The Classics in Black and White
The Classics in Black and White

Author: Kenneth W. Goings

Publisher: University of Georgia Press

Published: 2024-05-15

Total Pages: 267

ISBN-13: 0820366633

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Following emancipation, African Americans continued their quest for an education by constructing schools and colleges for Black students, mainly in the U.S. South, to acquire the tools of literacy, but beyond this, to enroll in courses in the Greek and Latin classics, then the major curriculum at American liberal arts colleges and universities. Classically trained African Americans from the time of the early U.S. republic had made a link between North Africa and the classical world; therefore, from almost the beginning of their quest for a formal education, many African Americans believed that the classics were their rightful legacy. The Classics in Black and White is based extensively on the study of course catalogs of colleges founded for Black people after the Civil War by Black churches, largely White missionary societies and White philanthropic organizations. Kenneth W. Goings and Eugene O’Connor uncover the full extent of the colleges’ classics curriculums and showcase the careers of prominent African American classicists, male and female, and their ultimately unsuccessful struggle to protect the liberal arts from being replaced by Black conservatives and White power brokers with vocational instruction such as woodworking for men and domestic science for women. This move to eliminate classics was in large part motivated by the very success of the colleges’ classics programs. As Goings and O’Connor’s survey of Black colleges’ curriculums and texts reveals, the lessons they taught were about more than declensions and conjugations—they imparted the tools of self-formation and self-affirmation.

Classics, the Culture Wars, and Beyond
Classics, the Culture Wars, and Beyond

Author: Eric Adler

Publisher: University of Michigan Press

Published: 2016-11-01

Total Pages: 305

ISBN-13: 0472122401

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Beginning with a short intellectual history of the academic culture wars, Eric Adler’s book examines popular polemics including those by Allan Bloom and Dinesh D’Souza, and considers the oddly marginal role of classical studies in these conflicts. In presenting a brief history of classics in American education, the volume sheds light on the position of the humanities in general. Adler dissects three significant controversies from the era: the so-called AJP affair, which supposedly pitted a conservative journal editor against his feminist detractors; the brouhaha surrounding Martin Bernal’s contentious Black Athena project; and the dustup associated with Victor Davis Hanson and John Heath’s fire-breathing jeremiad, Who Killed Homer? He concludes by considering these controversies as a means to end the crisis for classical studies in American education. How can the study of antiquity—and the humanities—thrive in the contemporary academy? This book provides workable solutions to end the crisis for classics and for the humanities as well. This major work also includes findings from a Web survey of American classical scholars, offering the first broadly representative impression of what they think about their discipline and its prospects for the future. Adler also conducted numerous in-depth interviews with participants in the controversies discussed, allowing readers to gain the most reliable information possible about these controversies. Those concerned about the liberal arts and the best way to educate young Americans should read this book. Accessible and jargon-free, this narrative of scholarly scandals and their context makes for both enjoyable and thought-provoking reading.

Guillaume Du Fay
Guillaume Du Fay

Author: Alejandro Enrique Planchart

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2018-09-06

Total Pages: 1313

ISBN-13: 1108547702

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This volume explores the work of one of medieval music's most important figures, and in so doing presents an extended panorama of musical life in Europe at the end of the middle ages. Guillaume Du Fay rose from obscure beginnings to become the most significant composer of the fifteenth century, a man courted by kings and popes, and this study of his life and career provides a detailed examination of his entire output, including a number of newly discovered works. As well as offering musical analysis, this volume investigates his close association with the Cathedral of Cambrai, and explores how, at a time when music was becoming increasingly professionalised, Du Fay forged his own identity as 'a composer'. This detailed biography will be highly valuable for those interested in the history of medieval and church music, as well as for scholars of Du Fay's musical legacy.

Finding the Walls of Troy
Finding the Walls of Troy

Author: Susan Heuck Allen

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2023-09-01

Total Pages: 427

ISBN-13: 0520342364

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The relentlessly self-promoting amateur archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann took full credit for discovering Homer's Troy over one hundred years ago, and since then generations have thrilled to the tale of his ambitions and achievements. But Schliemann gained this status as an archaeological hero partly by deliberately eclipsing the man who had launched his career. Now, at long last, Susan Heuck Allen puts the record straight in this fascinating archaeological adventure that restores the British expatriate Frank Calvert to his rightful place in the story of the identification and excavation of Hisarlík, the site now thought to be Troy as described in the Iliad. Frank Calvert had lived in the Troad—in the northwest corner of Asia Minor—excavating there for fifteen years before Schliemann arrived and learning the local topography well. He was the first archaeologist to test the hypothesis that Hisarlík was the Troy of Hector and Helen. So that he would have unrestricted access to the site, he purchased part of the mound and was the first archaeologist to conduct excavations there. Running out of funds, he later interested Schliemann in the site. The thankless Schliemann stole Calvert's ideas, exploited his knowledge and advice, and finally stole Calvert's glory, in part by slandering him and denigrating his work. Allen corrects the record and does justice to a man who was a victim of his own integrity while giving a balanced treatment of Schliemann's true accomplishments. This meticulously researched book tells the story of Frank Calvert's development as an archaeologist, his adventures and discoveries. It focuses on the twists and turns of his turbulent relationship with the perfidious Schliemann, the resulting gains for archaeology, and the successful conclusion of their common quest. Allen has brought together a wide range of relevant published material as well as unpublished sources from archives, diaries, letters, and personal interviews to tell this gripping story.

A People's History of Classics
A People's History of Classics

Author: Edith Hall

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2020-02-26

Total Pages: 586

ISBN-13: 1315446588

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A People’s History of Classics explores the influence of the classical past on the lives of working-class people, whose voices have been almost completely excluded from previous histories of classical scholarship and pedagogy, in Britain and Ireland from the late 17th to the early 20th century. This volume challenges the prevailing scholarly and public assumption that the intimate link between the exclusive intellectual culture of British elites and the study of the ancient Greeks and Romans and their languages meant that working-class culture was a ‘Classics-Free Zone’. Making use of diverse sources of information, both published and unpublished, in archives, museums and libraries across the United Kingdom and Ireland, Hall and Stead examine the working-class experience of classical culture from the Bill of Rights in 1689 to the outbreak of World War II. They analyse a huge volume of data, from individuals, groups, regions and activities, in a huge range of sources including memoirs, autobiographies, Trade Union collections, poetry, factory archives, artefacts and documents in regional museums. This allows a deeper understanding not only of the many examples of interaction with the Classics, but also what these cultural interactions signified to the working poor: from the promise of social advancement, to propaganda exploited by the elites, to covert and overt class war. A People’s History of Classics offers a fascinating and insightful exploration of the many and varied engagements with Greece and Rome among the working classes in Britain and Ireland, and is a must-read not only for classicists, but also for students of British and Irish social, intellectual and political history in this period. Further, it brings new historical depth and perspectives to public debates around the future of classical education, and should be read by anyone with an interest in educational policy in Britain today.