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Podcast: New Books in African American Studies
Episode: Dan-el Padilla Peralta, "Classicism and Other Phobias" (Princeton UP, 2025)
Description: Classicism and Other Phobias (Princeton University Press, 2025) shows how the concept of âclassicismâ lacks the capacity to affirm the aesthetic value of Black life and asks whether a different kind of classicismâone of insurgence, fugitivity, and emancipationâis possible. Engaging with the work of Sylvia Wynter and other trailblazers in Black studies while drawing on his own experiences as a Black classicist, Dan-el Padilla Peralta situates the history of the classics in the racial and settler-colonialist settings of early modern and modern Europe and North America. He argues that immortalizing ancient Greek and Roman authors as âthe classicalâ comes at the...