Classics

[Hibush]

As sophisticated as the Han dynasty was, it is easy to imagine that the Romans considered them to be Barbarians when they encountered each other.

[hungry_ghost]

As sophisticated as the Han dynasty was, it is easy to imagine that the Romans considered them to be Barbarians when they encountered each other.

Why?

[kaysixteen]

Like it or not, the term 'classics' or 'classical studies' has a long pedigree in this country, and deservedly so.   The fact that some people do not like it, well that's too bad.

[Parasaurolophus]

Apparently, western classics studies are flourishing in China.

Across all my interviews ... no one saw a Classical education as irrevocably "Western"; it was as if the Greeks and Romans were a heritage of global culture, a wellspring of wisdom that remains relevant to all moderns regardless of hemisphere.

https://supchina.com/2022/01/13/china-looks-to-the-western-classics/

Very intersting article!  The faculty market may be stronger at Chinese universities than US ones. How many US PhDs are applying? On the one hand, the article describes Chinese students who got a classics degree in the US and then found positions in China. But on the other, the most prominent classics professor the speaks Mandarin, Greek and Latin with a distinct Austrian accent.

One benefit of conversing in ancient Greek: the censors leave you alone.

The article leaves unspoken the notion that scholars in China would be exposed to both "western" and contemporary Chinese sources, as well as to a very different historical context - a situation very different from most home-grown US scholars (as evidenced by the "ancient civilizations"-related discussion earlier in this thread. This makes me think that most stereotypical US PhDs will not be competitive in this situation.

I have read that for many disciplines, university education in China (and elsewhere in the world) is so heavily based on/imported from/exported from the Western model that "local" subjects, thinkers, influences, etc. dropped out almost entirely in favour of the "classical" canon. The situation is changing, but slowly. Given the way prestige hierarchies work, I don't find that at all surprising.

[hungry_ghost]

Like it or not, the term 'classics' or 'classical studies' has a long pedigree in this country, and deservedly so.   The fact that some people do not like it, well that's too bad.

I agree. I have no objection whatsoever to the name "Classics."
For the record, this is what I object to:

A Classics department decided that they needed to give their major a different name! And, what they came up with puts their "supposed assumptions of the superiority of Greco-Roman culture" on full display: they called their major "Ancient Civilization." What I find offensive in the extreme (and racist too, in case anyone is still reading) is a Classics department with a major called "Ancient Civilization" (singular) that excludes everything but Greece and Rome.   

[Hibush]

Like it or not, the term 'classics' or 'classical studies' has a long pedigree in this country, and deservedly so.   The fact that some people do not like it, well that's too bad.

What is the history of a seemingly generic term like "classic" being applied a very tightly defined time and place?
For example from another context, "classics" refers to rock and roll songs recorded between 1959 and 1972.

[downer]

Maybe we should call it "Classix". Seems more PC.

I remember suggestions back in the 1980s for calling those courses covering the classics "Dead white men". If I remember rightly, the idea was that it would increase enrollment in them.

Things were more feisty back then.

[marshwiggle]

Like it or not, the term 'classics' or 'classical studies' has a long pedigree in this country, and deservedly so.   The fact that some people do not like it, well that's too bad.

What is the history of a seemingly generic term like "classic" being applied a very tightly defined time and place?
For example from another context, "classics" refers to rock and roll songs recorded between 1959 and 1972.

How about "modern" and "post-modern", (a stupid term if there ever was one). What's next? "Pre-futurist"????

[dismalist]

How about "modern" and "post-modern", (a stupid term if there ever was one).

--post-structural;
--post-feminist;
--post-modern;
--post-philosophical.
_________________

--post-office

[mamselle]

Well, if you don't know what they mean, of course they don't make sense.

If you do, they do.

Ergo...

M.

[Hibush]

--post-office

We entered the post-office era nearly two years ago. Not only did we leave our offices, but the postmaster general was busy making sure the classic meaning of "post office" could leave the language soon.

[dismalist]

Maybe using Asterix and Obelix as source material for a classics course would work wonders:

http://joachimkoerner.net/Latin/projects/comics/popular_latin_phrases_in_asterix.htm

or even

https://latin4everyone.wordpress.com/2013/12/03/asterix-et-obelix/

[Durchlässigkeitsbeiwert]

Maybe using Asterix and Obelix as source material for a classics course would work wonders:

Should it also include educational "flame purification" ceremony?
https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/book-burning-at-ontario-francophone-schools-as-gesture-of-reconciliation-denounced

[mamselle]

As sophisticated as the Han dynasty was, it is easy to imagine that the Romans considered them to be Barbarians when they encountered each other.

Why?

Because they didn't speak Latin (the eponymous definition of "barbarian") in the first place, but also because when a monadnockial monolinguist encounters heterolingual folk, they immediately project lack of learning on the 'other' and deride them, in order to feel better about themselves.

But you knew that, right?

;--}

M. 

[kaysixteen]

"monadnockial"?