Difficult Topics in the Classroom

In order to align my teaching more closely with the Quaker mission of my school, my upper-level courses focus on issues of gender, power, and race and the ways in which the reception of antiquity has been used to justify sexist and racist power structures in the modern world.

Just as the ancient Romans were drawn to the arena to bear witness to the blood and glory of gladiatorial combat, so too are students attracted to secondary classrooms by these stories. Instructors tend to teach this subject from the perspective of the spectator rather than the gladiator due to the lack of the gladiator’s voice in ancient literature (Hope, Fighting for Identity 93).

There is power in the concealment of racism. When masked, racism can spread even more rapidly than usual while under the guise of plausible deniability. Concealment comes in multiple forms including euphemisms and dog-whistling.

Like vampires hunting fresh blood, professional Classicists constantly look to fill our classrooms, to reassure ourselves and administrators of our discipline’s continuing viability. Few of us can wait for students to appear. We must promote and entice, promise and lure. But lure to, or with, what? A few decades ago, the answer (for some) was simpler: golden ages, Greek glories, Western civilization, Classics as synecdoche for education.

How can we address the visceral flaws of our nation in an empowering way? In Fall 2020, against the backdrop of the U.S.