Classics
By Ella Brady, Kaylee Chen, Tucker Gibbs and Krish Patel
In his forceful and prolific career, Princeton University professor Dan-el Padilla Peralta has revolutionized the world of Classics. On February 2nd of 2021, the New York Times published an article detailing the life and work of Professor Peralta, who is calling for the field of Classics to be abolished completely, deeming it inseparable from white supremacy. Classics faculty members and students at the Academy have reacted with strong opinions towards the call for the abolishment of Classics.
The article, titled, “He Wants to Save Classics From Whiteness. Can the Field Survive?”, surmises Peralta’s argument that the academic field of Classics is inherently racist.
Padilla holds that the only way to rid the Classics of its racist underbelly is to destroy the field as it exists, distributing Classics into history, language studies and area studies. Padilla posited that the Classics have spent so long as a white washed field, that no matter the original beliefs of the Greco-Roman world, the study of Classics holds racist values at its core. Though Padilla tracks a long history of racist organizations appropriating imagery from Classics to support their causes, Padilla argues that beyond how others may exploit Classics in a racist manner, Classics is also racist to its core.
The field itself does not yet have a consensus on the issue. Many agree with Peralta that the recent usage of Classical values and symbols in alt-right rhetoric is symptomatic of the deeply ingrained nature of whiteness and racism in classics. However, others believe that reform is sufficient, and destruction is unnecessary.
At Exeter, the Classics Department and students have presented similarly divided views. Classics Instructor Mattew Hartnett provided a statement in response to the article on behalf of the department: “We encounter views and practices in our sources that we consider unacceptably wrong... but instead of passing over the unpalatable parts, we examine... them in order to better understand them... when they show up in other places and times.”
When asked whether Classical values were inherently racist, Hartnett wrote: “If by ‘Classical values’ you mean the values inherent in the ancient works themselves, I would argue that the majority of the texts we read serve as powerful antidotes to racist beliefs. The assumption underlying the best of the writings of the Greeks and Romans is that all human beings are joined by the common bond of mortality—the fact that unlike the gods, we all die someday—and we are all subject to the same imperative to make the best possible use of the limited lifespans we are allotted by fate.”
Hartnett believed that while many interpretations of Classics were racist, these interpretations were misuses, and Classics was not inherently racist. “The challenge, as Prof. Padilla-Peralta reminds us, is that ‘Classical values’ as interpreted by a lot of Europeans in the 19th century were wrapped up in abhorrent notions about colonialism and the inferiority of certain races and cultures,” Hartnett said. “We—not just the Classics faculty at Exeter, but teachers of the Classics everywhere—have to do everything we can to root out all traces of these misuses so that the best that the Greeks and Romans achieved, whether in poetry, philosophy, oratory, art, or whatever, can continue to inspire future generations of students and so that we don’t miss out on the benefit of studying the lives and experiences of people that can help us comprehend what it means to be human—the central mission of a humanistic education.”
Hartnett outlined the anti-racist initatives of the Classics Department. “We have already done, and have plans to do, more than can fit here,” Hartnett said. “But a few examples: we are constantly evaluating the language and images in our elementary textbooks to make them better reflect the diversity of the ancient Mediterranean world; we added a course that focuses on the experiences of women, enslaved persons and migrants, and continue to discuss ways to amplify across our curriculum the voices of non-elites and marginalized groups; and we are currently organizing a panel of recent and not-so-recent alumni of color who will discuss their perspectives on the state of Classics and field questions from current students.”Total abolishment of the Classics Department was not mentioned in Hartnett’s statement.
Instructor in History Troy Samuels, an archaeologist specializing in understudied and overlooked people in the ancient world, was more passionate about Peralta’s message. “Classics is the only discipline with a value judgment in its title. Every culture and group deserves to have a classical something that we kind of interrogate up on a pedestal… the systems are not working for everybody and we need to change the systems,” he said, quoting one of his dissertations. “I am in the process of designing syllabi and having conversations with colleagues to operationalize this change. I think there are definitely conversations happening,” he continued.
Classics students have an equal amount at stake in the matter. Exeter alum Nosa Lawani ’20, conferred with his fellow Classics alums on their thoughts while reading the piece. “[We] felt equally unsettled at both the intensity of the critique and our inability to really see his point of view in much of it,” he said. “His claim that no better system could be ‘intentionally designed’ to ‘disavow the legitimate status of scholars of color’ led us [Lawani and Calvin Henaku ’19] to reflect on our experiences as Black students in the Classics at Exeter, and the wider community of the Junior Classical League (JCL). We were both Augusti of the Kirtland Society at Exeter, and within the department’s classes and various travel opportunities, as we showed interest, our efforts were always acknowledged, rewarded and celebrated. Both of us felt that at Exeter the Classics community formed a real home on campus.”
“In our JCL experiences as well, both of us felt that there were no barriers from full participation based on race,” Lawani continued. “We were encouraged to participate and were lauded when we achieved, we never felt participation in the student government both at the state and National level, and we both felt that there was not a remarkable lack of diversity among the students we met from all over the country—especially given the declining access to the Classics in today’s world.”
Lawani and other alums were critical of Peralta’s stance. “There were almost no critiques of specific practices within the academic discipline. We all felt, both from our exposure to our Exeter classes as well as from our interactions with professional scholarship, that we did not see a pervasive idolization of the Greeks and Romans because of their whiteness… [in the piece] I saw instead the malalignment of the discipline by the more casual use of Classical themes by people in modern political contexts, such as Trump supporters, white nationalists or Dominican dictators.”
Lower Cindy Su was grateful for Peralta’s critique. “As an Asian American student studying the Classics, it makes me feel really hopeful that there are people like Peralta that are bringing conversations and topics about race to the table, she said. “Especially now that I'm taking the Roman history course along with reading De Bello Gallico in 220, it makes me increasingly wonder what narratives, particularly with people of color in the ancient world or other world powers such as China in the Han Dynasty could be missing from our image of the field."
Current Exeter Classics student and senior Phil Horrigan agreed with Peralta that destruction was necessary. “I believe we should dissolve Classics departments around the country and distribute the teachers into more fitting areas,” he said. “Before we destroy the classics, as Professor Padilla Peralta advocates, we should [however, examine it]. If we abandon Classics now, the voices of the marginalized that are just now being examined will go back into the shadows.
Conversations will continue into the foreseeable future; I don’t think we will ever reach a point where we will sit back and say, “There, we’re done. Everything is perfect.”
