The Impact of Immigration on Classical Studies in North America (organized by the Committee on the Status of Women and Minority Groups

Throughout the globe, outstanding scholars are the victims of sectarian, ideological or territorial repression and violence. Many are driven abroad or find that they are unable to return to their home countries. In the past, the University of Toronto has managed to find, from time to time, a place for such scholars on an ad hoc basis. In 1999, the Massey College/University of Toronto School of Graduate Studies Scholar-at-Risk Program was inaugurated.

After Hitler's seizure of power, scholars and intellectuals in Europe and the United States were appalled by the ruthless and rigid course of action against the academic freedom and against the sovereignty of German universities. Immediately after the Civil Service Restoration Act was passed on 7^th April 1933, thousands of Jewish and politically undesirable professors were dismissed. Within a few weeks, in an impressive act of international solidarity, efficient help organisations were founded.

Born and raised in China, I came to the States in 1998 to pursue a Ph.D. in Roman History. In my application, I stated that I aimed at being the first Roman historian from Mainland China with doctoral training in the West. That was not an exaggeration but a true reflection of the dearth of communication between the West and China in the area of Classics, as well as the asymmetrical state of Classics as an academic discipline in China and the West at that time.

The issue of immigration is highly relevant to our Classics classrooms in ways that demand our attention, and if at first that attention would seem to take us away from the study of the ancient world stricto sensu, I will argue that in fact it offers opportunities for yet richer engagement with material long at the core of our discipline.

In his 1992 study of the refugee classical scholars whom National Socialism drove to America’s shores, W.M. Calder III observed that “American classics is entirely dependent upon a Weltpolitik which most of its practitioners prefer to denigrate and ignore.” As Calder demonstrated to powerful effect, the history of 20^th- and 21^st-century classics in the Western Hemisphere cannot be properly grasped without attention to geopolitical forces.