HIST 632

Overview

HIST 632: Gender, Race, Racism, and the History of Classical Scholarship addresses the assumptions and biases that have underpinned classical scholarship in modern history. Since the main seats of classical scholarship for the last several hundred years have been Germany and Britain, it is not surprising that there has been a strong Eurocentric element in how modern scholars have approached the ancient past. Given the traditional male dominance in the educational system of these nations, it is also not surprising that scholarship has taken an androcentric position.

The past has long been looked to as a justification for practices of the present, and certainly the white, male, European assumptions of scholars coloured their views of the past and helped, in turn, to reinforce the assumptions they expected to find validated therein. In short, scholars sought evidence for a Eurocentric, male-centred antiquity because they lived in a Eurocentric male-centred present. They often found what they sought at least in part owing to their unconscious and perhaps conscious attitudes towards the evidence the ancient past presented.

This course is designed to explore these issues and to examine the ancient evidence, or lack thereof, that has traditionally been cited in support of these assumptions about ancient society.

This course will fulfill a valuable function in examining issues of race, gender, sexuality, and class in the ancient world, in the classical scholarship undertaken by Europeans in the modern era, and the long-term impact of both on Western society in terms of history, popular culture, and the development of other scholarly disciplines. The very wide-ranging ramifications of the mindsets explored will be amply demonstrated.