This broad collection of essays is a welcome addition to the ongoing, pressing conversations about what can and should be done to promote greater diversity within the field of ancient Mediterranean studies. Such a volume cannot easily encompass a wide range of voices and topics while maintaining a narrow focus, and what critiques we offer of the collection are primarily around the fact that individual essays often feel disconnected from one another. While this may not be a volume that will be read from cover to cover, it is nonetheless a valuable compilation of case studies and reflections on pressing contemporary issues within the field, across several countries (United States, United Kingdom and Greece).
The volume opens with a thoughtful contribution from P. Rankine about how classical studies as a discipline engages with university missions across a range of institution types (Howard, a historically black college and university; Purdue, a land grant institution without a Classics department; and Georgetown, a Jesuit institution). This chapter will likely speak more to faculty members in positions with some degree of permanence, since graduate students and contingent faculty are often less invested in institutional conversations around mission. Rankine's chapter nicely complements that of T.H.M. Gellar-Goad and C. Hines about integrating anti-racism into the department curriculum at Wake Forest University. Both of these chapters do a nice job of reflecting on the authors’ personal experiences while also offering suggestions and applications that will be useful to other faculty who are interested in increasing diversity at the level of the institution or the department.
Many of the chapters do not address the inevitable risks and drawbacks of committing oneself to promoting diversity within higher education. On the one hand, this makes sense, as most of the authors are (either implicitly or explicitly) trying to encourage readers to emulate their experiences. On the other hand, it is useful when authors (Gellar-Goad and Hines’ chapter stands out in this respect) do acknowledge the potential risks and the toll that this sort of work can take, in terms of time, energy and mental health. Given the increasingly hostile political climate around diversity in some parts of the United States, it is hard to ignore the risk that scholars take by committing themselves to the necessary work of diversifying the field.
D. McCoskey's chapter on teaching Cicero's Pro Fonteio provides an excellent example of how instructors might teach thorny and complicated issues like race in the ancient world. Even if they may not be covering Pro Fonteio with their students, McCoskey's piece outlines a general framework for introducing students to difficult topics that readers can follow to teach their own texts in a critical and reflexive manner. Meanwhile, the chapter's narrow focus also allows it to serve as a basis for a lesson plan for those teaching Pro Fonteio. By contrast, E. Bozia's chapter offers a consideration of an interdisciplinary course she taught that focused on the ‘narrative and metanarrative of the field’ (p. 60), a fascinating idea but one that could have been explored in greater specificity, as she casts a very wide net in the chapter.
N. Hill's chapter on inclusion in ancient Mediterranean archaeology provides a neat and concise summary of the diversity issues within the field as well as some of the potential steps that could be taken to address them, such as increasing funding and access to programmes for students of colour and providing more meaningful support through mentorship. One of the key issues that Hill outlines is the lack of reliable data illuminating the challenges that BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, people of colour) students face given that marginalised student victims are less likely to report their experiences for fear of retaliation or harassment. V. Leonard's chapter also considers demographics in the field and focuses on broader trends in representation and bias on platforms such as Wikipedia. She provides some illuminating – if also unsurprising – numbers to help fill the data gap discussed in Hill's piece. Notably, webpages on non-binary people and women, especially those of colour, are far more likely to be flagged for deletion or subject to harassment than those of their white, cis-male counterparts, demonstrating that hostility and the lack of acknowledgement for their accomplishments are problems that persist throughout the lifetimes of marginalised academics.
S. Agbamu's poignant chapter on his reflections as a racialised person in UK Classics will hit home for readers who have struggled to reconcile their love for the classical world with the institutional harm that the field of Classics has caused for people of colour. Agbamu's chapter highlights a common experience that many such marginalised students face at some point in their studies: a good education in the humanities often will, and arguably should, generate a moment of crisis in which students question whether their involvement in such fields amounts to complicity. However, E. Spentzou's chapter on ‘The Myth and Voice Initiative’ provides one compelling way in which instructors can encourage students to make sense of their own experiences and relate to the classical world in the way that is most meaningful to them, thereby fostering new connections with the material that centre community-building and trust.
B. Goff and A. Petsalis-Diomidis offer a recap of the opening panel from the 2021 Classical Association conference, which brought together senior scholars, undergraduate students, graduate students, and both teachers and students from the secondary level across the UK. The inclusion of such a wide range of voices provides an excellent window into the state of the field writ large. Unfortunately, due to space constraints, each contribution was necessarily short, and we found ourselves wishing we could hear more from many of these thoughtful voices.
E. Adams's piece on teaching visual and material culture in British museums is an important chapter that addresses the ways in which educators can make learning spaces more engaging and accessible for students with disabilities. The chapter is particularly focused on disability access under British law; so readers in other countries may not be able to apply the information in this chapter directly to their teaching or curation, but its discussion regarding the importance of providing access should inspire readers to learn more about how they can better accommodate students in their own legal and cultural contexts.
Finally, M. Fountopoulou and E. Kostara propose a pedagogical approach to training Classics teachers in Greek universities. As with the preceding chapter, this chapter offers many thoughtful observations, but more analysis of the study's findings (which space does not allow, once the methodology and findings are presented) would have been valuable.
One overarching theme is the question of audience. The diversity of perspectives is a great strength of the volume, but it also means that individual chapters will appeal more to some members of the field than others. As two reviewers at substantially different career stages (tenure track faculty and graduate student), we found ourselves appreciating very different aspects of this volume. Several chapters (Rankine, Gellar-Goad and Hines, Hill, Agbamu) would be excellent selections for department faculty to read and discuss collectively, as they consider ways in which departments might promote greater diversity. Others (McCoskey, Spentzou, Adams, Fountopoulou and Kostara) offer case studies of projects that educators could pursue in the classroom or other educational contexts. Yet others (Leonard, Goff and Petsalis-Diomidis) offer broader context for discussions about the lack of diversity across the categories of gender, class and ability. The volume includes a number of deeply thoughtful and insightful reflections on the state of the field and what can be done to increase diversity, and it will be a useful resource for people at all career stages who are invested in these questions.
