Love this! Any ideology that denys cultural nuance is based in white supremacy. It's always a headache to see how people nitpick ancient greek philosophy and culture for their hyperspecific narratives when in reality Greece as one culturally uniform nation is very modern, and there was a wide array of greek cultures existed at the same time.
Thanks for this - an interesting and important perspective.
To be fair to Greg Shaw, I interpret him as criticising the "heirs of Greek rationality" model rather than endorsing it. But the point is well taken that, if he wanted to bring up an example of a non-dualist tradition, he could have looked within Greek culture itself rather than going for Tantra.
I revisited this point as I really hate criticising anyone unjustly (and I have a lot of respect for Greg Shaw regardless of whether I disagree on one or other point). I see what you meant in the sense that he criticises the emphasis on duality within the "western heirs" perception. However, he is a great proponent of the "the West are the heirs of Greek thought" model overall, and it is this which I am criticising (his most recently announced course includes this in its blurb). My objection is that it erases/eclipses/ignores the existence of anything Greek after late antiquity, effectively siloing antiquity for the benefit of the West, with the ensuing issues I've outlined above (and more extensively in the book). So I'll leave it as it is, but thank you for prompting me to revisit it!
Thanks Robin - your feedback is valuable (and thanks for reading the footnotes!!! They're even juicer than the main text). That's not how I read it, but since I'm now proofing the book I will take a second look as I don't want to be unjust to anyone; actually I hope you're right. But the Tantric model is really problematic unfortunately.
It's quite extraordinary that the discussion about classics as a discipline has given so little attention to Greek perspectives. But then it's largely a parochial American thing: a proxy for a culture war in the USA which is really about other issues. I see classics people in Britain who write about this simply borrowing tropes and rhetoric from Americans (the point being not that classics in Britain is not open to criticism, but the criticism needs to be formulated differently because the history is different).
It's partly that, but the roots to this go right back to Byzantine times. Western Europe was hostile towards the Eastern Empire as they vied for the title of "true" heirs to Ancient Rome; then the Schism; then the 4th Crusade and the sack of Constantinople; when Byzantine scholars (from Bessarion on) began fleeing Westwards, the Latin reinterpretations of Greek material quickly got distorted, and then Erasmian interpretations didn't help either. The Neoclassical/Romantic perspectives have a lot to do with this too. The modern perspectives (esp. in relation to race) are indeed American, but much of this is very much "made in Europe." French and Italian scholarship of Greek material is stellar and doesn't fall into the same traps; my sense of British scholarship is that it is very much still under the influence of imperialist tropes that are subconscious by now. And certainly inadvertent; I don't believe any of this is intentional, but the perspective is deeply rooted. There are some absolutely lovely scholars that I know, all European (some British), mostly from the previous generations (ie, the people who taught me), who sing the praises of "the glory that was Greece" but place a very sharp dividing line between all things Classical, and anything else. This is anecdotal of course, but although in this particular snippet some of the examples are from American sources, in the rest of this section of the book they're very wide-ranging in terms of provenance.
Understood. Much of my focus tends to be on the Romantic period and later, and I do wonder what the hell the Greeks of the time would have made of contemporary Western European engagement with Greek culture. At times, it approached a kind of cosplay, with Shelley's circle actually calling themselves "the Athenians". None of them had ever set foot in Greece (I put Byron in a different category, for obvious reasons). The Germans were perhaps even worse.
What I had in mind re British classical scholarship was the way in which it was bound up with a quite specific aristocratic imperial tradition (and I don't doubt that this continues to have an influence), but this was distinct from what happened in America - yet the critiques (CAWS et al) are hugely indebted to American concerns. And, while it's merely annoying that the particularities of British classical reception tend to get overlooked, it must be actively offensive that the Greek perspective gets overlooked.
Yes, I understand your perspective (re British vs American perspectives and their interplay). The truth is I rarely distinguish between them (and maybe I should, and maybe this should be highlighted somewhere). I took another look at Martindale's "Thinking Through Reception;" he's British, but mainly bringing such topics to the table in the US context so it's really quite entangled. He does make the point that these issues are far more broadly addressed in the UK whereas the US lags behind though, so thanks for bringing that up.
We do actually know quite a lot about what Greeks of the day thought about Philhellenism: then as now, opinion was divided and influenced by the degree of exposure to European contexts. Educated members of the Greek diaspora saw an opportunity to garner support for the liberation movement, and successfully did so, along with support for reinstating education in Greece. The whole cos-play thing was found amusing, but ultimately sympathetic and a sentiment to be capitalised upon (there is a certain amount of self-colonisation going on as well; can't shy away from that fact). Another subset of intellectuals found it all very distasteful and borderline offensive, and worked hard following the liberation to prove that Greek scholars could be every bit as worthy as those from wider Europe; but this was hard in a bankrupt state reeling from war and occupation (and infighting). And perhaps the largest social group of all, mostly illiterate rural dwellers, simply took advantage of the newfound interest in visiting ancient ruins. Some helped pillage them, some stood against it - but poverty was grinding so it was what it was. There's plenty of documentation for all this, but mostly in Greek I fear. Herzfeld whom I quote above has some very insightful work on this.
And alas, it is actively offensive, but it is also damaging to a surprising degree internally (in terms of society and politics; again see Herzfeld). But this is not about being professionally offended (I hope I've been able to communicate that); it's about the very real damage that it does (along with Hollywood and tourism campaigns). The way we're treated by visitors, the way we're talked to by peers... and the way we then present our public face as a country and culture. From the scholarly point of view, I realised at some point that I've been sitting on a treasure trove of material, but to get it out there I do actually have to address this, because much of it flies in the face of the received wisdom, not just in Classics, but many adjacent fields.
This is fascinating. Especially the stuff about Greek responses to Romantic philhellenism. If the material on this is largely in Greek, that's another reason to repair the scandalous deficit among Western Europrean classicists of knowledge of modern forms of Greek.
Love this! Any ideology that denys cultural nuance is based in white supremacy. It's always a headache to see how people nitpick ancient greek philosophy and culture for their hyperspecific narratives when in reality Greece as one culturally uniform nation is very modern, and there was a wide array of greek cultures existed at the same time.
Thanks for this - an interesting and important perspective.
To be fair to Greg Shaw, I interpret him as criticising the "heirs of Greek rationality" model rather than endorsing it. But the point is well taken that, if he wanted to bring up an example of a non-dualist tradition, he could have looked within Greek culture itself rather than going for Tantra.
I revisited this point as I really hate criticising anyone unjustly (and I have a lot of respect for Greg Shaw regardless of whether I disagree on one or other point). I see what you meant in the sense that he criticises the emphasis on duality within the "western heirs" perception. However, he is a great proponent of the "the West are the heirs of Greek thought" model overall, and it is this which I am criticising (his most recently announced course includes this in its blurb). My objection is that it erases/eclipses/ignores the existence of anything Greek after late antiquity, effectively siloing antiquity for the benefit of the West, with the ensuing issues I've outlined above (and more extensively in the book). So I'll leave it as it is, but thank you for prompting me to revisit it!
Thanks Robin - your feedback is valuable (and thanks for reading the footnotes!!! They're even juicer than the main text). That's not how I read it, but since I'm now proofing the book I will take a second look as I don't want to be unjust to anyone; actually I hope you're right. But the Tantric model is really problematic unfortunately.
It's quite extraordinary that the discussion about classics as a discipline has given so little attention to Greek perspectives. But then it's largely a parochial American thing: a proxy for a culture war in the USA which is really about other issues. I see classics people in Britain who write about this simply borrowing tropes and rhetoric from Americans (the point being not that classics in Britain is not open to criticism, but the criticism needs to be formulated differently because the history is different).
It's partly that, but the roots to this go right back to Byzantine times. Western Europe was hostile towards the Eastern Empire as they vied for the title of "true" heirs to Ancient Rome; then the Schism; then the 4th Crusade and the sack of Constantinople; when Byzantine scholars (from Bessarion on) began fleeing Westwards, the Latin reinterpretations of Greek material quickly got distorted, and then Erasmian interpretations didn't help either. The Neoclassical/Romantic perspectives have a lot to do with this too. The modern perspectives (esp. in relation to race) are indeed American, but much of this is very much "made in Europe." French and Italian scholarship of Greek material is stellar and doesn't fall into the same traps; my sense of British scholarship is that it is very much still under the influence of imperialist tropes that are subconscious by now. And certainly inadvertent; I don't believe any of this is intentional, but the perspective is deeply rooted. There are some absolutely lovely scholars that I know, all European (some British), mostly from the previous generations (ie, the people who taught me), who sing the praises of "the glory that was Greece" but place a very sharp dividing line between all things Classical, and anything else. This is anecdotal of course, but although in this particular snippet some of the examples are from American sources, in the rest of this section of the book they're very wide-ranging in terms of provenance.
Understood. Much of my focus tends to be on the Romantic period and later, and I do wonder what the hell the Greeks of the time would have made of contemporary Western European engagement with Greek culture. At times, it approached a kind of cosplay, with Shelley's circle actually calling themselves "the Athenians". None of them had ever set foot in Greece (I put Byron in a different category, for obvious reasons). The Germans were perhaps even worse.
What I had in mind re British classical scholarship was the way in which it was bound up with a quite specific aristocratic imperial tradition (and I don't doubt that this continues to have an influence), but this was distinct from what happened in America - yet the critiques (CAWS et al) are hugely indebted to American concerns. And, while it's merely annoying that the particularities of British classical reception tend to get overlooked, it must be actively offensive that the Greek perspective gets overlooked.
Yes, I understand your perspective (re British vs American perspectives and their interplay). The truth is I rarely distinguish between them (and maybe I should, and maybe this should be highlighted somewhere). I took another look at Martindale's "Thinking Through Reception;" he's British, but mainly bringing such topics to the table in the US context so it's really quite entangled. He does make the point that these issues are far more broadly addressed in the UK whereas the US lags behind though, so thanks for bringing that up.
We do actually know quite a lot about what Greeks of the day thought about Philhellenism: then as now, opinion was divided and influenced by the degree of exposure to European contexts. Educated members of the Greek diaspora saw an opportunity to garner support for the liberation movement, and successfully did so, along with support for reinstating education in Greece. The whole cos-play thing was found amusing, but ultimately sympathetic and a sentiment to be capitalised upon (there is a certain amount of self-colonisation going on as well; can't shy away from that fact). Another subset of intellectuals found it all very distasteful and borderline offensive, and worked hard following the liberation to prove that Greek scholars could be every bit as worthy as those from wider Europe; but this was hard in a bankrupt state reeling from war and occupation (and infighting). And perhaps the largest social group of all, mostly illiterate rural dwellers, simply took advantage of the newfound interest in visiting ancient ruins. Some helped pillage them, some stood against it - but poverty was grinding so it was what it was. There's plenty of documentation for all this, but mostly in Greek I fear. Herzfeld whom I quote above has some very insightful work on this.
And alas, it is actively offensive, but it is also damaging to a surprising degree internally (in terms of society and politics; again see Herzfeld). But this is not about being professionally offended (I hope I've been able to communicate that); it's about the very real damage that it does (along with Hollywood and tourism campaigns). The way we're treated by visitors, the way we're talked to by peers... and the way we then present our public face as a country and culture. From the scholarly point of view, I realised at some point that I've been sitting on a treasure trove of material, but to get it out there I do actually have to address this, because much of it flies in the face of the received wisdom, not just in Classics, but many adjacent fields.
This is fascinating. Especially the stuff about Greek responses to Romantic philhellenism. If the material on this is largely in Greek, that's another reason to repair the scandalous deficit among Western Europrean classicists of knowledge of modern forms of Greek.