Classics Archives - Public Books https://www.publicbooks.org/tag/classics/ a magazine of ideas, arts, and scholarship Sat, 17 Jan 2026 02:18:34 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 https://www.publicbooks.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/cropped-favicon-2-300x300.png Classics Archives - Public Books https://www.publicbooks.org/tag/classics/ 32 32 Finding Black People in Antiquity: Talking the Future of Classics with Sarah Derbew https://www.publicbooks.org/finding-black-people-in-antiquity-talking-the-future-of-classics-with-sarah-derbew/ Thu, 19 May 2022 15:00:10 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=48598 “It feels insensitive or dishonest to not acknowledge the ways in which our work is a part of a greater narrative.”

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]]> On Dressing Down Myth https://www.publicbooks.org/on-dressing-down-myth/ Thu, 10 Feb 2022 16:00:52 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=47393 “I research specific instances of Black artists who strip themselves out of mythologized dressings around race, sexuality, and gender.”

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]]> Finding Nowhere https://www.publicbooks.org/finding-nowhere-mapping-the-future-study-of-antiquity/ Mon, 07 Feb 2022 16:00:29 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=47359 What does the ancient world look like beyond Greece and Rome? Could imagining a collective human future start with seeing the past anew?

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]]> Four Ways to Ruin Dante—and One to Save Him https://www.publicbooks.org/four-ways-to-ruin-dante-and-one-to-save-him/ Wed, 16 Jun 2021 15:00:26 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=43775 Why would Dante need help? Because if the poet’s only readers are Dante scholars, then we’ll all lose out. Dante deserves better, and so do we.

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]]> B-Sides: Helen DeWitt’s “The Last Samurai” https://www.publicbooks.org/b-sides-helen-dewitts-the-last-samurai/ Tue, 01 Jun 2021 15:00:33 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=43533 Impossible to summarize, The Last Samurai is deeply political—anti-capitalist and thoroughly feminist—without ever becoming preachy or moralizing.

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]]> The “Decameron”; or, How to Laugh through a Pandemic https://www.publicbooks.org/the-decameron-or-how-to-laugh-through-a-pandemic/ Thu, 28 May 2020 15:00:26 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=36396 Whereas the Black Death was reason to cultivate individualism, our own pandemic leads to an opposite conclusion: our need to help one another.[none-for-homepage]

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]]> Helen of West Hollywood https://www.publicbooks.org/helen-of-west-hollywood/ Tue, 25 Feb 2020 16:00:38 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=34124 It hardly seems necessary to offer a spoiler alert for news that is well over two millennia old. But some news is so surprising, so contrary to everything we thought we knew, that time can do little ...

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]]> Madeline Miller on “Circe,” Mythological Realism, and Literary Correctives https://www.publicbooks.org/madeline-miller-on-circe-mythological-realism-and-literary-correctives/ Thu, 06 Jun 2019 15:00:25 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=28573 Madeline Miller is a Boston-born writer who currently lives in Philadelphia. Her degrees include a BA and ... [none-for-homepage]

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]]> The Return of Homer’s Women https://www.publicbooks.org/the-return-of-homers-women/ Thu, 16 May 2019 15:00:08 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=28266 Emily Wilson’s Odyssey, Pat Barker’s Silence of the Girls, and Madeline Miller’s Circe speak the lost and muted voices of ancient Greek women ...

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