Jump down to section:  Transformative Use of Myth, Art, Themes        Current Issues in Classics

(Search C-RM and C-RVP or by Grades to locate classroom ready materials, such as Grades9-12)

Topics: Powerful voices like W.E.B. Du Bois, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., Septima Clark, Huey P. Newton, Ralph Ellison, and Toni Morrison

Withun, David, Co-workers in the Kingdom of Culture: Classics and Cosmopolitanism in the Thought of W. E. B. Du Bois, Oxford University Press, New York, 2022. Ch. 2  American Archias: Cicero, Epic Poetry and The Souls of Black Folk:  in "This chapter [in part] discusses the classical inflection of other works by Du Bois, examining the classical allusions and foundations in his works of history, sociology, biography, and fiction. [He likens Black youth to the situation of proving Archias' citizenship.] Particular attention is given to Du Bois’s attempts in each of these fields to write the story of African American history in the form of an epic, culminating with his final series of novels, The Black Flame Trilogy.  Chapter 3, The Influence of Plato on the Thought of W.E.B. Du Bois, describes strong influences on "some of Du Bois’s most important ideas, including his dedication to a notion of unchanging truth and the ability to attain justice by overcoming ignorance through the exposure of this fixed and eternal truth, Du Bois’s social vision including his distinctive notion of a “Talented Tenth” dedicated to the duty of group leadership, and Du Bois’s concept of aesthetics and its resulting theory of the social function of art [Cicero's defense of the Arts and Humanities]. Given the deep and pervasive influence of Plato’s ideas, Du Bois’s famous conflict with Booker T. Washington over the education of African American young people and the place of African American people within American society is best understood through the framework of Du Bois’s Platonist social and educational ideals." - publisher abstracts

Martin Luther King, Jr. and Socrates: This high school level illustrated slide lesson contributed by Latin colleague Andrea Craig Sansone discusses topics addressing Dr. King and his connections to Greek philosophy; civil disobedience and non-violent protesting; the legacy of moral victory begetting actual change has been borne out time and again; resistance based on making it plain that all men are equal under God. Slides present students with questions for encouraging personal reflection. PDF without speaker notes also available. C-RM Grades9-12 

Strunk, Thomas, A Philology of Liberation: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. as a Reader of the Classics, Verbum Incarnatum; An Academic Journal of Social Science, Xavier University, Ohio, 2018. Go here and click the download button, or go to the downloaded article directly from the title link above. This article is well-organized as the basis for leading a classroom discussion. It “explores the intellectual relationship between Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the classics, particularly the works of Plato, Sophocles, and Aeschylus. Recognizing Dr. King as a reader of the classics is significant for two reasons: the classics played a formative role in Dr. King’s development into a political activist and an intellectual of the first order; moreover, Dr. King shows us the way to read the classics. Dr. King did not read the classics in a pedantic or even academic manner, but for the purpose of liberation. Dr. King’s legacy, thus, is not merely his political accomplishments but also his example as a philologist of liberation.”-publisher

Outlined are various influences beyond strong Christian theological works, including Plato and Socrates (Apology, Crito) on suffering injustice, nonviolence, civil rights, and civil disobedience; the gadfly and direct actions; just and unjust laws (Antigone, Aristotle, Cicero, Augustine); persecution and death (Socrates, Phaedo); bitter wisdom (Aeschylus, Oresteia); insights for our world (Plato, Republic).  C-RM  Grades13-16

The Influence of Classical Studies: Plato, Socrates, and Dr. King, a discussion guide for a classroom lesson is offered by NCLG. This lesson includes video clips, quotes and opportunities for reflection. Content is based on the article (above) by Thomas E. Strunk.  In the author’s words, Dr. King shows us the WAY to read classics; to leave the restrictions of pedantic readings and find personal growth and, for some, a language of liberation.  Here is the lesson guide: Plato and Dr. Martin Luther King in PDF or Word. C-RM Grades 9-16.

How Dr. King was influenced by the Classics, a combined resource handout and study guide: Socrates And Martin Luther King: Lessons in Civil Disobedience By Van Bryan [Online article by Classical Wisdom, Jan 16, 2023]. Anya Leonard, Founder and Director of Classical Wisdom introduces the topic of classical influences on Dr. King with some personal reflections, followed by the article by Van Bryan. Here is an introduction, an article transcript, excerpts, and an outline discussion guide to be completed by students for classroom use. (created by NCLG, 2024) For students, we offer an additional handout of background quotes from (and a link to) Dr. King’s Letter from A Birmingham Jail is here in Word or in PDF.  C-RM  Grades9-16

Martin Luther King Jr. in dialogue with the ancient Greeks, Timothy Joseph, Associate Professor of Classics, College of the Holy Cross, published a blogpost February 1, 2016, in The Conversation, US. “The first, King’s advocacy of the Greek concept of agape, transcendent love for others, is critical to his message. The second, his embrace of Socrates as a model of civil disobedience, is revealing of his method.”- Joseph  (5 minute read) C-RM  Grades9-12

For college students with broader experience in Greek literature, Antigone, an Open Forum for Classics, offers an online article by Ed Lamb: Civil Disobedience: A Puzzle in Plato’s Crito (11/22). This article summarizes many aspects of discussion around comparing classical Greek philosophical thinking  on social issues (Crito, Apology) and the thought and the actions of Dr. King with regard to handling civil disobedience.  C-RM  Grades13-16

F.B. Eyes on Langston Hughes and Martin Luther King, Jr.  Professor Jason Miller (SUNC) presents a webinar for the National Humanities Center, 2/20/24 on Langdon Hughes (Student of Helen Maria Chesnutt) and Dr. King, Jr.; free public access on this page: W. Jason Miller (NHC Fellow, 2022–23; Professor of English, North Carolina State University). Our notes include:

    “Dr. King’s iconic refrain “I Have a Dream” was actually first delivered in Rocky Mount, NC, nine months before the March on Washington in 1963. By listening to this long lost reel-to-reel audio tape from November of 1962, we discover how this phrase embedded in Dr. King’s smooth, classical rhetorical style actually has its origins in the raw and direct poetry of Langston Hughes (1901–67). While Hughes was harassed by the FBI from as early as 1941, King’s every movement was traced, photographed, recorded, and even filmed by J. Edgar Hoover’s agency. This webinar focuses on the full array of archival documents that connect these two American icons. In listening to rare audio, seeing poetry drafts, and examining their full correspondence, educators will discover how the FBI’s surveillance of Dr. King explains why the subversive poet’s ideas had to be concealed within so many more of King’s most famous addresses. Join us as we learn how to incorporate this new knowledge into lessons that bridge the history of the civil rights movement to the poetry of the Harlem Renaissance. By the end of this webinar, teachers will be inspired to construct and refine both lessons and units that re-contextualize each of these two seminal eras in American History.”  National Humanities Center Resources   C-RM  Grades13-16

Hope for Racial Healing; The Power of Love, Dr. Anika Prather shares a post: her poignant reflection on racial healing and the strong inspiration Dr. King offered her family during difficult times. This article is posted by the University of Notre Dame, Center for Social Concerns’ magazine archives. Or see it in Dr. Prather’s archive list.   C-RM  Grades7-16

“The Socratic Black Panther: Reading Huey P. Newton Reading Plato,” Sowers, Brian P., Journal of African American Studies, vol. 21, no. 1, 2017, pp. 26–41. JSTOR,  https://www.jstor.org/stable/44508190. Special Issue on the Black Panther Party (March, 2017). (To read the article through JSTOR or JAAS, login through your school library or download with permission) The abstract states ‘This essay examines the role of Platonic literature and philosophy in part 2 of Newton’s (1973) Revolutionary Suicide (RS) and argues that Plato’s Republic, as the seminal text in Newton’s early adult life, intertextually directs the course of events, both the ways Newton describes the plight of Black America and how Newton engages other literary texts, poetry in particular. Over the course of part 2 of RS, Newton increasingly adopts the guise of a modern day Socrates, confounding his white opponents and revealing the truth about racial oppression. Studying prose texts, especially philosophy, becomes (inter)textually symbolic for racial enlightenment, on the one hand, and for the responsibility Newton sees of himself to share that enlightenment with those still chained in the dark recesses of the cave, on the other.’ - publisher

On W.E.B. Du Bois, from the  African American Intellectual History Society which posts numerous articles and interviews: In one such article with Chad L. Williams, he talks about his book The Wounded World, in which he looks into the influence of World War I on the trajectory of Du Bois’ thinking and activism during a portion of his life. Du Bois had written the manuscript of the similar title (The Black Man and the Wounded World, 800 pages, unpublished), taking his Black experience beyond the borders of the country to a world view.  Du Bois said “he envisioned his unfinished book on World War I as a sequel to (his book) Black Reconstruction,... how his conception of the Reconstruction Era was, in a way, connected to his ongoing reckoning with the history and legacies of World War I in terms of what it meant for democracy for African-Americans or other peoples of African descent.” Though Du Bois later recanted some of his views, it shows how WWI helped to shape the civil rights movement. 

(Across the centuries) Blacks in Classics: Reflections on Black Classicists, Dr. Anika Prather, Howard University, presented at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Inclusion Imperative Symposium, (incl. poster). Slide presentation:  The Great Books; A Polaris for the African American People. Includes discussion of Wheatley, Douglass, Du Bois, Cooper, Baldwin, King, and Newton.  C-RM   Grades9-16

Septima Poinsette Clark (Charleston, SC area): “Mother of the Movement,” Clark was educated at Avery Institute, Avery Normal, Benedict, Atlanta University, and Columbia University. She was a key figure at Booker T. Washington High School for years, however she connected with thoughts and goals of Du Bois and had her own, long-time NAACP involvement of advocacy and activism. She supported access to broad-based education for African Americans.

Discussion of Ellison, Morrison, Cullen: Ulysses in Black: Ralph Ellison, Classicism, and African American Literature, Rankine, P., UW Madison, 2006. Rankine explores “how the classical tradition can be part of a self-conscious, prideful approach to African American culture, esthetics, and identity, as seen in the works of such African American writers as Ralph Ellison, Toni Morrison, and Countee Cullen. Rankine finds that the merging of a black aesthetic with the classics - contrary to expectations throughout American culture - has often been a radical addressing of concerns including violence against blacks, racism, and oppression.”- researchgate abstract. A reading of the Prologue by Rankine is an excellent and detailed overview and could stand as an independent resource for class discussion. Preview it here. Some book topics: Classica Africana, From Eurocentrism to Black Classicism: The Birth of a Hero, …Ralph Ellison’s Black American Ulysses. Prologue: C-RM Grades13-16

Ralph Ellison (March 1, 1914- April 16, 1994) was a writer and university professor. A native of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, Ellison was named for the essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson. After a difficult childhood, he began to play trumpet and participated in band competitions. Ellison studied classical music composition at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama from 1933 to 1936, where he read James Joyce and T.S. Eliot in his studies. Later he moved to New York and began working with the Federal Writers Project. After ...World War II, Ellison wrote numerous short stories. Random House published Ellison's Invisible Man. The book, which is an account of a young African American's awakening to racial discrimination, received much acclaim and won the National Book Award for fiction in 1953. Ellison befriended Robert Penn Warren while the two were both Fellows at the American Academy of Arts and Letters in Rome in 1956 and 1957. "Writing to Ida Guggenheimer, Ellison exclaims, “Ruins, architecture, art, palaces, churches, and graveyards, ...I was somewhat reluctant to come here, but had I failed to do so I would have missed one of the major human experiences. Perhaps it is impossible to have a real idea of what human culture can be unless one visits Italy” (Letters 385)  This experience "sparked his writerly productivity as he also intensely followed the Civil Rights Movement at home." There, his mother told "me about my father’s participation in the Civil Rights Movement in Alabama during the early 1960s. Our time in Italy coincided with my father’s tenure as pastor of a large African Methodist Episcopal Church outside of Atlanta where the worship experience was markedly different from St. Peter’s. I had never heard the details of my father’s collegiate activism that linked him to Martin Luther King, Jr." ..."Ellison taught creative writing at New York University and also taught at numerous other institutions, including Bard College and Yale University. At the time of his death, Ellison had been working on a second novel for forty years. His second novel, Juneteenth, was published posthumously in 1999 under the editorship of his literary executor."  - Robert Penn Warren.   Ellison knew Richard Wright, Romare Bearden, and Langdon Hughes. All of these were also influenced by classics and showed direct and allusive connections in their work.

Return me to Intersections Table of Contents

Topics: Classical receptions by Wheatley, Douglass, Cooper, Du Bois, Ray, Beardon, Pace, Dodson, Brooks, Morrison, Thompson, Walcott, Dove, Everrett, Amos; Medea themes; Agency of women; Dionysus themes; Reception of Greek drama

Hairston, E.A., The Ebony Column: Classics, Civilization, and the African American Reclamation of the West, UT Press, Knoxville 2013. Access preview link here. A reading of the Introduction (24 pages) will offer students an excellent overview of the views and goals of Hairston’s scholarship. Following chapters cover in depth Phillis Wheatley, Frederick Douglass, Anna Julia Cooper, and W.E.B. Du Bois. Hairston works to reclaim the classical themes and concepts of virtue, pietas, courage, self-knowledge, reasoning and mores, justice, etc., so deeply embedded in ancient literature and philosophy that became central to the lives and works of these people as they faced the dehumanizing side of imperialism and capitalism - also rooted in antiquity. Further reference to Hairston's work on this page of our resources.  Introduction:  C-RM  Grades13-16

Morse, H. 2017. “Black Classical Ruins and American Memory in the Poetry of H. Cordelia Ray,” in Legacy: A Journal of American Women Writers 34.1: p. 53–81.  Morse explains: “The Woman’s Era  - a newspaper written by and for African American women - and of Gertrude Bustill Mossell’s The Work of the Afro- American Woman became familiar with the New York poet Henrietta Cordelia Ray (August 30, 1849 - January 5, 1916). That is, if they had not already read her verses in the pages of the A.M.E. Church Review or recalled her famous “Lincoln” ode, written in 1876 for the dedication of the Freedmen’s Monument (known today as the Emancipation Memorial) in Washington, DC.” Above link goes to a shared pdf.

The Myth of Medea in African American Literature. Here is a university course syllabus by Dr. Michele Valerie Ronnick. “This course examines the myth of Medea…as found in sources from classical antiquity and then tracks her myth forward as it appears in African American art and letters over the past 150 years, [showing] the pervasive…confluence of classical  studies and their influence on development of African American literature and culture." Also includes numerous articles plus extensive readings on the lives of Scarborough and Du Bois and their educational work.   Syllabus: C-RM  Grades13-16

W.E.B. Du Bois, The Quest for the Silver Fleece, A.C. McClurg & Co. of Chicago, 1911 (link goes directly to a digitized copy). William Edward Burghardt Du Bois was an American sociologist, socialist, historian, and Pan-Africanist civil rights activist. He was born in Great Barrington, MA. His first novel “combined literary realism with some romanticism and political-economic analysis to provide a story of two Black protagonists, a man and a woman, who eventually work together to build an economic community - a community that provided a way to overcome both the overt and the systemic racism of a fictional post-Reconstruction Alabama town and county.”  This work has many parallels with classical myth and literary themes, notably the Quest of the Golden Fleece: Medea, Jason and the Argonautica, and plays out some of Du Bois societal and educational goals.

“Alabamian Argonautica: Myth and Classical Education in The Quest of the Silver Fleece,” David Sick, Classical World 110(2017): pages 373-397. Online access through school subscriptions: JSTOR: https://www.jstor.org/stable/44509201. The abstract states “Du Bois organized the novel around the myth of Jason and Medea but transformed the main characters into newly educated African-Americans in the post-Reconstruction South. The African-American heroine of the novel, Zora, who performs the role of Medea within the literary context of Ethiopianism, benefits from her liberal education but provides new insights to the curriculum and applications of it. She personifies goals expressed by Du Bois in his treatise, The Souls of Black Folk.”

Murray, Jackie. “W.E.B. Du Bois' The Quest of the Silver Fleece: The Education of Black Medea," in TAPA 149, issue 2, 143–162, 2019. ( Access via MUSE or PDF with account access.)   A review from Barnard College CAS website resources says "Through the examination of a single Du Bois novel, The Quest of the Silver Fleece, Jackie Murray attempts to demonstrate a classically informed and compelled character using biographical analysis and literary examination. Murray uses The Quest of the Silver Fleece to meditate on Du Bois’ beliefs on higher education and political representation, especially through the myth of Medea and Jason. [She continues to]..... discuss Black access to Classical pedagogies and the motivations behind this education. Moreover, Murray receives not only Du Bois’ The Souls of Black Folks but also the Argonautica of Apollonius. The cooperative reading lends new meaning to both texts and binds them to a larger conversation about the Classical education of Black America." (AR 2020)

Greenwood, E., “Re-rooting the classical tradition: New directions in black classicism,” in Classical Receptions Journal 1.1: pages 87–103, 2009.  Emily Greenwood's excellent and insightful review covers several works and their perspectives, while adding her own views to the importance of these new works. Most intersect with modern receptions: Barbara Goff and Michael Simpson, Crossroads in the Black Aegean: Oedipus, Antigone, and Dramas of the African Diaspora; Robert G. O’Meally, Romare Bearden: A Black Odyssey; Patrice Rankine, Ulysses in Black: Ralph Ellison, Classicism, and African American Literature; Michele Valerie Ronnick (ed.), The Autobiography of William Sanders Scarborough: An American Journey from Slavery to Scholarship; Tracy L Walters, African American Literature and the Classicist Tradition: Black Women Writers from Wheatley to Morrison. 

Percival Everett, For Her Dark Skin, Owl Creek Press, 1990. (purchase or library access only) Everett retells the myth of Jason and Medea and infuses it with his vision of the themes of powerful ambition, love and revenge. Desires and consequences bring these all-too-human characters through a “piercing new interpretation of classic themes,” as he packs many more current race-related issues into this story. Percival L. Everett (born 1956) is a prolific, award-winning American writer and Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Southern California. NB other works: Erasure, Frenzy (Dionysus); The Persians (Aeschylus)

Percival Everett, Frenzy, Graywolf Press, 1996.  Review: “Among the gods, Dionysos is the wildest and darkest, the most given to excess, eroticism, and frenzy. In this wickedly funny novel, Percival Everett revisits the age-old myth, and takes a closer look at this eccentric half-man, half-god. Frenzy tells the story of Dionysos through his "mortal bookmark," an assistant called Vlepo. It is Vlepo's job to witness and experience on behalf of his curious master. Together they collapse the boundaries of space and time, piecing together a fantastic narrative out of familiar legend.” - publisher

Percival Everett, Erasure, UP New England (2001). "Percival crafts a novel which is for the most part a satire on the ruthlessness and vanity of the literary market, and on the grim choice facing any writer who is Black between effacing, signaling, or indeed exploiting his or her ethnicity. The hero, Thelonius Ellison, has written experimental novels on Greek myth, and also a Persians, which a fictional reviewer criticizes because ‘one is lost to understand what this reworking of Aeschylus’ The Persians has to do with the African American experience.’ The earnest reviewer, so anxious to dictate the themes proper to a black writer, is …. unaware of the place that Aeschylus' Persians …. has widely been accepted as holding in the annals of western racism…identity politics.” Edith Hall, Ch.9, p.2. The reception of Aeschylus’ The Persians.

Kevin Wetmore, Jr., “Afro(American)centric Classicism and African American Theatre,” from Black Dionysus: Greek Tragedy and African American Theatre, McFarland & Co., 2003, p.46-61. (Viewable free for 1 hour with sign-in HERE on Internet Archive (can borrow multiple times; sign up). The Chapter discusses the debates about African culture, the roots of civilization, Black Athena positions, continuance of culture in America, contributional versus creational culture, comparative slavery and how the history of ancient and modern drama and theater reflects African enslavement, agency, and identity.

Owen Vincent Dodson, dramatist and playwright, followed the Harlem Renaissance. James V. Hatch in The Alchemy of Owen Dodson explained that Dodson "is the product of two parallel forces—the Black experience in America with its folk and urban roots, and a classical humanistic education." He quoted and alluded to classical poetry and drama.

    The Golden Fleece, is a play renamed The Garden of Time by Owen Vincent Dodson, poet, playwright, professor (1938-1983). Dodson's 'Garden of Time' (1939) was an African American interpretation of the Greek tragedy 'Medea.' "It was performed by the American Negro Theatre in Harlem in 1945. Born in Brooklyn and raised in Flatbush, NY, in poverty conditions, Dodson lost both parents early. His father was an elevator operator and journalist. Though he lost his parents by age 12, his father was a profound influence. While working “for the American Press Association and, for a while, served as chairman of the National Negro Press Association, he also served as press agent for Booker T. Washington and Dr. James Sheppard. Hence, in addition to providing Dodson with a strong religious background, Nathaniel exposed his son Owen to the thoughts of many prominent black intellectuals such as Booker T. Washington, W. E. B. DuBois, and James Weldon Johnson.” After his parents’ death, he was raised by his eldest sister. Having graduated from Bates (B.A. 1936) and Yale (MFA, 1939), he taught at Spelman College, Atlanta University, Hampton Institute, and Howard University, where he left teaching in 1969. He was a prolific playwright and talented director; his work straddled the Harlem Renaissance and the rise of the Black Arts Movement in the late 1960s." - encyclopedia.com/biography/OwenVincent/Dodson   

NEW!  A New Play Revitalizes Ancient Story : Memnon the Ethiopian King of the the Trojan saga and beyond; Learn more from a NCLG and ACL-sponsored webinar about this mythic figure and his place in history and legend. Memnon, a new play written by Will Power and performed by the Classical Theater of Harlem under the direction of Carl Cofield premiered in September 2024 at the J. Paul Getty Villa Museum's Outdoor Greek Theater. In this webinar, we interview Will Power and Carl Cofield about their vision and also hear about some classroom applications. The webpage has a growing number of links to varied resources about the play and the hero in literature and art and teacher-created materials to help you make this story come alive for your students, or to inspire you to incorporate Memnon into other myth units and projects you might teach. New NCLG webpage under African Origins is HERE, where you can find the  WEBINAR RECORDING (90 minutes) and many other teaching resources for teaching about Memnon, including some handouts with Greek and Latin texts. There are also classroom ready slides and handouts. CR-M Grades6-13

Gwendolyn Brooks, first ever Pulitzer Prize-winning Black poet and writer and recipient of many awards and honors, (1917-2000) resident of Chicago, weaved threads and echoes of classical myth and epic in some of her writing. Her attitude towards this inheritance (of classical stories) is one of appreciation for the beauty of form and language in classical drama and epic but also of frustration with its whiteness. She “even wrote a mock lament To Publius Vergilius Maro.” Here is an article from ATLAS: Classicizing Chicago. GWENDOLYN BROOKS’ RADICAL TAKE ON VIRGIL’S AENEID

Jimoh, A.Y. 1998. “Double Consciousness, Modernism, and Womanist Themes in Gwendolyn Brooks’s The Anniad.” MELUS 23.3: p.167–189 (Oxford Journals). Jimoh asserts: “Through this poet's use of double consciousness in "The Anniad," (a Janus-like poem) readers perceive that Brooks is acutely aware of the urban, black Chicago that shapes her aesthetic as well as the prevailing culture in the United States that could shape her success as a poet.” Above link goes to a shared pdf.

Black artist Emma Amos (1937-2020) exhibition: Emma Amos: Classical Legacies. Here is a 2023 press release by Ryan Lee Gallery Exhibition (NYC) with accompanying biographic information referencing the strong influence of classical myth and culture on her art. Downloaded copy here. Michele Valerie Ronnick has also shared her essay, “Penelope Rediviva: Emma Amos’s Classical Weave,” which opens the exhibition catalogue for Emma Amos: Classical Legacies. Show students her wonderfully evocative art.  Some of this is definitely C-RM  Grades13-16

Emma Amos and Bob Thompson - Explore and compare the art of two Black artists influenced by themes of ancient Greece and Rome. Dr. Allannah Karas of the University of Miami presented a talk (48 min) based on her article, “Mixed Media: Two Black Artists and the Icons of Classical Antiquity,” at the Baylor University Provost Conference Series, a talk which will be forthcoming in print in S. Nooter and M. Telò (eds), Radical Formalisms: Reading, Theory and the Boundaries of the Classical; Bloomsbury Academic, New York, NY (2024, forthcoming). Open and then scroll down to the fourth video: Link to Karas’ presentation video from the 2022 Session of the Baylor University Provost Conference Series.   C-RVP  Grades13-16

Emma Amos and Bob Thompson discussion guide: NCLG has prepared and shared an illustrated discussion worksheet with much additional background information on these two artists and how they have used and reworked classical art and mythic motifs.  NCLG worksheet: C-RM  Grades13-16

Romare Beardon’s art inspired by the Odyssey:  Romare Beardon was a New York artist born in NC who completed the Black Odyssey (1977) collection of collages and watercolors reflecting Homer’s Odyssey. Romare Bearden's art website has images of his work: Check out Return of Odysseus, Black Athena, Home to Ithaca, Walls of Ilium, The Sea God, The Return Of Ulysses et al.   View the Wallach Art Gallery video  from their exhibition The Black Odyssey and about Bearden and his classically inspired works (Columbia University, NY).   C-RVP    Grades13-16

“Reframing the Homeric: Images of the Odyssey in the Art of Derek Walcott and Romare Bearden,” by Davis, G., in L. Hardwick and C. Stray, eds., 2008, A Companion to Classical Receptions. Malden: p. 401–14. Above link goes to a shared pdf.

Derek Walcott as painter and poet reflecting classical receptions, especially in his work Prodigal (2004). Available is a commentary by Emily Greenwood 'Shades of Rome in the Poetry of Derek Walcott', in S J Harrison, ed., Living Classics: Greece and Rome in Contemporary Poetry in English (Oxford, 2009; online edition, Oxford Academic, 2023: https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199233731.003.0016; PDF may be accessed through your institution’s library subscription.

Griffin, F.J.,“Circe in Black: Homer, Toni Morrison, Romare Bearden,” in R.G. O’Meally (ed.) The Romare Bearden Reader, Durham, 2019, p. 270–80.

Shelley P. Haley, 1995. “Self-Definition, Community and Resistance: Euripides’ Medea and Toni Morrison’s Beloved,” in Thamyris 2.2: 177–206. Above link goes to a shared pdf or access it via the link on MRECC website.

Roynon, T. , “The Africanness of Classicism in the Work of Toni Morrison,” in D. Orrells (ed.) African Athena: New Agendas, Oxford, 2011, p. 381–97.  Roynon describes her proposal: “My aim in this chapter is not to rehearse my previous argument, nor to reiterate in any detail the 'justifications' for critical study of Morrison's classical allusiveness: the fact that she studied four years of Latin at high school, was a Classics minor at Howard University in the 1950s (when the department was under the chairmanship of Frank Snowden Jr), or that she has frequently spoken of her interest in Greek tragedy, and so on. My intention here is rather to illuminate and discuss Morrison's interest in the Africanness of classicism.”  Above link goes to a shared pdf.

Roynon, T., Toni Morrison and Classical Tradition; Literature Compass, Volume 4, Issue 6, 2007, p. 1514-1537.  Wiley Online Library offers full article access for purchase or contact author.  “This article summarizes a significant new approach to the work of the African-American novelist Toni Morrison: analysis of her widespread engagement with classical tradition. After discussing the prior critical perspectives on this subject, and highlighting the importance of the classics in Morrison's intellectual formation, it demonstrates that the author's ambivalent classicism is central to the rewriting of American history that her oeuvre enacts." [She goes] on to show that her insistence on the interactions between African and Graeco-Roman cultures contributes to her reinvention of classical tradition as a radical force, and [ends] by illuminating the implications for literary and American Studies that the recognition of her classicism must possess.” -publisher

 
Roynon, T., 'Introduction', Toni Morrison and the Classical Tradition: Transforming American Culture, Classical Presences, Oxford, 2013; online edn, Oxford Academic, 23 Jan. 2014; p.1-27. (Purchase or library access to borrow.) https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199698684.003.0001.

“The introductory chapter positions the argument of this book in relation to recent scholarship in the field of ‘black classicism’. It posits the ‘strategic ambivalence’ of Morrison's classicism, outlining the dominant cultural uses of the classical tradition in definitions of American history and identity with which the text takes issue, and suggesting that the novelist's allusiveness is fundamental to the critical intervention in the politics of race and gender that her oeuvre constitutes. The chapter discusses prior scholarship on Morrison's classicism and presents an overview of the role of classics in Morrison's intellectual formation, and of her own discussion of the classical tradition in essays, interviews, and speeches. Finally, it outlines the book's argument regarding the key narratives of American history that Morrison's classicism transforms.” - publisher

Walters, T.L., African American Literature and the Classicist Tradition: Black Women Writers from Wheatley to Morrison, New York, 2007. ‘This is a groundbreaking study exploring the significant relationship between western classical mythology and African American women's literature. A comparative analysis of classical revisions by …Phillis Wheatley and Pauline Hopkins and twentieth century writers Gwendolyn Brooks, Toni Morrison, and Rita Dove reveals that Black women writers revise specific classical myths for artistic and political agency. …The women also use myth as a liberating space where they can 'speak the unspeakable' and empower their subjects as well as themselves.’ – Palgrave Macmillan

    ‘From the abstract we learn that Walters writes on these topics: ……outlining three main issues in the sub-field of Classica Africana, which originated in the 1990s (1) to “study the contributions of African American classicists past and present” (2); to “study Blacks in antiquity” (3); and to “[concentrate] on how African American authors have adapted myths” (4). Both the aptly named introduction, “Writing the Classics Black: The Poetic and Political Function of African American Women’s Classical Revision,” and the first chapter, “Historical Overview of Ancient and Contemporary Representations of Classical Mythology,” create needed interdisciplinary connections among classics, American literature, comparative literature, and Black women’s studies. …. The book’s chronological structure demonstrates both the historicity and continued relevance of specific issues like “Black female sexuality, Black female oppression, and the struggle to define a Black female identity” in Black women’s literature…’ - J. Rossi review

    Emily Greenwood states in a review that "Walters is specifically interested in black women writers and the cultural politics of their turn to Graeco-Roman mythology. Within this large subject, Walters focuses on Gwendolyn Brooks, Toni Morrison and Rita Dove, supplementing her study of these authors with shorter discussions of Phillis Wheatley, Henrietta Cordelia Ray and Pauline Hopkins. In particular, Walters identifies the myths of Niobe, Demeter and Persephone, and Medea as recurrent mythological tropes in African American women’s writing..... Walters’s study is particularly commendable for her constant return to the political and social contexts for the classical revisions of African American women writers."

Goff, B. and Simpson, M., “Oedipus Rebound: Rita Dove’s The Darker Face of the Earth,” in Goff and Simpson (eds.) Crossroads in the Black Aegean: Oedipus, Antigone, and Dramas of the African Diaspora, Oxford, 2007, p.135–77. Above link goes to a shared pdf.

Harry Herbert Pace: Notable Black musician and entrepreneur: Harry Herbert Pace founded Pace Phonograph and Black Swan Records label (1921). He was valedictorian of Atlanta University in 1903 at age 19 where he studied the classical curriculum. Pace then taught Latin and Greek at Lincoln Institute in Jefferson, MO, before moving to New York to enter the music publishing business (Oxford Academic). Nick Manos, a BlackPast.org contributor, states that "Harry Herbert Pace was the founder of the first black record company, Pace Phonograph Corporation which sold recordings under the Black Swan Records label. He was born on January 6, 1884 in Covington, Georgia. Pace graduated from elementary school when he was twelve and finished at Atlanta University seven years later as valedictorian. W.E.B. Du Bois was one of his instructors." He built a huge international recording business, but was forced into bankruptcy by the advent of popular radio, but not before launching many Black musician's careers. "..Pace also moved on to open the Northeastern Life Insurance Company which became one of the largest black owned business in the North. He invested in numerous business ventures, such as opening a law firm in Chicago, Illinois, after he received a law degree (1933). Harry Pace was a member of Sigma Pi Phi Fraternity. He died in Chicago on July 19, 1943..." - BlackPast.org

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Topics: Cooptation of classical symbols by supremacy groups; Black-centered resource collections; Feminism and Classics; Some colleagues taking classical insights outside the field or bringing outside audiences inside the field

Co-optation of classical motifs and symbols that fueled racism: Eidolon 8-24-17 McCoskey; What Would James Baldwin Do? Classics and the Dream of White Europe. James Baldwin; Notes of a Native Son; (Eidolon article) “for as much as he recognized the deep-seated connections of American conceptions of race to its own dark histories of slavery and segregation, Baldwin also articulated a strikingly global vision of American racism, and it is this feature of his work that I believe provides an important challenge to the field of Classics today; for Baldwin powerfully asserted that it was also the dream of a white European past—specifically of Greece and Rome as a site of white origin  -  that stoked some of the most destructive features of American whiteness.” 

Barnard, J. L., Empire of Ruin; Black Classicism and American Imperial Culture. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2017. Barnard writes on the legacy of co-optation of classical forms and history by white supremacists. 

Benjamin Isaac, The Invention of Racism in Classical Antiquity, Princeton University Press, 2006. Based on different criteria, all the aspects of modern ‘racism’ were already active in attitudes of Greece and Rome and the Mediterranean empires. On Barnard College Classics and Ancient Studies  resource site page an editor contributed this in her review: "his primary interest is in the development of antisemitism as a product of antiquity rather than anti-Blackness – but .... [he] makes not just a claim of race, but of racism, which is explored through the lens of white supremacist values. In many ways, Isaac is the antithesis to Snowden in Before Color Prejudice, as he finds there to be a direct line of development between Greco-Roman supremacy and European white supremacy, which he substantiates in the reading of imperial texts. Isaac is one of the few scholars of Classics who suggests that racism is itself ancient....(2021)

Detoxifying the Classics, a half-hour BBC podcast  by Professor Katherine Harloe (University of Reading, UK) on why racist hate groups co-opt and distort the ancient world and explores the history of how Classics and white supremacy became entangled. Curtis Dosier (Vassar College; see his site  https://pharos.vassarspaces.net),  Jackie Murray (University of Kentucky) and others are interviewed.  Cambridge University Press Diversity and Inclusion in the Latin Classroom also offers an informative interview with Curtis Dosier on his Pharos website resources on this topic.  C-RVP  Grades13-16

“Black Feminist Thought and Classics: Re-membering, Re-claiming, Re-empowering.” Shelley P. Haley, 1993, in N. Sorkin Rabinowitz and A. Richlin (eds.) Feminist Theory and the Classics. New York: p. 23–43. Haley discusses from her personal life and professional experiences the negative and limiting effects of attitudes and prejudices over centuries require Black feminists and all scholars to re-examine all historical and literary accounts with different perspectives. In her summary words, she states "Black feminist thought provides a standpoint from which to  re-member, to reclaim, to re-empower the ancient African woman. Through Black feminist thought, classics can be radically transformed from a discipline into a multiracial, multicultural, multivalent field which better reflects the ancient world it studies. Black feminists, in turn, should view classics, not as the “enemy, ” but as a source of symbolic value for so many of our foremothers as they struggled against racism and sexism." Accessible in Resources at MRECC. 

Black-Centered Resources for Ancient Mediterranean Studies is a comprehensive website list of Black-authored works and is currently curated by graduate students Dora Gao, Nadhira Hill, Sam Ross, and Zoé Elise Thomas. Their goal: Recognizing the unique lack of representation and citation of Black scholars who study the Ancient Mediterranean, a team of graduate students created this document which is meant to promote Black voices within our field and the academy. The resources included here are intended as a reference to highlight and promote specifically the work and scholarship of Black thinkers in the field of Ancient Mediterranean Studies and AMS-adjacent fields. - NCLG summary (approved by BCR)

 A recently formed consortium, Eos Africana, offers perspectives on African receptions and a Curriculum of Connections without the colonialist ideals and boundaries of essential indebtedness to Greece and Rome. These 5 posts are illustrative and were presented at an AIA-SCS workshop Theorizing Africana Receptions organized by Eos. They offer various speakers’ views, summarized. They “go beyond a focus on one point of entry, privileged viewpoint or implied ‘tradition’ into the network of classical connections;” ... rather employ a multiplicity of entry points, perspectives, without any hierarchy of value or any gatekeeper assigning value. Some of their “Reads” discussions would be applicable to high school and collegiate level classrooms.  C-RM  Grades13-16

The Hurt of the Past, The Wounds of the Present. There have been some successful programs bringing Greek and Roman literature to incarcerated youth and adults as well as military veterans and addressing racism in policing and the realities of social and economic bias leading to isolation, incarceration, and traumatic experiences. One of these has been led by Dr. Emily Allen-Hornblower of Rutgers' Classics Department. She has shared the following with NCLG, "For the last 8 years, I have been teaching college-level courses in Classics to incarcerated men (and women) in medium and maximum-security prisons. Our discussions, particularly regarding Homer and Greek tragedy, have invariably proven to be a springboard for addressing the burning social, ethical and human issues that pertain to these men's lives before, during, and after their release from prison." Ancient themes still relate and give them a new voice. 

(Adviso: Adult topics are discussed)

         Rediscovering Our Humanity: Reading the Classics Behind Bars. This is an 85 minute videotaped discussion with Q&A, hosted by the Philadelphia Ethical Society on the deep connections and resonance between the themes of ancient Greek drama and life in our society today. Dr. Emily Allen-Hornblower leads and includes reflections of now formerly incarcerated Nafeesah Goldsmith and Marquis McCray.

         On Contact: The power of Classics is a videotaped interview of Emily Allen-Hornblower by Pulitzer Prize-winning Journalist Chris Hedges. This is a 30 minute interview with Dr. Allen-Hornblower of Rutgers Classics faculty and formerly incarcerated Marquis McCray. Chris Hedges discusses the power of the classics, such as Sophocles' play Philoctetes, to elucidate mass incarceration.

        Story in the Public Square:Story in the Public Square 10/31/2021 Season 10 Episode 16 Associate Professor of Classics at Rutgers University Emily Allen-Hornblower along with Jim Ludes and G. Wayne Miller sit down with  CEO of Real Intervention Supports Excellence (RISE), Nafeesah Goldsmith.  students learning in environments as challenging as the American judicial system. www.pbs.org  

 Dr. Constance Carroll: Classics connection and a model of effective advocacy for higher education accessibility: Dr. Carroll has long been a college education leader and innovator and has spent a lifetime as an advocate for the value of humanities, a tireless proponent of a more accessible and inclusive Classics and Humanities fields of study.  She recently told the San Diego Union-Tribune 'The arts and humanities are central to our understanding of history, cultures, expression...I’m interested in the diversity aspects of humanities,” she elaborated during an interview.' She is eager to expand outreach to diverse communities and cultures. She earned a BA in Humanities(at Duquesne University, Pittsburg, PA), MA and PhD in Classics, Latin and Greek (at the University of Pittsburg) and studied in Greece. She was Asst. Professor of Classics, Asst. and Assoc. Dean of Arts and Sciences at the University of Maine. Then she became the youngest Black woman college president (Indian Valley College) and president of 2 other California Community Colleges. She has been the recipient of countless awards and distinctions. She was appointed in 2011 by President Obama and Congress to the National Council for the Humanities, then appointed by President Biden to the National Committee on the Arts and Humanities in 2023, at age 77. She also still serves on the National Advisory Board of College Promise, having created a program allowing community colleges to offer 4 year degree programs in special fields under a CCC Baccalaureate Program. There will be an NCLG Spotlight article coming soon, date TBD.

The 2023 Pulitzer Prize recipient for Poetry for Then the War: And Selected Poems, 2007-2020 was Dr. Carl Phillips. He holds degrees in Classics, was a High School Latin teacher in Falmouth, MA before changing to a long and distinguished career in English, Poetry, and African American Studies at Washington University, MO. He has been a leader in the development of African American Studies. The Academy of American Poets writes: “Carl Phillips was born on July 23, 1959, in Everett, Washington. He earned a BA in Greek and Latin from Harvard University, where he graduated magna cum laude in 1981. He then earned an MAT in Latin and Classical Humanities from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and an MA degree in Creative Writing from Boston University. Ancient Greek and Roman writers, especially Thucydides, Cicero, and Tacitus, were an early influence for Phillips. He studied their work extensively in college, and through them learned “how forceful syntax can be in conveying nuance” as well as the use of “compression when conveying psychological and emotional crisis”... "Later, while studying with Geoffrey Hill, he discovered English Metaphysical poets, such as George Herbert (who wrote Latin poetry) and John Donne.” He also wrote a translation of Sophocles' Philoctetes  (Oxford UP, 2004). See Poetry Foundation comments here, which mentions classical forms and influences.

A movement to increase inclusivity by bringing visibility to the historical role of Classics for Black Americans: Dr. Anika T. Prather urges African American students and teachers to embrace and celebrate their connections to the classical Mediterranean world and its receptions as part of their OWN Black classical tradition. She was first trained in Elementary Ed, Music Education, Theater, and Liberal Arts (BA from Howard University; MA from New York University, NY, Howard University and St. John's College, MD) then realized the value of classical education as she completed her PhD in English (University of Maryland, MD, Dissertation: 'Living in the Constellation of the Canon: The Lived Experience of African American Students'). Early in her career she developed a passion for investigating, exploring, and teaching on Black Classicists and the importance and value of the Classical Tradition for African Americans. She has reached back to make connections with ancient classical authors from Africa and highlighted the overlooked heritage of ethnic Africans in ancient societies, like that of Rome, forming the basis of a 'Black intellectual tradition.' She has shared many of her articles and podcasts in this resource. While teaching at Howard and Johns Hopkins, she founded and still heads The Living Water School and recently organized and hosted a 2024 conference in Washington, DC, Redefining Classics: Embracing Diversity in the Classical Tradition, at which she gathered speakers whose schools embrace the Classics as an educational basis for many diverse student populations. She employs the Socratic method and engages in conversations about global themes in humanities with students and colleagues.