Classics in Contemporary Culture

Thucydides' Gamble Succeeds, or, Herodotus Loses Paternity Suit

As reported in the Paly Voice:

Stanford University history professor David Kennedy made his annual presentation to the Palo Alto High School AP United States History classes on Wednesday, May 19.

Beginning his visit with a light-hearted presentation of humorous excerpts from student essays, Kennedy, co-writer of the renowned U.S. History text book, “The American Pageant,” proceeded to lecture on the nature and origins of history.

“History is not [a] universal law,” Kennedy said. “It is distinguishable from science and it is distinguishable from literature.”

In his lecture, he emphasized the meaning of history and its significance in both philosophical and academic aspects. Kennedy focused his speech on Thucydides’ monumental account of the Peloponnesian war, which marked the first historically accurate recording of an event in human history.

“‘The History of the Peloponnesian War’ is really the first recognizable kind of history,” Kennedy said. “That’s what we’ve tried to write ever since. Before Thucydides, history was more about myth-making than being a reliable account of events.”

Following his lesson on the origins of history, Kennedy addressed the more profound purpose of history beyond academics.

“History answers what it means to be a man...what it means to be a man in this time and place...what it means to be a man different from any other man,” Kennedy said.

Oh, the Humanities!

Stanley Fish reviews some recent books on education. The first is by a proponent of home-school "classical education," Leigh Bortins, who argues that each subject "can be mastered by the rigorous application of the skills of the classical Trivium, grammar, the study of basic forms, logic, the skill of abstracting from particulars and rhetoric, the ability to 'speak and write persuasively and eloquently about any topic while integrating allusions and examples from one field of study to explain a point in another.'" The third, by Diane Ravitch, critiques No Child Left Behind as an elaborate example of 'juking the stats' [not her phrase, or Fish's, but still...]

The second is a plea by Martha Nussbaum for the place of the Humanities for the training of citizens in democracies, within the context of an increasingly profit-driven global educational system...The first chapter is available online at Princeton University Press; cf. also Nussbaum's book from the late 90s, Cultivating Humanity...

[Thanks to rogueclassicism...]

Geminae Belli Portae

You've heard of "Generation Z"; you've heard of the "Millenials"...Well, the new term to describe these alternately ambitious and lazy up-and-comers (or not) is the "Janus Generation"...or so argues Jerry Pattengale in Inside Higher Ed. The article begins with a pair of anecdotes:

"Students today are so industrious!" My colleague blurted this after learning students had replaced labels on their water bottles with exact replicas — but with the test answers typed in the ingredients section.

However, another colleague disagreed with any positive attribute for today’s students. She recently summoned a failing Comp 101 student to inquire about his surprisingly excellent final paper. After he repeatedly claimed to have written "every word," she replied, "Then I have just one final question. Young man, exactly when did you have your abortion?" She concluded, "Students today are lazy. For 40 years I’ve caught students copying papers — but at least they had read them first!"

Some further snippets:

Student characteristics that appear as "laziness" to some are categorized as "technologically preoccupied" to others. "Entertainment" for one professor is labeled "sophistication" by another.

...

The Janus Generation faced another reality, the coming and going of troops. The two faces of the god Janus had appeared on opposite sides of Rome’s War Gates (or, the Gates of Janus, the god of doorways and beginnings, the namesake of January). Emperors bragged if these gates were shut (time of peace) and not open (time of sending to battle as Janus watched in both directions).

...

Janus was also known as the god of doorways and beginnings, and our students need these. From Kohn’s 1993 warning through Jossey-Bass’s recent release, Helping Sophomores Succeed, the key is helping them to find their life calling and sense of purpose. Whether we see the face of laziness or sophistication, nearly all major studies show a student core interested in spirituality and purpose. I have come to conclude that "the dream needs to be stronger than the struggle," and when students commit to causes they deem worthy they are more likely to succeed.

[Thanks to JMM at Classics-L]

Classics in America: Against Yale

James Fenimore Cooper's [justly?] neglected novel, Satanstoe, contains a picture of Colonial-era life in the area of New York...quite interesting, actually.  In the early chapters it gives an account of the celebration of the Pinkster festival, which Cooper refers to as a kind of "black Saturnalia."  (Meanwhile, two of the slaves of the main character's family are called "Caesar" and "Pompey"...)

In non-African-American-related matters, there is also an amusing comparison of (Classical) learning in New England (Yale:  bad) versus in New Jersey (Nassau Hall, the antecedent of Princeton:  good).  Jason Newcome, the Puritan and graduate of Yale, "had not the smallest notion of quantity; and he pronounced Latin very much as one would read Mohawk, from a vocabulary made out by a hunter, or a savant of the French academy..."  The main character, Cornelius Littlepage, considers that his own "knowledge of the classics went beyond that of Jason..."  That being so, it is also interesting to note Corny's account of his training and curriculum.  Before college, he studied "until [he] could translate the two first Aeneids, and the whole of the Gospel of St. Matthew, pretty readily."  At college: 

I read all of the New Testament, in Greek; several of Cicero's Orations; every line of Horace, Satires and Odes; four books of the Iliad; Tully de Oratore, throughout; besides paying proper attention to geography, mathematics, and other of the usual branches.  Moral philosophy, in particular, was closely attended to, senior year, as well as astronomy.  We had a telescope that showed us all four of Jupiter's moons.  In other respects, Nassau might be called the seat of learning.  One of our class purchased a second-hand copy of Euripides, in town, and we had it in college all of six months; though it was never my good fortune to see it, as the young man who owned it was not much disposed to let profane eyes view his treasure.  Nevertheless, I am certain the copy of the work was in college; and we took good care to let the Yale men hear of it more than once.  I do not believe they ever saw even the outside of a Euripides...

Finally, and unsurprisingly, the sense that English schools were far ahead in the teaching of the Classics appears:  "Mr. Worden laughed at both; said that neither [Yale nor Nassau] had as much learning as a second-rate English grammar-school; and that a lower-form boy, at Eton or Westminster, could take a master's degree at either, and pass for a prodigy in the bargain..."

Classics in African-American Life, part 3

In case the previous two posts give the impression that I don't realize that people have indeed studied this seriously, here are a few real treatments of "Classics in African-American Life":

• T. L. Walters, African American Literature and the Classicist Tradition... (2007)
• M. V. Ronnick (ed.), The Autobiography of William Sanders Scarborough (2005)
• P. D. Rankine, Ulysses in Black: Ralph Ellison, Classicism, and African American Literature (2008)

Ancient History, Modern Insights

Here's a snippet from the acknowledgements in the preface to T. D. Barnes' Athanasius and Constantius:  Theology and Politics in the Constantinian Empire (Harvard U. P., 1993):

My research would have been impossible without both institutional support and the opportunity to work in a consistently academic environment...The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada provided a small research grant which has considerably hastened the completion of the final text, while the University of Toronto not only gave me a year's research leave again in 1990-91, but has over the years deepened my insight into the modus operandi of men like Athanasius and Constantius.

Classics for All!

...says Charlotte Higgins (Guardian):

The classics and class have always been ­uncomfortably linked. In this country's education system, knowledge of the classics was traditionally the gatekeeper of privilege. If you ­acquired the classics (even as a humble stonemason's son, like Thomas Hardy) you gained a passport to the establishment. Fail (like Hardy's character Jude) and the corridors of power remained out of reach.

...

However, the baby has been thrown out with the bathwater. The impulse in the latter half of the 20th century was, instead of broadening access to the study of ancient languages, to slowly strangle it, at least in state education. The result is that Latin and Greek have become more, rather than less, the preserve of independent and public schools, their inevitable poster boy the Eton-and-Balliol man Boris Johnson. With splendid paradox, the government does not recognise Latin – the progenitor of most modern European tongues – as a language as far as the curriculum is concerned. Just 27 PGCE places are available to would-be Latin teachers each year, and a mere eight places in graduate on-the-job training schemes.

But classics won't be killed off. Like that other classical thing close to my heart – music – its demise has been often predicted. But instead of falling on its sword, like a good Roman Stoic, classics has just kept on going. The huge public appetite for knowledge of the ancient world can be seen in the popularity of Roman Mysteries, Caroline Lawrence's brilliant stories for children, or grown-up history such as Tom Holland's ­Rubicon and Mary Beard's Pompeii.

As the classics professor Richard Seaford pointed out at the Glasgow conference, in 2009 there are more university departments devoted to the subject, more students, more conferences and more productions of Greek plays in the UK than there were 100 years ago. This is not to mention the web, which has transformed access to ancient texts and academic materials. There is even a Roman villa in Second Life, where Latin is spoken. And there are, believe it or not, teachers who tweet students their Latin tests.

...

But for an education on oiks and toffs, you've got to read the comments...

Pre-Med Classics

In an article on the various possibilities for prospective doctors at Stanford:

Other pre-meds have found themselves gravitating towards Classics, a traditional home for students who want to spend time with Plato and Catullus, for a kind of complexity different from that of organic chemistry.

“Classics has done wonders to complement my science classes,” said Classics major Nikita Vashi ‘09. “Not only does it have direct applications, for instance in that a lot of medical/scientific terminology has linguistic roots in Ancient Greek, but there are so many connections between the fields that, to this day, surprise me every time they pop up.”

Classics major Jiahui Lin ‘10, who had been pursuing a degree in Biomedical Engineering, also found a home working with the ancients and revisiting the Latin she had taken in high school.

“It sounds cheesy, but when I switched in I fell in love with it again,” Lin said.

“Plus at the Classics socials they have better food, and I’m a big foodie, so I definitely think it was a good decision,” she added.

Separation of Myth and State

Ron Clark painted a mural of Prometheus bringing fire to humans at Coal Ridge High School (Glenwood Springs, CO)...but there were complaints.  No calls for changing the school's team name from the Titans to something less pagan, however.  Here's an excerpt from the Post Independent article on the controversy, which also includes a picture of the (now covered) mural:

Vague ideas
Clark admitted taking artistic liberties on the Prometheus painting. He claimed to have made several attempts to communicate with the faculty and staff what he had in mind for the mural with no response. Adding that no one from the school had a solid idea of what they wanted, just vague ideas that included a flame and the beliefs of the school.

The original idea, according to Moeller, was for Clark do three pieces for the school. One in the gymnasium of a lightning bolt incorporating the word Titans into it; a flame with the schools’ motto in a common area; and a mural in the common area. Clark did all three pieces in a two-week period in early July. However, Clark stated that he never had direct contact from anyone at the school and that Information regarding the mural was transferred through Clark’s sister, Carrie Lyons, who communicated with Moeller.

“I talked to the principal (Humble) over the phone while she was on vacation about the mural,” Clark said. “She told me just to paint it and that she would see it when she got back.”

According to Humble, the painting was already done by the time she talked to Clark about it.

A religious debate
A photo of the Clark working on the project appeared in the July 10 issue of the Post Independent sparking a number of letters to the editor.

School officials declared that the decision to cover the painting had nothing to do with a letter to the editor written by Keith Wood — Pastor of the Glenwood Springs Apostolic Church — published in the Aug. 1 edition of the paper. In the letter, Wood compared the painting to the crucifixion of Jesus. By that time, Humble had already made the decision to cover it up.

“When I saw the picture (of the mural) in the paper I was just amazed,” Wood said. “I felt that it was my responsibility to stand up for what I believed in. The devil works his way into all sorts of places. People who know their god know that they need to be his voice in situations like this.”

“Where was this debate when the Glenwood Springs High School decided to call themselves the Demons?” asked Clark. “You can’t just make up a definition of what you want the Titans to be: like a lightning bolt. It just doesn’t work like that. If we are going to allow the students to choose a mascot and then tell them what to believe about the mascot, it just doesn’t make sense.”

Wood said that he thought Titans is a more suitable mascot name than the Demons of Glenwood Springs High School.

Clark expressed concern of allowing a school to represent themselves as the Titans but not being able to have one painted on the wall. Adding that covering up the painting without any debate was a hasty decision.

Classical Education

Some educators who are receiving awards at Appalachian State University look to Classical precedents...dialogue (Georgia Rhoades), and an unspecified "Classical Greek pedagogy" (Norman Clark)...