Over the past day—and indeed for months and weeks—I have been watching and involved with arguments dismissing “postmodern approaches” to classics #ClassicsAndTheoryRant (1/15)
This argument is political. “post-modern” is a catch-all phrase for many different approaches which are dismissed by conservative traditionalists #Classicsandtheoryrant (2/15)
There is this argument that keeps going on about studying classical literature, language, culture and history with modern theoretical approaches. #ClassicsAndTheoryRant (3/15)
This is a tired argument that has been going on since some literary theorists had the gall to imagine that texts were more than pristine aesthetic objects with timeless secrets for the properly initiated to unlock. #ClassicsAndTheoryRant (4/15)
I have a few simple points to make. The first is that scholarship is not a zero-sum game. Applying new theoretical frames does not wipe out the old ones or render them useless. #ClassicsAndTheoryRant (5/15)
New ideas build upon older ones. Some gain purchase for more than a few years become part of the tradition. #ClassicsAndTheoryRant (6/15)
A second point which is by no means original is that you can love something and see that it might be bad for something or need to change. E.g. chocolate cake is delicious, but it can kill you. Cigarettes are delightful, but they will give you cancer. #ClassicsAndTheoryRant (8/15)
Anything made by humans is imperfect because we are not perfect. Saying the homeric epics are misogynistic or using marxist theory to show how they produce structural oppression does not erase their beauty or their impact. #ClassicsAndTheoryRant (9/15)
A third point is also not original: all methods of interpretation are ideological and have a theory. If the theory is not explicit, that does not mean it is not there. It means it is naïve and unquestioned. #ClassicsAndTheoryRant (10/15)
Philology is a means not an ends. #ClassicsAndTheoryRant (11/15)
The practice of classics as developed in Europe around the enlightenment is ideologically connected to a particular time, a set of bodies and languages, and a cultural apparatus distinct from ancient greece and rome #ClassicsAndTheoryRant (12/15)
It is not ‘authentic’ or ‘correct’ to treat ancient texts in this way any more or less than it was authentic and correct for Plotinus and Porphyry to say the Odyssey is an elaborate allegory for the mind. #ClassicsAndTheoryRant (13/15)
All reading is reception. All interpretation is ideological. Being explicitly about our ideological receptions helps us communicate better with each other and through the generations. #ClassicsAndTheoryRant (14/15)
When we encourage new perspectives and viewpoints we enrich our reception of the past. Some of this enrichment might be misleading, it might be only temporarily insightful. #ClassicsAndTheoryRant (15/15)
But striving to make new sense of the old, to try to surpass those who have already labored, is better than sucking on the marrow from corpses and wallowing in mute ash #ClassicsAndTheoryRant (16/15)
