Departments

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classics

  • 2/28/2021

    The Original Storming of the Capitol

    by Stephen Dando-Collins

    The January 6, 2021 siege of the Capitol in Washington DC has eerie parallels with a much earlier event, the AD 69 siege of the Capitoline Mount in Rome.

  • SOURCE: The Conversation
    2/23/2021

    When Men Started to Obsess Over Six-Packs

    by Conor Heffernan

    Today's culture of Instagrammed abdominal muscles traces back to the time when nineteenth-century physical culture movements converged with the archaeological discovery of ancient Greek statuary (bodybuilders then used the new technology of photography in ways we'd recognize). 

  • SOURCE: Chronicle of Higher Education
    2/23/2021

    No, Classics Shouldn’t ‘Burn’

    by James Kierstead

    A classicist offers a rebuttal to a recent critique of the field, arguing that practitioners are justified in evaluating a "western civilization" but do so from a multitude of perspectives.

  • SOURCE: New York Times

    Ancient Rome Has an Urgent Warning for Us

    by Kyle Harper

    It's simplistic to look to the classics as instructions for political or social conduct, but the study of the past should inform our awareness of the power of nature to affect social and political life. 

  • SOURCE: Bloomberg
    12/19/2020

    How Ancient Rome Defeated Donald Trump

    Veteran war correspondent Tom Ricks has written a new book on the influence of Greece and Rome on the American founders, and discusses how this year's election reflects that influence. 

  • 12/20/2020

    The Plague in Ancient Athens: A Cautionary Tale for America

    by Fred Zilian

    The United States in some respects has fared better under COVID than Athens did during the plague that accompanied the Peloponnesian War: a vaccine is in sight, and our head of state survived the day's most feared disease. But in both cases, disease showed the strains and cracks of a society and political system that will be difficult to repair.

  • 11/8/2020

    The End of an Era? Athens After Empire

    by Ian Worthington

    “Hellenistic” Athens may not shine as brightly as Classical Athens, but it has lived unfairly in the shadow of its famous predecessor. It’s time it emerged from that shadow.

  • SOURCE: The Baffler
    10/28/2020

    Grin and Bear It: On the Rise and Rise of Neo-Stoicism

    by Hettie O'Brien

    "Stoic practices may allow us to live more easily in the world as it is. But politics is as much about conflict as consensus, and depends, at least in part, upon people getting angry."

  • SOURCE: Zocálo Public Square
    9/23/2020

    What Would Cicero See In American Governance Today?

    by Edward Watts

    "The United States now approaches the tipping point between a republic governed by law and the polity of violence, governed by mutual fear, that Cicero described over two millennia ago."

  • SOURCE: Chronicle of Higher Education
    7/14/2020

    When Plague Is Not a Metaphor

    by Hunter Gardner

    It's not always a blessing when current events make a researcher's specialty suddenly and urgently relevant. 

  • 5/10/2020

    The Real Thucydides Trap

    by Waller R. Newell

    Classical histories are in vogue as explanations for the Coronavirus-fueled tensions between the United States and China. A political science scholar argues that an influential theory gets Thucydides backwards.

  • SOURCE: The Conversation
    3/12/2020

    Plagues Follow Bad Leadership in Ancient Greek Tales

    by Joel Christensen

    Zeus observes in Homer’s “Odyssey,” as I’ve translated it, “Humans are always blaming the gods for their suffering / but they experience pain beyond their fate because of their own recklessness.”

  • SOURCE: Inside Higher Ed
    3/4/19

    The Trouble With Classics Continues

    New video shows exactly what was said during a heated discussion at the annual gathering of classicists in January. Does it change anything?