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Classical patricide
On the state of the classics in higher education
Should the formal study of Greece and Rome die—or be killed off?
- Victor Davis Hanson
- The New Criterion
Some classicists seem to think so. An April 2021 New York Times piece focused on the young Princeton classical scholar Dan-el Padilla Peralta and his apparent advocacy of ending classics, at least as it now exists or…
The subtitle of the hagiography reads, “Dan-el Padilla Peralta thinks classicists should knock ancient Greece and Rome off their pedestal—even if that means destroying their discipline.”
The metaphor “pedestal” is revealing of the author’s general ignorance of how few Americans, on or off…