A wide-ranging and entertaining whence-and-whither discussion of her field, she clearly has in mind a potential worldwide classroom, but a justly skeptical one ... Full of Beard’s old joy at the unexpectedness of ancient realities ... I find these conclusions unsatisfying. Beard rejects (in uncharacteristically snotty tones) claims that classics gets you ahead ... Beard certainly has nothing in common with the classics professors of literary myth (and occasional current reality) who, after a lifetime of talking only to one another through their professional journals and conferences, notice that classics is in trouble and mount the podium to explain why it shouldn’t be. Instead, she partakes of a teacher’s most organic resources: curiosity and delight. We should stop worrying about classics, especially when someone as capable as Beard is presenting and performing it.
In this short and engaging new book, which is part memoir, part manifesto, the most prominent classicist of our time argues that the ancient world’s appeal is not as a comfort blanket but as a disruptive challenge.
Beard does this job very well ... She writes then in praise of wonder ... Beard does a splendid job of telling us how fascinating — and fun — the study of the classical world can be. Yet to my mind, the book underplays the arguments for studying the ancient world.
She acts like a tour guide, bringing us to one of her regular haunts in Pompeii, the bar of Salvius ... Much of what follows sounds like eavesdropping from a good nox Saturni (Saturday night) there, propping up the counter and eating its in-house delicacy of snail stew ... In the lulls between anecdota, Beard sometimes dons her academic cap to add a dash of profundity.
When talking classics, Beard is certainly speaking to the academy, but students (current, former, and future) of classical education will savor Beard’s rooted rumination on classics as both a discipline and a means of finding thauma.
