Dan-el Padilla Peralta presents his new book "Classicism and Other Phobias," a provocative case for why immortalizing Greek and Roman culture as “classical” marginalizes and devalues Black life.
About the Book (from the publisher):
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.
About the Author:
Dan-el Padilla Peralta is professor of Classics at Princeton University. He is the author of three books: "Undocumented: A Dominican Boy’s Odyssey from a Homeless Shelter to the Ivy League" (Penguin 2015); "Divine Institutions: Religions and Community in the Middle Roman Republic" (Princeton 2020); and "Classicism and Other Phobias." (Princeton 2025). He co-edited two others: "Rome, Empire of Plunder: The Dynamics of Cultural Appropriation" (with Matthew Loar and Carolyn MacDonald; Cambridge 2017); and "Making the Middle Republic: New Approaches to Rome and Italy, c. 400 – 200 BCE" (with Seth Bernard and Lisa Mignone; Cambridge 2023); and he is a volume editor for the "Cambridge History of the African Diaspora." Projects now in the works include "338 BCE: Rome and the Age of Empires," co-authored with Denis Feeney (under contract with Harvard University Press); "A People’s History of Rome" (under contract with Princeton University Press); and a manifesto on race, racism, and the disciplinary identity of classics, co-authored with Sasha-Mae Eccleston.
About the Moderator: Kate Meng Brassel is assistant professor of classical studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Prior to joining the faculty at Penn, she taught as the Shapiro Faculty Fellow in the Core Curriculum at Columbia and also worked in television production.
Presented in partnership with Labyrinth Books, Princeton University's Department of Classics and Princeton University Press and with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities: Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this programming do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
AGE GROUP: | Adults |
EVENT TYPE: | Humanities | Civic Life | Author Talks | *No Registration |
TAGS: | NEH | Fall25Authors |
