Stuart M. McManus: Global Empire, Intersectional Lives and the Classical Tradition in Colonial Latin America, Africa and Asia

Date
Fri March 2nd 2018, 12:00 - 1:00pm
Event Sponsor
Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity, Department of Classics
Location
Building 360, Rm 361K
Stuart M. McManus: Global Empire, Intersectional Lives and the Classical Tradition in Colonial Latin America, Africa and Asia

How did ancient Mediterranean culture shape life in the multiethnic global empires of Spain and Portugal? To answer this question, this talk explores the role of the classical tradition in structuring and disseminating early modern discourses on empire, slavery and Christian missions with a particular focus on the ways ancient literary forms and civic practices (from the epigram to Ciceronian public speaking) were applied by Iberian, indigenous and African students of antiquity to carve out a place for themselves within this hierarchical global space. By taking a global and ethnohistorical approach to classical reception studies, this talk makes the case that the global impact of Greece and Rome cannot be understood without reference to early modern constructions of race, ethnicity and class.

Stuart M. McManus is a scholar of the classical tradition in global context, with a particular focus on the reception of ancient Mediterranean culture in Latin America, Asia, Africa and among people of color in the United States. He has also published on Native American literature and contemporary Latinx culture. These interests form part of a larger intellectual project to uncover the complex role played by Greco-Roman Antiquity in non-western contexts and to engage students who have been traditionally underrepresented in the field.

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