I dunno man, I don’t think it’s my job to try and rehabilitate the reputation of Classics. Perhaps it’s ironic given that Classics is the study of ancient civilisations long ago but I think the most productive conversation to be had is what we can do to move Classics forward.

Looking for scraps of ‘good’ to try and even out all of the ‘bad’ isn’t something I want to do. I would rather earnestly recognise the massive problems in Classics and how it’s genesis as a discipline was built on exclusion and used to prop up racism and white supremacy.

The history of racism in Classics isn’t a bug, it’s a feature. That doesn’t mean I think all of the work produced by Classicists that was made possible by the framework of ‘Classics’ is all bad, but it’s disingenuous to think we can assuage the ‘bad’ by pointing out the ‘good.’

It’s especially unnecessary to try and rehabilitate the reputation of Classics as a discipline when POC are still grossly underrepresented in Classics (and throughout academia as a whole, let’s be honest) and those that do carve out a career do so while facing racist abuse.

I don’t have the answers or the power to single handedly enact the structural change necessary, but I would rather search for what I can do to make Classics a more accessible and tolerant discipline. If that means “burn it all down”... then I’ll help rebuild from the ground up.

I will note that several other much more articulate and erudite threads have been written in the same vein by people much more worth listening to, so I direct you to them: https://twitter.com/krishnanrp/status/1341130145084682241

https://twitter.com/krishnanrp/status/1341138124282482688