14 Black Classicists

The Department of Classics is hosting a traveling photographic and historical exhibit called, “14 Black Classicists”. The exhibit, conceived and curated by Dr. Michele Valerie Ronnick of Wayne State University, reflects on the role of advanced education (and especially of the study of Classics) in building a free and prosperous Black community in the United States. Dr. Ronnick has collected the stories of nineteenth-century Black Americans who chose to pursue advanced education in Greek and Latin language and ancient history, literature and art, and went on to teach in the field. The exhibit is open until November 18th, Monday through Friday, 8 am to 7 pm in the Farrington Gallery on the first floor of Bryant Hall. In addition to the exhibit, we will be hosting Dr. Ronnick for a talk on Thursday, November 3 at 5:30 in Bryant 209, with a reception and exhibit event preceding the talk, beginning at 4:00 in Farrington Gallery. Dr. Ronnick will provide “A Brief History of Black Classicism”. Monica Granderson-Little, who teaches in English at Jackson State University, will be delivering preliminary remarks that will help connect Dr. Ronnick’s talk and the exhibit to the broader history of Black education, with a particular focus on the history and the future of JSU. Visitor and handicap parking for both events is available on the Lyceum Circle. ADA-compliant access to Bryant Hall is through the Fulton Chapel side door. If you have any questions, or if you require a disability related accommodation to fully participate in this event, please contact Molly Pasco-Pranger ([email protected])https://egrove.olemiss.edu/classics_lectures/1035/thumbnail.jp

In Search of Helen Maria Chesnutt (1880-1969), Black Latinist

Classical scholars have begun to delineate the dynamic pattern of black classicism. This new subfield of the classical tradition involves the analysis of the creative response to classical antiquity by artists as well as the history of the professional training in classics of scholars, teachers and students in high schools, colleges and universities. To the first group belongs Helen Maria Chesnutt (1880-1969). Born in Fayetteville, NC, Chesnutt was the second daughter of acclaimed African American novelist, Charles W. Chesnutt (1858-1932). She earned her B.A. from Smith College in 1902 and her M.A. in Latin from Columbia University in 1925. She was a member of the American Philological Association and the Classical Association of the Middle West and South. Her life was spent teaching Latin at Central High School in Cleveland, OH. This is the first full scale account of her career

A Brief Look at the History of Black Classicism

Preliminary remarks by Dr. Monica Granderson-Little, Jackson State University: Jackson State University: Embracing the Past and Elevating into the Futurehttps://egrove.olemiss.edu/classics_lectures/1054/thumbnail.jp

The noise-lovers: cultures of speech and sound in second-century Rome

This chapter provides an examination of an ideal of the ‘deliberate speaker’, who aims to reflect time, thought, and study in his speech. In the Roman Empire, words became a vital tool for creating and defending in-groups, and orators and authors in both Latin and Greek alleged, by contrast, that their enemies produced babbling noise rather than articulate speech. In this chapter, the ideal of the deliberate speaker is explored through the works of two very different contemporaries: the African-born Roman orator Fronto and the Syrian Christian apologist Tatian. Despite moving in very different circles, Fronto and Tatian both express their identity and authority through an expertise in words, in strikingly similar ways. The chapter ends with a call for scholars of the Roman Empire to create categories of analysis that move across different cultural and linguistic groups. If we do not, we risk merely replicating the parochialism and insularity of our sources.Accepted manuscrip