Classics Department Welcomes Professor Padilla Peralta
By: Toby Chan, Cindy Su, Athena Wang,
Seated around the Latin Study Harkness table, students listened with rapt attention to lectures on “A History of Roman Slavery.” With professor Dan-el Padilla Peralta, they explored the narratives of enslaved persons over the course of four days. Topics included the traumas of slavery and the aftermath of manumission in the Roman Empire.
Supported by the Behr Fund, the Classical Languages Department brought Peralta, an Associate Professor of Classics and affiliate of Latino and Latin American Studies at Princeton University, to campus on the week of Jan. 20. In addition to speaking at assembly, Peralta gave an evening lecture on Wednesday on “The Effects of Manumission: Racial Melancholy in the Roman World.”
Peralta described his work as being deeply informed by his own experiences—specifically, being a Latinx uncoumented immigrant. In the field of classics, he focuses on Reception Studies, Greek and Roman Religion as well as Roman History.
Moving to the States from the Dominican Republic at four years old, he once lived with his family in New York City as an undocumented immigrant. During assembly, Peralta explored the definitional complexities of “citizenship” and described how narrative scarcity of Dominian history drove him to study classics.
Classical Languages Instructor Paul Langford admired Peralta’s thought-provoking questions and passion. “It's an extraordinary story and raises a lot of interesting questions about how this country handles immigration and provides opportunities for people, whether they're undocumented or not,” Langford said. “I think it's also impressive that someone in that situation from all of his background as well as experience could have found a passion for classical studies.”
Classical Languages Department Chair Matthew Hartnett added that Peralta’s work contributed greatly to innovating and diversifying classical academia. “He's bringing attention to areas in classical studies that don't always get the attention that they should,” he said.
Peralta’s lunch seminars were titled “The Beginnings of a Slave Society in Rome,” “Roman Slavery in the Republican Period,” “Slavery in the Roman Empire” and “Slavery and Early Christianity” on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday respectively.
While Peralta used familiar texts and authors as examples to students, his work comparing Roman society to other societies and specific focus on enslaved persons introduced new perspectives not commonly discussed at Exeter. “Professor Peralta is able to present material very clearly and efficiently, and he engages the students,” Langford said. “His ability to teach about slavery is something that none of us in the [Classics] Department have a lot of expertise in.”
Upper Charlie Preston appreciated Peralta’s disruption of popular narratives in Roman history that are not necessarily true. “I think we are too quick to venerate the Roman leaders of the past, and we don’t spend the time to introspect and look at the more malicious aspects,” he said. Preston further added that Peralta “had a real talent talking about these really complex and interesting matters in a way that sort of brought them down to earth for lay classicists to understand.”
The department has attempted to invite Peralta for years. Hartnett explained that Exeter was ultimately able to bring Peralta in through the department’s connection to Joshua Katz, a Professor of Classics at Princeton. Katz has been the visiting scholar multiple times.
From his time here, Peralta hoped students will understand responsibilities to the correct portrayal of history. “We have a pretty powerful ethical responsibility to the dead. One of the guiding principles in my teaching as a historian is the fervent conviction that we can't just cater our histories to the narratives of elites—to the preferences of those who would want their histories of domination to be reproduced forever,” Peralta said. “We have to be very attentive to silences in the archive.”
As Peralta prepared to depart, he hoped to offer some advice to young Exonians. “I remember [childhood episodes] because I see in them seeds being planted for the intellectual … and ethical commitments that have guided me ever since,” he said. “But the genesis for the ways of being in the world that I have come to most treasure really did take place in the freest moments, when I felt the least encumbered. And so I would encourage folks to embrace the freest moments.” Peralta noted that, when students embrace their freedom, they may bring novel interpretations to familiar understandings.