Classicism and Other Phobias

A provocative case for why immortalizing Greek and Roman culture as “classical” marginalizes and devalues Black life

Greek and Roman antiquity has been enshrined in disciplines and curricula at all levels of education, perpetuating what the historian of political thought J.G.A. Pocock has called “a conceptual dictatorship on the rest of the planet.” Classicism and Other Phobias shows how the concept of “classicism” lacks the capacity to affirm the aesthetic value of Black life and asks whether a different kind of classicism—one of insurgence, fugitivity, and emancipation—is possible.

Engaging with the work of Sylvia Wynter and other trailblazers in Black studies while drawing on his own experiences as a Black classicist, Dan-el Padilla Peralta situates the history of the classics in the racial and settler-colonialist settings of early modern and modern Europe and North America. He argues that immortalizing ancient Greek and Roman authors as “the classical” comes at the cost of devaluing Black forms of expression. Is a newfound emphasis on Black classicism the most effective counter to this phobia? In search of answers, Padilla Peralta ranges from the poetry of Juan de Castellanos to the writings of W.E.B. Du Bois and paintings by contemporary artists Kehinde Wiley and Harmonia Rosales.

Based on the prestigious W.E.B. Du Bois Lectures delivered at Harvard University, Classicism and Other Phobias draws necessary attention to the inability of the classics as a field of study to fully cope with Blackness and Black people.