What Is a Jewish Classicist?: Essays on the Personal Voice and Disciplinary Politics

The personal politics of academia and its role in society have been a controversial topic in recent years. These new essays from one of the best-known scholars of ancient Greece offer a refreshing and provocative contribution to these discussions. The first essay examines how academics can and should talk about themselves, and how such positionality affects their work. The second essay takes a more socio-anthropological approach to the discipline, asking how its patterns of inclusion and exclusion, strategies of identification and recognition, have contributed to the shape of the discipline of classics. The third essay takes a different historical approach and looks at the infrastructure or technology of the discipline through one of its integral and time-honoured practices, namely, translation.

Format: Hardback
Length: 200 pages
Publication date: 14 July 2022
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC

In recent years, the personal politics of academia and its role in society have emerged as a pressing issue that has garnered widespread attention and debate. Who has access to education? How does one's identity shape what they study and how they engage with it? How does scholarship reflect the politics of society, and should it? These thought-provoking questions have been explored by one of the foremost
renowned scholars of ancient Greece in a collection of new essays.

"What Is a Jewish Classicist?" delves into the role of the personal voice of a scholar in scholarship, examining how religion and cultural identity are enacted within an academic discipline. It also explores the transformative power of translation, the core of any engagement with the literature of antiquity. The book offers a fresh and provocative perspective on the study of antiquity, shedding light on how and why it has become such a contentious terrain in contemporary culture.

In the first essay, the author explores how academics can and should talk about themselves, recognizing the impact of their positionality on their work. They raise the question of whether anyone can tell their own story with enough self-awareness, sophistication, and care. The essay offers valuable insights into the complexities of academic identity and the ways in which it shapes the scholarship that is produced.

The second essay, titled "What Is a Jewish Classicist?" takes a more socio-anthropological approach to the discipline, examining how its patterns of inclusion and exclusion, strategies of identification and recognition, have shaped the field of classics. The essay traces the history of Jews' exclusion from the discipline and their gradual assimilation into it after the Second World War. This historical journey raises challenging questions about the current emphasis War on race and color as the defining aspects of personal identification and the implications for the study of antiquity.

Overall, "What Is a Jewish Classicist?" is a thought-provoking and insightful collection of essays that offers valuable perspectives on the personal politics of academia and its role in society. The book provides a refreshing and provocative contribution to ongoing discussions about access to education, identity, scholarship, and the politics of society. The essays are topical, engaging, and revelatory society, opening a sharp and personal perspective on how and why the study of antiquity has become such a battlefield in contemporary culture.

Weight: 372g
Dimension: 225 x 147 x 18 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781350322578