Overview
We've become accustomed to the wisdom of the ancient Greeks being trotted out by conservatives in the name of timeless virtues. At the same time, critics have charged that multiculturalists and their ilk have hopelessly corrupted the study of antiquity itself, and that the teaching of Classics is dead.
Trojan Horses is Page duBois's answer to those who have appropriated material from antiquity in the service of a conservative political agenda - among them, Camille Paglia, Allan Bloom, and William Bennett. She challenges cultural conservatives' appeal to the authority of the classics by arguing that their presentation of ancient Greece is simplistic, ahistorical, and irreparably distorted by their politics. As well as constructing a devastating critique of these pundits, Trojan Horses seeks to present a more complex and more accurate view of ancient Greek politics, sex, and religion, with a Classics primer. She eloquently recounts the tales of Daedalus and Artemis, for example, conveying their complexity and passion, while also unearthing actions and beliefs that do not square so easily with today's "family values." As duBois writes, "Like Bennett, I think we should study the past, but not to find nuggets of eternal wisdom. Rather we can comprehend in our history a fuller range of human possibilities, of beginnings, of error, and of difference."
In these fleet chapters, duBois offers readers a view of the ancient Greeks that is more nuanced, more subtle, more layered and in every way more historical than the portrait other writers, of whatever stripe, want to popularize and see displayed in our classrooms. Sharp, timely, and engaging, Trojan Horses portrays the richness of ancient Greek culture while riding in to rescue the Greeks from the new barbarians.
Editorials
Publishers Weekly -
DuBois (a professor of classics at UC-San Diego and author of Sappho Is Burning) proffers a highly polemical attack on what she believes are ill-founded attempts by conservatives to use the literature, history and mythology of Greco-Roman antiquity to advance their moral agendas. Some of her targets are well known, like William Bennett (the book's main villain) and Allan Bloom; others will be familiar primarily to those who follow academic discourse. The arguments against the offending conservatives are many, but the book's major target is the claim that there are enduring moral and political lessons to be learned from ancient wisdom that we can use to improve our own society. DuBois disputes these conclusions by arguing that those with whom she has issue distort through simplification the context and meaning of much of their evidence evidence that is open to a more nuanced and sophisticated interpretation. The book concentrates on evidence from " the sexual practices of the classical period in Athens, the radical democracy of ancient Athens and the polytheism of the ancient Greeks." The author argues that, when looked at in detail, the ancient wisdom used by conservatives is culled from a brutish, warlike and sexist culture that offers little of the ethical comfort to the modern world that conservatives claim. (Mar.) Forecast: Despite the heat of the cultural debate, duBois's scholarly text may generate some controversy but it is not likely to be read outside the academy. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.Library Journal
DuBois (Sappho Is Burning; classics, Univ. of California, San Diego) begins by noting the simplistic view of ancient myth and culture found in popular culture. She shifts, however, to the equally simplistic way that conservative thinkers, such as William Bennett and Allan Bloom, posit that the classics are a repository of perennial wisdom. She then outlines the complexity of ancient views on race, sexuality, gender, and community. While she is accurate in both her thesis and her response, her complaints about the reductive appropriation of ancient Greek and Roman culture are hardly new. Further, her targets are no longer as prominent on the contemporary cultural radar, dating her book. She would have done better to examine the simplistic view of the ancients in popular culture than to throw barbs at straw men. Aimed at the converted, this book is more a tempest in a teacup than a Trojan horse. Not recommended. T.L. Cooksey, Armstrong Atlantic State Univ., Savannah Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.Booknews
DuBois (classics and cultural studies, U. of California, San Diego) has written a passionate account of the Greek classics, the richness of which comes alive in her retelling of the tales. The goal of her book is twofold: first, to show why the classics are unquestionably worth including in school curricula and secondly, to demonstrate how conservative thinkers, particularly William Bennett and Allan Bloom, have sanitized these stories to conform to their agenda of what American families should be and think. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)From the Publisher
"A lucid and utterly persuasive book that shows how the classical Greek world might serve as a rich and complex resource for contemporary cultural and political analysis. duBois counters effectively those who would idealize classical Greece as the origin of a narrow notion of civilization, demonstrating with wit and poignancy how a progressive and complex view of culture and politics can be derived from a knowledgeable reading of its texts and institutions. There is no single line that runs from the classical world to conservative cultural politics, and duBois shows us quite distinctly how we might begin to think plurality, nature, imagination, and sexuality anew by drawing from this importantly equivocal past."
-Judith Butler,Maxine Elliot Professor, University of California, Berkeley
"Page duBois loves the classics too much to permit them to be embalmed, calcified, or imprisoned in a rigidly conservative straight jacket. Her Greeks are guides to sexuality, democracy, and the sacred. With zest and courage, Trojan Horses rides into the global future."
-Catharine R. Stimpson,Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Science, New York University
"Page duBois forcefully weighs in on the contentious debate about the role of the Classics and the ancient Greeks in education today. Grounded in a deep understanding of the Greeks and their texts,
-Ralph Hexter,