what Evrie tells us about what most “right-thinking” Americans thought about the foundations of America back in 1867. After explaining how climate meant that most Black enslaved people were eventually settled in the southern part of the US, he explains how it was that in Virginia in particular (home, of course, to Thomas Jefferson), the close proximity of a large Black population is what led these once English aristocrats to turn away from their love of monarchy and embrace “new ideas” of governance. </span></p></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; line-height: 1.5; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgt8T48GNHWhadSQ3W90iMF6Zp0mwhMtl2CoDuGDJkYOxwm2c77SZr4mse-2kQepRCY8-WUKFHYEypx66-h5i5ILup4hyphenhyphenMTcMPbRseQA12mkL9GargN1GIRCJH3ZiTk3Fc6lxvzpOOG62iD/s546/Screen+Shot+2020-07-11+at+2.54.32+PM.png" style="line-height: 1.5; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="211" data-original-width="546" height="194" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgt8T48GNHWhadSQ3W90iMF6Zp0mwhMtl2CoDuGDJkYOxwm2c77SZr4mse-2kQepRCY8-WUKFHYEypx66-h5i5ILup4hyphenhyphenMTcMPbRseQA12mkL9GargN1GIRCJH3ZiTk3Fc6lxvzpOOG62iD/w500-h194/Screen+Shot+2020-07-11+at+2.54.32+PM.png" width="500" /></a></div><div style="line-height: 1.5;"><br /></div><div style="line-height: 1.5;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-65e991be-7fff-0a9b-6f55-f524f660b3fa" style="line-height: 1.5;"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: 1.5; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Further, after another lengthy proof of his point, he declares that the men of Virginia had no choice but to adapt their institutions around the “unalterable fact” of Black natural inferiority:</span></p><div style="line-height: 1.5;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: 1.5; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><div style="line-height: 1.5;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; line-height: 1.5; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr52rj-4j8-KUQN6SxrFXNNHlhbP7TIJY9jHIVELykPCJ3faQd50J2cOXRXchAw4yZQ72arPQGU0hnZ6UYnOovLoIdOWsuANVpqopyln-1NQK6rWQpJkHX69XyhfznyqFAtj5nYxo4zR5U/s546/Screen+Shot+2020-07-11+at+2.54.06+PM.png" style="line-height: 1.5; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="466" data-original-width="546" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr52rj-4j8-KUQN6SxrFXNNHlhbP7TIJY9jHIVELykPCJ3faQd50J2cOXRXchAw4yZQ72arPQGU0hnZ6UYnOovLoIdOWsuANVpqopyln-1NQK6rWQpJkHX69XyhfznyqFAtj5nYxo4zR5U/w500-h426/Screen+Shot+2020-07-11+at+2.54.06+PM.png" width="500" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; line-height: 1.5; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; line-height: 1.5; text-align: left;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-d6743fb8-7fff-d660-3fce-73ccc3496e4a" style="line-height: 1.5;"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: 1.5; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">With a result, of course, that these once English aristocrats became the staunch promoters of democracy and liberty </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: 1.5; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">for white men</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: 1.5; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, as exemplified in the “great revolutionary moment of 1776”:</span></p><div style="line-height: 1.5;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; line-height: 1.5; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKOBsnpG8vf2CN98PP9fPZnMURjFSm7P7xt8whoJIPQOzo-P5ZYE_BgeoQnh6XWohPSNDrf3iApEJxS6uV1NGMtg1pWuT5-qwDJouhFke1Ch2g-O5-tGlug8H4IMwN00Z5Bx4ecumUqVsJ/s569/Screen+Shot+2020-07-11+at+2.52.42+PM.png" style="line-height: 1.5; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="256" data-original-width="569" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKOBsnpG8vf2CN98PP9fPZnMURjFSm7P7xt8whoJIPQOzo-P5ZYE_BgeoQnh6XWohPSNDrf3iApEJxS6uV1NGMtg1pWuT5-qwDJouhFke1Ch2g-O5-tGlug8H4IMwN00Z5Bx4ecumUqVsJ/w500-h225/Screen+Shot+2020-07-11+at+2.52.42+PM.png" width="500" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: 1.5; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div></span></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: 1.5; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: 1.5; vertical-align: baseline;">Although Katz seems to think that it makes absolutely no sense for anyone to think that anti-Blackness was a foundational value in America, it seems that there are, in fact, many people historically who have not only thought this was so but embraced it and promoted it widely and used it as evidence for the continued enslavement of Black Americans and then, after Emancipation, for the institution of Jim Crow. Perhaps his inability to realize this self-evident truth is because we as a society have been told repeatedly by those embracing colorblind ideologies that <a href="https://www.forbes.com/2008/12/30/end-of-racism-oped-cx_jm_1230mcwhorter.html#530315749f84" style="line-height: 1.5;" target="_blank">racism is over because we elected a Black president</a>.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: 1.5; vertical-align: baseline;">The attempt at wit, though, seems designed only to set up his second anxiety about capitalization: how can Black be capitalized but white not (perhaps a reference recent press decisions to capitalize B in Black)? This bit is disturbing. He is either ignorant of or pretending to be ignorant of decades worth of scholarship on <a href="https://www.tolerance.org/magazine/summer-2016/why-talk-about-whiteness" style="line-height: 1.5;" target="_blank">Whiteness</a> (even though he was a colleague of <a href="https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124700316" style="line-height: 1.5;" target="_blank">Nell Irvin Painter</a>)--such claims to ignorance by respected scholars are always baffling. The capitalization of a letter designates the category as a recognized, constructed, non-natural racialized status. To leave “white” lower case pretends that Whiteness is an unraced norm or default. It is one of the ways that Whiteness maintains its invisibility. This is one reason why there was push back for <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/06/time-to-capitalize-blackand-white/613159/" style="line-height: 1.5;" target="_blank">not capitalizing both terms</a>.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: 1.5; vertical-align: baseline;">But, that is not really what we think his point is. The way this is worded (and here we are practicing philology again!), it is almost as if he thinks of himself as White and cannot accept that he should be subordinated to Black by not getting his own capital letter. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></p><blockquote style="line-height: 1.5;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: 1.5; vertical-align: baseline;"><i style="line-height: 1.5;">“This moral erosion has made it quite impossible for those who think of themselves as white in this country to have any moral authority at all—privately, or publicly.”</i> (</span><a href="https://bannekerinstitute.fas.harvard.edu/files/bannekerinstitute/files/on_being_white.and_other_lies_baldwin_0.pdf" style="line-height: 1.5; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: 1.5; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Baldwin, On being white and other lies</span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: 1.5; vertical-align: baseline;">).</span></blockquote><p></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; line-height: 1.5; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">***</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; line-height: 1.5; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlWAFjCWKpnMqPPPpBVEiFzqERJMv4LuLHUUri4rClV-hVJq7TDe8AHHPXK3tSmGKZssNuCSdchNBvjBRBmrxia1cj-cRSUHcAin47u3-DtcyBCTvPlZ-2OHqSeh383uia4DpWDobVhpg-/s890/Screen+Shot+2020-07-11+at+5.57.02+PM.png" style="line-height: 1.5; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="350" data-original-width="890" height="248" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlWAFjCWKpnMqPPPpBVEiFzqERJMv4LuLHUUri4rClV-hVJq7TDe8AHHPXK3tSmGKZssNuCSdchNBvjBRBmrxia1cj-cRSUHcAin47u3-DtcyBCTvPlZ-2OHqSeh383uia4DpWDobVhpg-/w625-h248/Screen+Shot+2020-07-11+at+5.57.02+PM.png" width="625" /></a></div><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; line-height: 1.5; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><p></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; line-height: 1.5; vertical-align: baseline;">"I am friends with many people who signed the Princeton letter"</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: 1.5; vertical-align: baseline;">: Can't fault him for optimism! </span></p><div style="line-height: 1.5; text-align: center;">***</div><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><p></p></span></div></span></div><div style="line-height: 1.5;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-0f1e9cc0-7fff-f5d7-5bff-9321d4870ff1" style="line-height: 1.5;"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: 1.5; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">While the Faculty letter makes no explicit reference to the Declaration, Katz titles his essay a Declaration of Independence. This choice raises a few questions. Does Katz believe that his declaration is indeed a comparable document? At some point, a healthy regard for oneself slips into arrogance. What truths does Katz believe are self-evident? One more question for those on the job market: he references part of the opening, “When in the course of human events,” but does not complete the sentence. Instead, he complains about the youths these days, whinging that every American child no longer knows the whole sentence. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: 1.5; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; line-height: 1.5; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv7x5yAWBz2yoFTd5JVQcnO4jOoQoGffsoogYkCLtt6K-6YDjiGBQvD-eeknFH3TGzSubLmamNRfwzO4rifVxeGbfesD7C9NhfuNLkW_i_UrAgWQgfuIX6lSWUoJnjzC-fSsZjZGOfDD1j/s500/2ijiif.jpg" style="line-height: 1.5; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="399" data-original-width="500" height="319" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv7x5yAWBz2yoFTd5JVQcnO4jOoQoGffsoogYkCLtt6K-6YDjiGBQvD-eeknFH3TGzSubLmamNRfwzO4rifVxeGbfesD7C9NhfuNLkW_i_UrAgWQgfuIX6lSWUoJnjzC-fSsZjZGOfDD1j/w400-h319/2ijiif.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: 1.5; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><p></p><div style="line-height: 1.5;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: 1.5; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: 1.5; vertical-align: baseline;">What is the whole “long and elegant sentence”? </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></p><blockquote style="line-height: 1.5;"><i style="line-height: 1.5;">"When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation" (</i>Actual Declaration of Independence).</blockquote></span><p></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; line-height: 1.5; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Holy Cow! Is Katz leaving Princeton!? Does he have a job at Ramsey Center for Western Civilization!? Who knows. It is clear, however, that Katz is a fan of the Declaration. Let us imagine the Katz' family festive fourth of July table. We are told that they read the stirring prose of the Declaration. Surely, they follow it with the powerful and equally </span><a href="https://freemaninstitute.com/douglass.htm" style="line-height: 1.5; text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; line-height: 1.5; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">moving short speech</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; line-height: 1.5; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> by Fredrick Douglass. They then, surely, discuss at length </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nj_kTHa3Ggk" style="line-height: 1.5; text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; line-height: 1.5; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Prof. Danielle Allen's important "Our Declaration.</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; line-height: 1.5; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">" Yeah, that surely must be how it goes. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;"><b id="docs-internal-guid-db73b687-7fff-e0a2-2f4f-f57c2855d439" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.5;"><br /></b></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; line-height: 1.5; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">These plausible imaginings aside, there are numerous additional elements of this letter that one could address. This response is already long; we will restrict ourselves to just a few more of the most egregious. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;"><b style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.5;"><br /></b></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; line-height: 1.5; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">For example, in listing the possible reasons many Princeton professors signed the letter, Katz tells us that the last is the largest category.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i></i></span></p><blockquote><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>"(4) They agree with some of the demands and felt it was good to act as “allies” and bring up the numbers even though they do not assent to everything themselves.</i></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; line-height: 1.5; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i><br /></i></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>I imagine that the majority fall into this last category. Indeed, plenty of ideas in the letter are ones I support."</i></span></p></blockquote><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i></i></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Reading this, We wondered what separated Katz from category 4. He agrees with some of the demands without assenting to everything. In such a document, one can reasonably sign in that situation. Perhaps, the self-revealing scare quotes around allies resolve the question. Katz perhaps worries that someone might believe him an ally. He need not worry. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;"><br /></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; line-height: 1.5; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Katz does not support the Faculty Letter, his declaration implies, because he worries that “dozens” of the proposals will lead to a campus “civil war” and undermine the public’s confidence in higher education. Katz is given to reckless exaggeration. We doubt he could find 24 objectionable proposals (there are 43 in total), let alone one that would lead to civil war. In fact, he cites nearly as many proposals that he agrees with as those he dislikes. But let’s explore some of what will bring on Princeton’s “civil war.”</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; line-height: 1.5; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhp7K7ybxKYXgCbc29qoyD5EN2t9kZUhDBMhau-k3Cc_Zrlh63Figf9NY999nBpJ2e6m0kOuBhSY53tnY-ONl2v5efbUeieHZg_vJHTSu0owKM0H5VaXHAQpxoYvtcGBb6bvPKu82iR3x_0/s880/Screen+Shot+2020-07-11+at+6.05.08+PM.png" style="line-height: 1.5; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><font face="arial" style="line-height: 1.5;"><img border="0" data-original-height="548" data-original-width="880" height="311" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhp7K7ybxKYXgCbc29qoyD5EN2t9kZUhDBMhau-k3Cc_Zrlh63Figf9NY999nBpJ2e6m0kOuBhSY53tnY-ONl2v5efbUeieHZg_vJHTSu0owKM0H5VaXHAQpxoYvtcGBb6bvPKu82iR3x_0/w500-h311/Screen+Shot+2020-07-11+at+6.05.08+PM.png" width="500" /></font></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; line-height: 1.5; text-align: left;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-5122b8cc-7fff-3cf6-f019-84553c3013c3" style="line-height: 1.5;"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-b79cb0ef-7fff-4e8a-358c-3695a36d10ef"></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-5e9c17d0-7fff-ab8e-3f7b-37ae6314d936"></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; line-height: 1.5; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What of the specific proposals that bother him? Let’s start from the clearest statement in the entire letter of his devotion to White innocence and colorblindness: “It boggles my mind that anyone would advocate giving people...extra perks for no other reason other than their pigmentation.” This one is a doozy. Firstly, because it suggests just how ignorant (willfully or accidentally) he is of the history of anti-Black racism in America and how it has functioned since the Civil Rights movement (we would recommend Bonilla-Silva Racism without Racists, but Katz doesn’t seem much interested in scholarship written on race in the last 5 or 6 decades). It is especially clear that he does not recognize how much his own skin color provides him with advantages. More distressing, however, is how he seems to understand it as a matter of pigmentation. One of the most obvious and enduring aspects of Whiteness is its position as the absence of color, which, again, identifies Whiteness as normal and everything else as deviant.</span></p><div style="line-height: 1.5;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: 1.5; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div></span></div><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; line-height: 1.5; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV8Kf9gjVqHshrZyfC8X3sZZwh53p4WkvrM4wotIg2PsNUOqD6E86TFzgyV0qHjNkAB-ZCpT8PYTIs0hXwb3v9VlMXc2FdoSDkjKVXp4TaiodpPSEqhcWxFtpKCsk5omcNTPrjvibNDffu/s888/Screen+Shot+2020-07-11+at+6.08.53+PM.png" style="line-height: 1.5; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><font face="arial" style="line-height: 1.5;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="888" height="204" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV8Kf9gjVqHshrZyfC8X3sZZwh53p4WkvrM4wotIg2PsNUOqD6E86TFzgyV0qHjNkAB-ZCpT8PYTIs0hXwb3v9VlMXc2FdoSDkjKVXp4TaiodpPSEqhcWxFtpKCsk5omcNTPrjvibNDffu/w500-h204/Screen+Shot+2020-07-11+at+6.08.53+PM.png" width="500" /></font></a></div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; line-height: 1.5; text-align: left;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-d51b70a1-7fff-efea-daf1-9709354439b4" style="line-height: 1.5;"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><font face="arial" style="line-height: 1.5;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: 1.5; vertical-align: baseline;">Then there is the principle of White neutrality: anyone who thinks that anti-Blackness is foundational would “teach the 1619 project as dogma.” </span><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/12/historians-clash-1619-project/604093/" style="line-height: 1.5; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: 1.5; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Controversy over the 1619 project</span></a><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: 1.5; vertical-align: baseline;"> aside, this is an almost explicit statement that Katz does not trust his Black colleagues or anyone who signed that letter (if they are one of the “believers'') to be balanced and neutral in their teaching of US History. While he, on the other hand, of course, recognizes that slavery and race had something to do with America (just not much). This is why we are certain that he read Douglass and discussed Allen at his festive 4th of July table--because he is balanced and reasonable. This is no different from <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/06/08/872234014/editors-barred-a-black-reporter-from-covering-protests-then-her-newsroom-rebelle" style="line-height: 1.5;" target="_blank">Black journalists who were barred by the </a></span><span style="font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: 1.5; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/06/08/872234014/editors-barred-a-black-reporter-from-covering-protests-then-her-newsroom-rebelle" style="line-height: 1.5;" target="_blank">Pittsburgh Post-Gazette</a></span><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: 1.5; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/06/08/872234014/editors-barred-a-black-reporter-from-covering-protests-then-her-newsroom-rebelle" style="line-height: 1.5;" target="_blank"> from reporting on the George Floyd/Black Lives Matters protests</a> since they (but not White colleagues) were deemed unable to do so without bias. This statement by Katz makes it clear that he does not think anti-Black racism has shaped American society. And, honestly, for people who believe this, there is no evidence t<a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/when-proof-is-not-enough/" style="line-height: 1.5;" target="_blank">hat will ever be enough evidence to convince them otherwise</a>. This type of belief in the face of overwhelming evidence is the actual dogma. </span></font></p><font face="arial" style="line-height: 1.5;"><br /></font><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: 1.5; vertical-align: baseline;"><font face="arial" style="line-height: 1.5;">What follows next is probably the most egregious misrepresentation in the entire op-ed:</font></span></p><div style="line-height: 1.5;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; line-height: 1.5; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIGd8PMcZzkQUpM665rBhRGtoQFAoKmJOxSJuTMKLEyqQ3D9e6QlwvyysLL1TbWA4UKAxQ6bS7LWvYpqqf7TlJwYo6dIbk8JmwZDU_vJrB5v61tUh0jCN2w-NlZVmTvDXqJFJ0i1jVB37w/s880/Screen+Shot+2020-07-11+at+6.13.55+PM.png" style="line-height: 1.5; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="582" data-original-width="880" height="331" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIGd8PMcZzkQUpM665rBhRGtoQFAoKmJOxSJuTMKLEyqQ3D9e6QlwvyysLL1TbWA4UKAxQ6bS7LWvYpqqf7TlJwYo6dIbk8JmwZDU_vJrB5v61tUh0jCN2w-NlZVmTvDXqJFJ0i1jVB37w/w500-h331/Screen+Shot+2020-07-11+at+6.13.55+PM.png" width="500" /></a></div></div></span></div><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; line-height: 1.5; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This student organization is NOT listed as a known terrorist organization. We checked. This statement, one of his numerous exaggerations in the op-ed, presents a claim so misleading that it borders on hate speech itself (by legal definition). We are not at Princeton and have no first-hand evidence about this group. Katz says that they made people who disagreed with them “miserable” and that he watched something on Instagram, something that he classified “as one of the most evil things he has seen.” We are guessing he has not watched any videos of the numerous Black Americans killed by police. Regardless, it is still not terrorism. It sounds more like a dog whistle to those who believe that anyone advocating for Black lives is a terrorist. We hope he didn't mean it that way. (PS. he made a "800-word statement" on his 'metaphorical use' of the terms. Lol. You can find it linked <a href="https://www.dailyprincetonian.com/article/2020/07/classics-joshua-katz-black-justice-league-princeton" target="_blank">in this article</a> along with a department statement and uni president statement).</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: 1.5; vertical-align: baseline;"><b id="docs-internal-guid-75045626-7fff-9066-4c59-cbd9b8b86518" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.5;"><br /></b></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; line-height: 1.5; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The last in the list worth addressing is the call for a committee. Even Katz agrees that racist behaviors and incidents require disciplinary actions. The more troubling is faculty oversight of research and publications. This is a place where we also would want to be careful and we think that the letter writers themselves recognize the dangers. (See now <a href="https://www.dailyprincetonian.com/article/2020/07/princeton-academic-freedom-white-surpremacy-racism-woodrow-wilson-free-speech" target="_blank">this detailed response by Prof. Andrew Cole of Princeton</a> on this element of the letter).</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: 1.5; vertical-align: baseline;"><b style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.5;"><br /></b></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; line-height: 1.5; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Katz asks rhetorically whether there is anyone who </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; line-height: 1.5; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b style="line-height: 1.5;"><i style="line-height: 1.5;">“doesn’t believe that this committee would be a star chamber with a low bar for cancellation, punishment, suspension, even dismissal?” </i></b></span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 1.5; white-space: pre-wrap;">We don't believe it nor, seemingly, do those who signed the letter. </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 1.5; white-space: pre-wrap;">Katz’s discussion is alarmist, but let’s look at the actual proposal from the Faculty Letter: </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; line-height: 1.5; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i></i></span></p><p style="line-height: 1.5; text-align: left;"><i style="line-height: 1.5;"><font face="arial" style="line-height: 1.5;"></font></i></p><blockquote><i style="line-height: 1.5;"><font face="arial" style="line-height: 1.5;">"Constitute a committee composed entirely of faculty that would oversee the investigation and discipline of racist behaviors, incidents, research, and publication on the part of faculty, following a protocol for grievance and appeal to be spelled out in Rules and Procedures of the Faculty. Guidelines on what counts as racist behavior, incidents, research, and publication will be authored by a faculty committee for incorporation into the same set of rules and procedures."</font></i></blockquote><p></p><p></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; line-height: 1.5; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This is academic bureaucracy, as familiar to Katz as to any faculty member. They want a group of faculty to create a document that sets out guidelines for what counts as racist actions on campus. Such a document would be crafted by Princeton faculty and have to pass, we imagine, a full faculty vote. There would then be a faculty only committee to oversee the enforcement of those rules, including a process for appeal. The devil will, of course, be in the details, but an arbitrary star chamber is not envisioned. And we want to add a dose of realism to hysterical academic handwringing. From our experience, any document that makes it through a full faculty vote will be so watered down that it will hardly be anti-racist anymore. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: 1.5; vertical-align: baseline;"><b style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.5;"><br /></b></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; line-height: 1.5; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And, let’s also be clear--there already are committees and people who police research and scholarship. Sometimes it happens in peer review, sometimes at the tenure and promotion committee table. Sometimes it happens in conversations where we are told that x topic (insert something involving race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, reception) is not an “appropriate” topic for a “real scholar”. We all know it happens. Katz’s alarmism is perhaps addressed to people who carry on what can be understood as research with explicitly racist goals (race and IQ studies, for example--a favorite topic at Q***ette). We will never know.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: 1.5; vertical-align: baseline;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; line-height: 1.5; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In the end, the Faculty Letter is clear that it is offering “principled steps” that require “faculty endorsement and input.” The letter expresses the desire for discussions of its content. Did Katz speak with any of the signatories, many who were(?) his “friends”, about his concerns? Why did he publish this? In contrast to the Letter writers, his goal is unclear, unless it is just an anti-woke, self-aggrandizing, virtue signal to his colleagues over at the Heterodox Academy. We hope not.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: 1.5; vertical-align: baseline;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"><br /></span></p></div></span></div>Rebecca Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09189847760200499244noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2441584511996015550.post-23110342181511945402020-05-21T21:42:00.007-04:002020-06-16T10:51:19.377-04:00Power & Authority: Who has it? How do we use it? (Or, Navel gazing)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFg0-frSptqOm7QgPLEzPPyMKLL1f0RgGdfLaeJ5DOJ-ySiQJ6b9HnEJ3alLvvvYg0EqViNSMbnQJw7BnGAyPrvsZ5xc2xM_BlkGBB9_GfB_LbVhEzkhf_jjx_Ia2ft3t_-iaH0V-aiSv2/" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="289" data-original-width="601" height="193" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFg0-frSptqOm7QgPLEzPPyMKLL1f0RgGdfLaeJ5DOJ-ySiQJ6b9HnEJ3alLvvvYg0EqViNSMbnQJw7BnGAyPrvsZ5xc2xM_BlkGBB9_GfB_LbVhEzkhf_jjx_Ia2ft3t_-iaH0V-aiSv2/w400-h193/Screen+Shot+2020-05-21+at+2.08.42+PM.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span id="docs-internal-guid-3faab09c-7fff-f756-8710-205a9713ad5f" style="line-height: 1.15;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 1.15; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Over the last week, I have been involved in a couple of discussions on Twitter and email where (I must admit it, although I know it will shock my regular audience) I was arguing about institutional power structures. In both cases, people seemed to want to deflect the discussions from the level of institutions to individuals. In one case, it was suggested that I was not using my power enough/correctly? and anyway, as a person with “power,” I could not critique institutional structures. In the other, I was supposedly abusing my “power” by “citationsplaining.” This charge (is this a thing now? or a hapaxlegomenon?), I believe, means citing a work of relevant scholarship in discussion to someone who already knows it. And since we all know all the relevant bibliography already (of course), citation is no longer necessary. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 1.15; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Leaving aside the otherwise interesting discussion of the “citaitionsplaining,” I want to talk about my power. In the contexts of these discussions, I would assert that I do not have</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: 700; line-height: 1.15; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> power</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 1.15; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">; what I have is a certain kind of </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: 700; line-height: 1.15; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">authority</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 1.15; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. There is an important and meaningful distinction between power and types of authority that is worth thinking about, especially for those who: </span></div>
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<span id="docs-internal-guid-3faab09c-7fff-f756-8710-205a9713ad5f" style="line-height: 1.15;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">It's interesting to me, of course, because this interplay between power and authority informs so much of my research. But it also seems to be a big part of social media and scholarship and...just human interaction generally. </span></span></span></div>
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<span id="docs-internal-guid-3faab09c-7fff-f756-8710-205a9713ad5f" style="line-height: 1.15;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span id="docs-internal-guid-3faab09c-7fff-f756-8710-205a9713ad5f" style="line-height: 1.15;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Let's start with the obvious: I read way too much Foucault and Edward Said in the 1990s (thanks, Erik and Victoria!) and it has shaped my understanding of power--what it is and how it operates. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminist-power/" target="_blank">feminist perspectives of power</a> provides a very useful starting point. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Power seems to have lots of possible definitions and permutations, but really, for our purposes here, Foucault’s idea of “power over” is what we mean. i.e. Power is the ability to get others to do what you want (imperium). In order to effect power, one has to have authority, but having authority (auctoritas) doesn’t mean one has power. </span></div>
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<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Weber" target="_blank">Max Weber</a> provides a good framing to get an explanation for authority. Weber divided authority between "traditional," "charismatic," and "legal-rational." "Traditional", Weber argues, comes from longstanding custom, like patriarchy--we don’t have to continue to organize societies around masculine power, but we do because “that’s how it’s always been done.” </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 1.15;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: 1.15; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial; line-height: 1.15;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 1.15;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: 1.15; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: arial; line-height: 1.15;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Another type of “traditional” authority might be tenure. So, at my home institution, I have certain protections that come with having gotten (after 6 years on the job market) a certain type of job that after jumping through hoops for another 6 years enables me to write, teach, and participate in campus governance without fear of losing my job. I can be critical of the institution, how it is run; I can teach controversial topics; I can write about the ties of my discipline to white supremacism. The tenure system is a vestige of what used to be “the way things are done.” In some places, it still is a form of “traditional” authority, but not in others.
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<span style="line-height: 1.15;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: 1.15; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: arial; line-height: 1.15;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">As a tenured faculty member, I also have institutional power because at my college, faculty are part of the governance structure, which means I also have “legal-rational” authority. "Legal-rational" authority inheres in the office--"the office of the President", for example. Regardless of who the individual is, the institutional position or affiliation that individual has (i.e. tenure) grants them authority to wield the power of that institution in certain circumstances (like when on a committee) and expects a certain level of deference.
This kind of authority can also function outside of one’s home institution. It does so in a couple of ways. One example is the <a href="https://medium.com/@planudes/the-prestige-economy-of-university-affiliation-4ac366c96c55" target="_blank">prestige economy of institutions</a>, Another is scholarly reputation based on peer reviewed publication (one of the ways you can get tenure). This is a kind of authority I have because I have published well-respected, well-reviewed, and cited books and articles that can borrow the prestige and power of the presses they are published with and the other scholars who review them. I can exercise this authority through citing others, editing volumes and inviting others to participate and reviewing books/manuscripts/articles. I can benefit from the power that attaches to this sort of legal-rational authority by getting speaking invitations and making decisions about whose work is and isn’t ready to be published.
Another example of legal-rational authority comes from affiliation with and participation in professional organizations. I was once the co-chair of the <a href="https://wccaucus.org/" target="_blank">Women’s Classical Caucus</a>. At that time, I was asked for my opinion on lots of things and invited to various committee meetings, included on too many email chains to count, and had the ability to help shape institutional policy and practice. But that sort of power goes with the position, not with the person. Once I stopped serving on that committee, I stopped being included on those email threads (phew!), stopped having any power to shape policy and practice. Not having that (or any) affiliations outside of my home campus now means that I do not have legal-rational authority outside of my campus because any authority I had was only by association or affiliation with external authorities. And it isn’t my thing (nor am I properly situated in the prestige economy) to use affiliation anyway to gain other forms of institutional power and legal-rational authority.
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<span style="line-height: 1.15;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: 1.15; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: arial; line-height: 1.15;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">What that leaves me with is (and do not laugh) "charismatic" authority. This type of authority derives from an individual's personality. For me, it is my public work and Twitter persona that gives me this type of authority. To have “charismatic” authority doesn’t mean I am particularly likeable--let’s be honest, I am very easy to dislike. The very things upon which any authority I have is based--aggression, willingness to question the status quo, and excessive honesty—are the same things that undermine me. But this is all I’ve got.
How did I get it? From Twitter and my blog, mostly. But, of course, it is just a blog. Anyone with an internet connection can have one. It doesn’t have any institutional backing to give it something resembling the type of legal-rational authority that can come from writing on a press. A blog platformed on and affiliated with institutional entities like Discover Channel or Forbes or Eidolon or TLS gets authority from those platforms. My blog (which doesn’t even use Wordpress!) has its authority only from the person writing it, who does have the scholarly credentials to write a respectable blog, but has to have some sort of charismatic authority in order for people to care enough to read it.
It is all rather complicated, isn’t it? I do not really have any power--not the kind of power that some people seem to think I have. I can blog about these recent incidents, of course, as obnoxious as that is (an occupational hazard for those with charismatic authority). But, I can’t make anyone do what I want them to do. I can’t make people with platforms center the needs and voices of secondary and undergrad-only teachers instead of almost always centering people from PhD granting institutions as if their opinions are the only ones that matter and their perspectives somehow universal. Because it certainly isn't the case that saying "I am aware that I am privileged" is enough to erase that privilege when it is still the loudest voice in the room.
I also can’t make organizations change their policies or practices by tweeting or blogging about it or participating in an email discussion. Nor can I negatively impact someone’s career or status by throwing a citation into an email to support my position in the discussion. In fact, throwing out citations is a way to shore up my lack of power within an institutionally recognized form of authority. I do not feel confident resting the argument upon my own expertise, so I summon someone else’s. A major limitation of charismatic authority is that it is singularly dependent upon the good will of others to exist and can't rely on platforms or institutions. It can disappear just as quickly as it appears.
But, this extra-institutional, unaffiliated sort of power is actually easier to use while maintaining my principles (a benefit also of tenure). I don’t have to compromise in order to effect some sort of political agreement in policy (I am not part of those conversations). Nor am I ever tempted to try to use my affiliations with institutional forms of power to personal benefit (can't abuse what you don’t have!). The only way I can maintain any semblance of authority is by adhering to the principles that people found worth investing with authority to begin with. Otherwise, we could see #cancelKennedy trending.
I think about this fairly regularly, because one of the ways that institutional and traditional authorities are maintained is by not questioning the status quo. It is by investing in “neutral” or “blind” practices and policies. Charismatic authority, while the most precarious and even dangerous, can actually move conversations by questioning the other forms of authority. But it does so usually at the cost of alienating those invested in or embedded within those other types of authority. And maintaining it without sacrificing one’s principles usually means having to not care if you lose it.
When people say I have “power,” they are referring to this unmoored, unaffiliated, and unstable kind of authority. If people want to grant me this kind of authority, sure, ok. Just best to lower your expectations about what someone can (and cannot) actually do with it.</span>
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Rebecca Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09189847760200499244noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2441584511996015550.post-2474522180976924482020-05-18T15:12:00.011-04:002020-05-25T16:09:23.435-04:00Correcting Nonsense about the Ancient Greco-Roman PastIt has been about 2.5 years since I first wrote "<a href="https://eidolon.pub/why-i-teach-about-race-and-ethnicity-in-the-classical-world-ade379722170" target="_blank">Why I Teach About Race and Ethnicity in the Classical World</a>" for Eidolon. The impetus for it was Donna Zuckerberg's article "<a href="https://eidolon.pub/how-to-be-a-good-classicist-under-a-bad-emperor-6b848df6e54a" target="_blank">How to Be a Good Classicist under a Bad Emperor</a>," which called on classicists to teach more about the diversity of the ancient world. Like my colleagues Sydnor Roy, Denise McCoskey and Shelly Haley and others, I've been teaching iterations of this class for a long time. And, so I thought I would make a statement on why in order to encourage others to do it to. Also, of course, because teaching a class like this can be hard, Syd and I decided to make it easier on ourselves back in 2010 and publish the sourcebook in 2013--<a href="https://www.hackettpublishing.com/race-and-ethnicity-in-the-classical-world" target="_blank">Race and Ethnicity in the Classical World: An Anthology of Sources</a>. It isn't perfect and needs a second edition one of these days to add inscriptions, papyri, early Christian texts, focused material on immigration and enslavement. There is so much material on this topic from antiquity that it really is a life's work to track it all down. I've been <a href="https://rfkclassics.blogspot.com/p/teaching-race-and-ethnicity.html" target="_blank">gathering other people's syllabi</a> for about two years now in order to make them available to others and to learn from how others teach their versions. And, because there is always more to learn, I am constantly changing my own syllabus. <div><br /></div><div>What follows is a reflection on the latest iteration of the class with student responses that functions as something of a revision of my Eidolon article and also as a response of sorts to the dangerous view of identity in antiquity and its modern appropriations represented in a recent review of books (screenshot of the opening paragraph--I am not linking to the site):</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnkBK5OzsFZ80KryY1iFo-O-kCXt_-NpkDuEwiIPjmYUg12iWg5sShzwzRSYAj4ofHzzIJixT17ZmXmnVIJh5QpcRb2eesGqbxT3N2D1hDEh8u-D_Z-n8XqilRfU3Gtf8AOqZCTpMFZbQa/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1215" data-original-width="1599" height="486" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnkBK5OzsFZ80KryY1iFo-O-kCXt_-NpkDuEwiIPjmYUg12iWg5sShzwzRSYAj4ofHzzIJixT17ZmXmnVIJh5QpcRb2eesGqbxT3N2D1hDEh8u-D_Z-n8XqilRfU3Gtf8AOqZCTpMFZbQa/w640-h486/fullsizeoutput_d4f.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">One of the goals of teaching race and ethnicity in the ancient world (as part of our larger courses and in stand alone classes) is to help disabuse people of these types of unserious and inaccurate positions. It is also to give students tools to identify and understand how such views are racist, orientalist, white supremacist and promote inaccuracies about both antiquity and the modern world in the service of ideology. Our success in the classroom can have impact down the road in making these sort of bad history takes less useful or common. So, here we go... </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i>**All materials from students used with permission.** </i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijh2d3qYsb1Xec-v_GNl76f2Xe2CxbQjhczlEszqmhNVoc-pa76YWb-CQyfly1flEmJEKP3jjDZdSqlCMsqMwuca9m10EOCqWBZIGdbVl0gsuPQxh1hnVMWEXL2RektD1E43Dq2I-bMtea/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="42" data-original-width="716" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijh2d3qYsb1Xec-v_GNl76f2Xe2CxbQjhczlEszqmhNVoc-pa76YWb-CQyfly1flEmJEKP3jjDZdSqlCMsqMwuca9m10EOCqWBZIGdbVl0gsuPQxh1hnVMWEXL2RektD1E43Dq2I-bMtea/s320/Screen+Shot+2018-05-05+at+11.01.23+AM.png" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><blockquote><i>I can only imagine that the true final project would have coalesced all of these aspects into one final performance on what we have learned throughout this semester. That is also what is so sad and disappointing about this semester, we never got to do everything that the course got to offer. I realize that it must be disappointing to have a plan for a semester and have it totally upended from some freak pandemic. Regardless, I really enjoyed the class and thought of it to be one of the more meaningful courses I have taken throughout my college experience so far.</i> ~student comment</blockquote></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Let's start from reality. This class was not the class I intended it to be when the semester started. I had spent a lot of time this past year thinking about how I wanted to change the class based on the current cultural moment, on responses from the previous iteration, and based on my own shifting interests. So, I changed reading structure--instead of using scholarship on specific passages and text along with the ancient texts and then tagging on the reception of these ideas to the last 3-4 weeks of the term, I integrated the reception throughout and ordered Ibram X. Kendi's <i><a href="https://www.ibramxkendi.com/stamped-from-the-beginning" target="_blank">Stamped from the Beginning</a> </i>as the textbook we would read along side of the ancient sources. You can see that version of the syllabus (the one I gave out at the beginning of the term) <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Pb8VVWuxPi_gsAfztDJUKwTyREBKZ_AT/view" target="_blank">here</a>. I also planned a panel of classicists who work on various aspects of Classics Africana (or Black Classicisms) to come to campus and help us integrate the ancient material with the Kendi and with an exhibition at the Denison Museum called "<a href="https://www.pbs.org/video/say-it-loud-denison-museum-lpmbwl/" target="_blank">Say it Loud</a>". It included a performance of the <a href="https://soundcloud.com/hype4homer" target="_blank">Hype4Homer </a>project. So awesome. The panel happened, but 3 days later campus shut down. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Obviously, the move to online teaching required some modifications to my syllabus. This involved reducing the length of readings, adding more visual content and restructuring the assignments. The revised syllabus for the last few weeks can be found <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XUq63EYJLViIvdlK7lX7yJsw9f5pE-et9fE_lNJEUZY/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">here</a>. What isn't visible on the new schedule is the targeted discussion questions on our Learning management System and the memes and audio recordings I asked students to do. The final project was originally for them to write an essay on the intersections between ancient and modern ideas of race and ethnicity and present it in a multimedia format (a program called Shorthand). Obviously, that was going to be rough, so instead I asked them to write a reflection of what they learned in the class and would take away with them to wherever they go in the future. For many students, this was and will be their only Classics course, so I was curious.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5nh6TAkJBd9fr9H4VBh1CfZgeTyrl2Zu5kLIoZeI0RxBPXIvBxvjBg7lhHL5WQZcqzwwTR30NW3AX7pLtA4Hn8B3VsrLVbWxtMh9cL-fAmaIIfixoj2UdxJawlXtn5KCyz1eQDZ1sjFfd/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="398" data-original-width="697" height="366" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5nh6TAkJBd9fr9H4VBh1CfZgeTyrl2Zu5kLIoZeI0RxBPXIvBxvjBg7lhHL5WQZcqzwwTR30NW3AX7pLtA4Hn8B3VsrLVbWxtMh9cL-fAmaIIfixoj2UdxJawlXtn5KCyz1eQDZ1sjFfd/w640-h366/Orientalism+meme+1.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3moTmzBEUcjpXLNK_rPZVp6DJk7rdNuMtL43K0eOs_r179-1xFQkuFIxDkGqF63ie4cx4o7s1GXVxPkgja3norCqRzg6gnJTfDidokszeZss2_CJvfU5czNulbyXwEXmfAUA7y6kOCoZ9/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="738" data-original-width="1468" height="201" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3moTmzBEUcjpXLNK_rPZVp6DJk7rdNuMtL43K0eOs_r179-1xFQkuFIxDkGqF63ie4cx4o7s1GXVxPkgja3norCqRzg6gnJTfDidokszeZss2_CJvfU5czNulbyXwEXmfAUA7y6kOCoZ9/w400-h201/Xerxes+meme+1.png" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The plan for the semester was to integrate the discussion of modern receptions, adaptations, evolutions from, and uses of ancient ideas about race and ethnicity throughout, to help student see more jarringly the way ancient ideas moved into and were used in modern race constructs. Reading Tacitus' <i>Germania</i> and seeing the Nazi use of it at the same time is more impactful than reading it and then looking at Nazi receptions 4 weeks later. Doing so, however, required that we begin the class with very clear definitions of what race and ethnicity are (or how we would use these terms in class). Students were very clear that the didn't have a definition of either (some had never really thought about ethnicity, for example), but knew that "race is a social construct"--whatever that meant. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><blockquote><i>"The fact that race was introduced as “the institutionalization of prejudice and oppressions based on moving signifiers for human difference” because we need a different way to approach it when looking at it in ancient times really made sense. While we look at race as color and appearance now, color was used in a lot of different ways back then...For reasons like these it’s much more productive to view race as a technology that structures human interactions and manifests within institutions. The categorizations of race ideas found in Kendi—segregationist, assimilationist, and anti-racist—were also really significant, specifying two conflicting kinds of racism. But the argument from Kendi that resonated with me most was that racist ideas, hate, and ignorance stem from racial discrimination and policies instead of the other way around. This makes so much sense as I notice selfish motives, primarily money and status, being the actual causes of discriminatory policies not only throughout this class but throughout a lot of material from my other classes..."</i> ~student comment</blockquote></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><blockquote><i>"I remember the definitions we discussed on the first day and how we subsequently applied them to the ancient Greek sources dealing with origin myths. Based on these primary sources, I could see that today’s ethnic and racial classifications didn’t fit onto the ancient world as many people would think they did. The rubber really hit the road, so to speak, when comparing the identity discourses within the ancient sources to those that Kendi wrote about. It was clear that ideas of race and ethnicity from the late modern period, give or take, simultaneously incorporated ancient views and departed from them. The kernel of blackness in ancient descriptions of North African populations became exaggerated as the focal point for modern racist ideologies. Through this example and others, I could see that speaking of race and ethnicity in an ancient context requires an appreciation of these different paradigms."</i> ~student comment</blockquote></div><div>We started class with our working definitions and these would be the definitions we would use throughout the term. Importantly, I wanted them to understand that the terms 'race' and 'ethnicity' are not interchangeable, that theories like environmental determinism are not 'racial theories' unless that can be manifested in things like laws or political institutions and then form the basis for oppression (like the Athenian metic system or Spartan helots). As Kendi argues (rightly) racist policy creates racist ideas. By using Kendi and weaving him in throughout the course, student could see how ancient ideas came to be foundational to modern racist ideas. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfCIbyd3XwrRAe-meiC6eetlqumxzU7C3X5i9UtkPfanj0n4pLW31W8B8HqyzDVgSZdulkHZcS8smKDA9GB_sb-pAJOnKhvnY_OC7IlieK33rB08n5x7cgpj9JoXNOr02llA0DD2yCk50Z/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="690" data-original-width="1248" height="354" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfCIbyd3XwrRAe-meiC6eetlqumxzU7C3X5i9UtkPfanj0n4pLW31W8B8HqyzDVgSZdulkHZcS8smKDA9GB_sb-pAJOnKhvnY_OC7IlieK33rB08n5x7cgpj9JoXNOr02llA0DD2yCk50Z/w640-h354/Screen+Shot+2020-05-18+at+2.27.43+PM.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpKoToj5l2JaP8DQfjq8Etk5qg56krnYTBKChQebhPEMynjcywT_A-cRGJUAYcZtP9Nhr6TDiKgwpc2y-GKq4dQKLUw6_-efbwV9Dzg-4uhJyS8LQi3HdVbp47t0NkmheMRYV2v8LrQnHg/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="547" data-original-width="1207" height="290" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpKoToj5l2JaP8DQfjq8Etk5qg56krnYTBKChQebhPEMynjcywT_A-cRGJUAYcZtP9Nhr6TDiKgwpc2y-GKq4dQKLUw6_-efbwV9Dzg-4uhJyS8LQi3HdVbp47t0NkmheMRYV2v8LrQnHg/w640-h290/Screen+Shot+2020-05-18+at+2.28.00+PM.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzDWC1H4-GPySe8Tn-vuBINuF1j9a4KKVjvlwTFhnhs_iNtz0iQLkzyrxejQuJZtGnSqNun2na9I7aQGe4UOi7ez1YwiFFrjc7Rg8Wfv3gsxfl0nvBzaUWS48ZIFsak8SP_R1Dv40jikdg/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="627" data-original-width="1193" height="336" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzDWC1H4-GPySe8Tn-vuBINuF1j9a4KKVjvlwTFhnhs_iNtz0iQLkzyrxejQuJZtGnSqNun2na9I7aQGe4UOi7ez1YwiFFrjc7Rg8Wfv3gsxfl0nvBzaUWS48ZIFsak8SP_R1Dv40jikdg/w640-h336/Screen+Shot+2020-05-18+at+2.28.40+PM.png" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I think the class was successful in part because we had clear terms for engagement, I was very clear about why we needed to read the ancient and the modern together--in order to know how the modern world has (mis)used the ancient, they need to be laid side by side. It is unfair to ask students to infer connections that are often so embedded as 'reality' for them--prejudices, assumptions, 'nature'--without some sort of guidance or framework. </div><div><br /></div><div>This brings me to the silly book review screenshot above--the idea that a war in antiquity could be somehow the pivotal moment in the history of some imaginary 'western' world identity. So, what did my students learn this term? </div><div><blockquote><i>"In fact, just recently I was able to enlighten my younger sisters on where race came from while they were participating in a heated debate considering whether black people could be racist to whites. I overheard the conversation and put what I have learned in this course to the test. After conversing with my sisters I was proud of what I was able to accomplish and realized that this information will give me a step up when entering the workforce. Although preconceived notions and racist ideas may not always be on display, they are in the minds of the people around us and as a black man I am forced to think about that everyday."</i> ~student comment</blockquote><blockquote><i>"I learned quite a bit in this class, especially about how residual some ideas are. I was shocked to read some passages about certain ethnic groups that could still be written today, and how destructive a mindset they could be. It was quite interesting to “track” these assumptions about people from their beginning in ancient times to the present, and see their true origins. My favorite class period was the one focused on the census, and tracking the evolution of racial categories from its inception in the early 1800s. Race has always been one of the biggest issues in America, and the world, so seeing how our ideas of who is who has changed, and how the need to categorize people definitively is so ingrained."</i> ~student comment</blockquote><div><blockquote><i>"While I understood that racism built on foundations laid in the past centuries (or millennia) before taking this class, the examples I encountered highlighted its presence for me. Linking the caricatures of black people provided by everything from minstrel shows to Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben products today to ancient (and sometimes fantastical) descriptions of specific African groups were helpful in this respect. Another aspect of this is the white European self-identification with ancient Greeks and Romans. 23andme and other such testing services seemed harmless to me a year ago. Even cool - using science to peer into your past. That’s part of their image used to market the product, of course. But based on this class and the various related lectures I attended, I can now see how easily they can be used to affirm a subjective image of someone’s identity."</i> ~student comment</blockquote></div><div><blockquote><i>"This class also helped bring attention to the ways in which we as a culture glorify Greece and Rome a lot. It’s really important that we ask, “What is it about us that makes us want a group to be homogenous?” when countries not only today but since ancient times have actually been mixed entities with all different kinds of people within. The fact that being Greek can’t be seen just as being from the nation-state of Greece since they were essentially spread across the span of about three continents was something I’ve never thought about before.</i>" ~student comment</blockquote></div><div><blockquote><i>"The most important part of this class that I will carry with me is the connection between ancient viewpoints and the foundational beliefs of the United States. To think the education system of the United States was very recently based in ancient Latin and Greek. The reading of ancient philosophers was basic, foundational knowledge necessary to enter into a university. I know now that many of these texts also contain racist, classist, and sexist ideas. The fascination with classicism in the United States ties to our “founding fathers’” creation of a system of government that inherently benefitted straight, white men from the beginning. The mythos that the ancient Greek and Roman empires were white or even racially homogenized only contributes to the place these texts hold in white supremacy." </i>~student comment</blockquote></div><div>The comments are like this from almost every student. They also say that they learned how to be better critical readers, to question their own assumptions and potential biases, and feel more confident analyzing primary materials. These are all things that are so important in the world we live in today. I am pretty sure all of my students would read that review and give it the big eye roll and F-you it deserves. </div><div><br /></div><div>But, it isn't just how we talk about readings and videos and whatnot. Who we give voice to for our classes matters. Bringing in Kendi changed the dynamics of the class and made students, especially the white students, confront some realities they didn't necessarily know or think mattered to them. Also, the panel I organized with my colleague Omedi Ochieng in Communication had more impact on some students than the entire rest of the class:</div><div><blockquote><i>"This experience also had a big impact on me because, as a woman of color, it really meant a lot to me to see other people of color be passionate about and accumulate success in the classics field; it reaffirmed a message that Dr. Goldman gave the first day of my “Classical Drama” course, that the classics is not just for old, white men. I will always remember this experience for both personal and academic reasons..." </i>~student comment</blockquote><div>After loving the classics for years and being told by their parents that they couldn't be a classics major, and feeling unsure why they even loved classics, to have this student say this meant more than anything else.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijh2d3qYsb1Xec-v_GNl76f2Xe2CxbQjhczlEszqmhNVoc-pa76YWb-CQyfly1flEmJEKP3jjDZdSqlCMsqMwuca9m10EOCqWBZIGdbVl0gsuPQxh1hnVMWEXL2RektD1E43Dq2I-bMtea/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="42" data-original-width="716" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijh2d3qYsb1Xec-v_GNl76f2Xe2CxbQjhczlEszqmhNVoc-pa76YWb-CQyfly1flEmJEKP3jjDZdSqlCMsqMwuca9m10EOCqWBZIGdbVl0gsuPQxh1hnVMWEXL2RektD1E43Dq2I-bMtea/s320/Screen+Shot+2018-05-05+at+11.01.23+AM.png" width="320" /></a></div> </div></div><div>Classics really can be a classics for all, if we are willing to let go of its ties to whiteness and power, be open to the world beyond the canon, and invest efforts in "non-traditional" courses in translation that can reach more students and can really be transformative for them. None of the quotations in this post are from a classics major--80% of the student had never even taken a classics course before. And yet, it meant something to them and will change the way they engage with the world around them and how the classical appears in it. Teaching this class over the years, and this year most of all, has been transformative for me in so many ways, because it meant something to nearly every student in the class who took the journey with me.</div></div>Rebecca Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09189847760200499244noreply@blogger.com