#DisruptClassics

Published by

Clarissa

May 29, 2021

It’s kind of really funny:

Classics majors at Princeton—yes, classics majors—will no longer be required to learn Greek or Latin, because racism. pic.twitter.com/84ea1khx2v
— Aaron Sibarium (@aaronsibarium) May 29, 2021

To justify this silliness, they’ll do some inane #DisruptClassics initiative and declare a bunch of YA novels by “gender fluid persons of color” to be the real classics.

The reason why this is being done, though, has nothing to do with race or anything of the kind. Latin and Greek are hard. It’s next to impossible to BS your way through them. Back at Yale, we were required to take Latin for our degree in Romance languages, and the graduate student union was obsessed with getting rid of the requirement. Latin was hard, and almost nobody passed on the first try. Similarly, the union wanted to get rid of grades because grades made things too hard.

The only thing that’s new here is that the students got smart, realized that the adults grow weak in the knees the moment you say “racial equity,” and are using this weakness to get one over on the idiot professors.

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12 responses to “#DisruptClassics”

DWeird

May 30, 2021

I really want to have Sanskrit or Arabic added to the requirements instead and then see them wriggle.

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bluebird of bitterness

May 30, 2021

“In one hundred years we have gone from teaching Latin and Greek in high school to teaching Remedial English in college.” —Joseph Sobran

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Dame Eleanor Hull

May 30, 2021

The only thing that makes Latin hard is not knowing anything about grammar, parts of speech, etc., before you start. It’s a logical, elegant language. Greek is harder because of the strange things it does with participles, but interesting, too. As to “racist,” check this out: https://www.bolchazy.com/William-Sanders-Scarboroughs-First-Lessons-in-Greek-P3955.aspx
It’s really a teacher’s guide; you couldn’t teach yourself Greek from it without another textbook, or a teacher. But that’s the point, really. Scarborough not only knew Greek, he wanted to make it available to other black scholars and students.

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Mendelevium

May 30, 2021

My first degree was in Classics before I moved on to another Humanities discipline. I sometimes still read Greek and Latin, and feel a bit disappointed that I left the field. I then read these kinds of stupidities and the disappointment is gone. This “intellectual”, for example, was saying six months ago that requiring Classics students to read Latin and Greek is “cruelty and violence”: https://twitter.com/isisnaucratis/status/1334939498048872450

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Alex the Physicist

May 30, 2021

If they just wanted Classics majors to also learn more about the various Middle Eastern and North African civilizations that influenced Greece and Rome, well, great. Allow the option of taking Phoenician, Assyrian, Egyptian, or Avestan. Nothing wrong with reading old Persian texts to understand how Zoroastrian beliefs influenced major religions, and how Achaemenid geopolitical strategy shaped the world.

But that’s not what this is about. We all know it.

Also, how could anyone at a selective school like Yale argue with a straight face that Latin isn’t a valid requirement for a degree in Romance languages?

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1. Clarissa
  
  May 30, 2021
  
  Right?? I have no idea how you can teach Spanish with no knowledge of Latin. It’s ridiculous. I find my knowledge of Latin to be infinitely helpful.
  
  But then again, these are the same graduate students who mocked anybody who cared about finding a job. It’s a trust fund crowd. Worrying about making a living is declasse.
  
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  1. Alex the Physicist
    
    May 30, 2021
    
    On a very practical level any language can be taught without knowing its parent language. I doubt your English teachers knew much Old Anglo-Saxon.
    
    But if you want to engage in doctoral study of a language, yes, parent languages seem useful for context.
    
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    1. methylethyl
      
      May 30, 2021
      
      Studying a foreign language is actually the easiest way to learn formal grammar in your own language: it doesn’t let you “cheat” by just knowing what sounds right.
      
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Avi

May 31, 2021

Are we going to see departments of engineering dropping their requirements for maths and physics, because racism? Is that next?

I shudder to think what’s next, but something fishy is already going on in admissions to medical schools in the U.S. If you have the right skin colour you can get in even if your grades suck. Great start for a future doctor!

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1. methylethyl
  
  May 31, 2021
  
  I predict a bright future for herbalists.
  
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2. Alex the Physicist
  
  May 31, 2021
  
  Read this:
  
  View at Medium.com
  
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  1. Avi
    
    May 31, 2021
    
    Thank you, that was an excellent suggestion and a real eye opener!
    
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