Event overview
Michael Simpson and Barbara Goff examine how the study of classical civilzations increasingly became a resource for progressive movements from the 1920s
Michael Simpson and Barbara Goff's talk is part of the Centre for Comparative Literature's series "Sing in me, Muse: The Classical, the Critical, and the Creative".
As classical civilisation lost its hold on the commanding heights of the British cultural economy in the early 20th C, so that by 1920 Ancient Greek was no longer required to enter Oxford, it conversely developed a new profile as a resource for progressive movements.
In 1921 the Crewe Report on the ‘Position of Classics in the Educational System of the United Kingdom’, commissioned by the Government of Lloyd-George, included an impassioned plea by the Labour Party for the importance of classics in the national life. There is an obvious mismatch in this new role for the classics, constructed as they so often are as a beguiling fantasy of transcendent and timeless authority, and we may suggest that the progressive parties put on classical garb because, like the bourgeois revolutionaries of Marx’s Eighteenth Brumaire, they mistake the historical forces that are in reality at work.
Michael Simpson and Barbara Goff's presentation takes the form of an introduction to their research on the classics in the British Left, followed by a more detailed look at a case study, the classical references in the activist press of the suffrage movement.
Attendance is free, but booking is required.
Note that this event in in-person only, and will not be recorded.
More information on the speakers and the event
Dates & times
| Date | Time | Add to calendar |
|---|---|---|
| 2 Feb 2023 | 6:00pm - 8:00pm |
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