Syllabus

Course Description

This seminar brings together two lines of inquiry not traditionally put in conversation: first, the history and practice of activism as a force for reconfiguring knowledge; second, primary texts from Greco-Roman antiquity and texts engaged with the history and practice of classical scholarship. Each week in the first half of the semester, we will examine one site of ancient tradition with particular attention to the tactics by which it has been disrupted. We begin with the figurative site of the “master’s house” (Lorde), then consider the (international) site of Greek nationhood and the modern figure of the nation more broadly; the U.S. Civil War (1860-64), seen as a site of the city-state (polis); various cultural sites; the university as seen primarily through its disciplinary structures; and finally the specific discipline and departments of Classics. We will read critical texts by Lorde, the Combahee River Collective, DuBois, and Moten alongside classical texts by Thucydides, Sophocles, Aeschylus, Cicero while being attentive to the experience of activism.

Students of the live version of this course were responsible for collectively determining the sites and readings for the second half of the semester, drawing on a provided bibliography and their own research.

By putting academic and activist knowledge on equal footing, Rupturing Tradition aims to incubate new modes of practicing knowledge of “the classics” as a public good.