We asked summer intern Dorothea Newman, a high school student, to identify and reflect on her three favorite SCS blog posts. Here are her reflections.
As a burgeoning classicist, it was incredibly painful to read that mythology and other classical references had been employed in white supremacist rhetoric (not to mention, incorrectly). However, reading about the response of the Classics community, advocating for the removal of the statue, in McArdle’s blog post was all the more inspiring. This blog piece highlights that there are inherently problematic interpretations of the past, and classicists have to own (and some indeed have owned) that. What is dangerous is that white supremacists are picking up on these horrific interpretations which classicists have spoken out against time and time again. Classicists are trying to emphasize that we have inherited a “beloved tradition,” but that this tradition has been used for exclusionary and harmful practices, which must be acknowledged. In terms of history, what is stressed in the blog post is that historical monuments convey historical interpretations, not historical facts.
I have spent some time studying my Jewish identity, and specifically my Jewish past. My grandfather and his brother are Holocaust survivors, but I know that the persecution of Jews did not begin in Germany in the early twentieth century. I was therefore immediately drawn to the blog post regarding the Jewish holiday of Purim in the Late Roman Empire. Having been Christianized, this was a version of Rome that was quite different from what is traditionally thought of as “Ancient Rome.” By this time, there were 107 imperial Roman laws regarding Jews or Judaism. Specifically, the Theodosian Code provides the law that describes the restrictions on the celebration of Purim. The law never mentions the word “Purim” itself but forbids Jewish rites that are closely associated with its celebration (including hanging up and burning an effigy of Haman). Bonesho’s blog post highlights that these laws reflected an imperial ideology that was even more prevalent after the Christianization of the Roman Empire, and furthermore displays the religious competition in Late Antiquity. Reading this piece gave me more insight into a past connected to my identity interweaved with my passion for classics. In school, we focus much less on the Late Roman Empire, so this post provided me with information regarding a new aspect of classics which I have not had the chance to learn much about.
These past few years have been a time for people to speak out about their personal experiences about sexual assault and harassment. The #MeToo movement has brought attention to a topic that had been hidden for too long. Sara Hales and Arum Park are two classicists who are writing about reading and teaching classical rape narratives in the age of #MeToo. They provide examples of how, with their conscious knowledge of being immersed in people’s stories of sexual violence, they notice specific words and repetition of these words in the ancient texts. Furthermore, these words mirror how people describe their sexual assault experiences today. In the accounts, sexual violence is incredibly apparent in the text and images from the text. In other words, #MeToo catalyzed a sensitivity and awareness to these connotations. They then discuss how writers like Livy, Plutarch, and Ovid justify rape in Ancient Rome by giving excuses and silver linings. In turn, professors who teach these texts have disclaimed them by saying that women in Ancient Rome were unfortunately vulnerable to these actions. The repercussions of these excuses is that it absolves the men of their responsibility for the sexual violence. One of the purposes of the #MeToo movement: to heighten accountability. These two professors address the question in their blog post: how do we discuss these stories now that we have identified what we have been doing wrong? The answer that they provide is to tell the stories as accounts of “feminine resilience and resourcefulness” and “reclaim the agency and respect that was trampled on.” Overall, the #MeToo movement has offered a way for those in the field of classics to reevaluate of how classics is taught, identify its problematic areas, and furthermore inspire solutions.
More October 2018 Newsletter Content
Read Wells Hansen's announcement about the new direction for Amphora
SCS intern Oliver Hughes reflects on his favorite Amphora articles
Check out the two citations for the winners of the SCS Collegiate Teaching Award
