Barbara Gold, Edward North Professor of Classics Emerita, published an article in the fall issue of American Book Review. In this special issue on “Rethinking Classics,” 10 writers representing a diverse spectrum of the field of classics were asked to show that “Homer is alive and well and living in San Francisco, Harlem, Albuquerque and Columbia, South Carolina” (Miller, 13) by addressing the state of classics today.
Gold said the focus was on how classics, “like much of the humanities in general, is in crisis today, and how classics has become a discipline that asks difficult and sometimes painful questions about the past – our past – questions that impel us to think broadly and inclusively about our culture and its past, present and future.”
She said her essay, “The Elasticity and Capaciousness of Classics,” “shows how classics reaches out temporally, spatially, materially, semantically, and theoretically and has evolved into a discipline that now includes, among other areas, scientific imagination, the environment and ecology, queer theory, the history of sexuality, race and racialization, colonialism, ancient healthcare, botanical knowledge, alterity and otherness, wet nursing and breastfeeding.”
Gold noted that “a diverse group of scholars and practitioners are helping to expand the borders of classics and asking exciting new questions of this very old but vibrant discipline.”
