Harvard University Press
Not All Dead White Men: Classics and Misogyny in the Digital Age
Key Metrics
- Donna Zuckerberg
- Harvard University Press
- Hardcover
- 9780674975552
- 8.3 X 5.8 X 1.1 inches
- 0.97 pounds
- Social Science > Feminism & Feminist Theory
- English
Secure TransactionBook Description
A chilling account of trolling, misogyny, racism, and bad history proliferated online by the Alt-Right, bolstered by the apparent authority of Greek and Latin Classics. Zuckerberg makes a persuasive case for why we need a new, more critical, and less comfortable relationship between the ancient and modern worlds in this important and very timely book.
--Emily Wilson
A virulent strain of antifeminism is thriving online that treats women's empowerment as a mortal threat to men and to the integrity of Western civilization. Its proponents cite ancient Greek and Latin texts to support their claims--arguing that they articulate a model of masculinity that sustained generations but is now under siege.
Donna Zuckerberg dives deep into the virtual communities of the far right, where men lament their loss of power and privilege and strategize about how to reclaim them. She finds, mixed in with weightlifting tips and misogynistic vitriol, the words of the Stoics deployed to support an ideal vision of masculine life. On other sites, pickup artists quote Ovid's Ars Amatoria to justify ignoring women's boundaries. By appropriating the Classics, these men lend a veneer of intellectual authority and ancient wisdom to their project of patriarchal white supremacy. In defense or retaliation, feminists have also taken up the Classics online, to counter the sanctioning of violence against women.
Not All Dead White Men reveals that some of the most controversial and consequential debates about the legacy of the ancients are raging not in universities but online.
Author Bio
Donna Zuckerberg is a classicist, writer, and Editor-in-Chief of Eidolon, an online publication committed to non-traditional classical scholarship that is feminist, personal, and fun. She is the author of Not All Dead White Men (2018), a study of the reception of Classics in Red Pill communities. Her writing has also appeared in Jezebel, the Times Literary Supplement, and the Washington Post. Her second book is under contract with Harvard University Press.
Donna received her Ph.D. in Classics from Princeton University in 2014. Her dissertation, “The Oversubtle Maxim Chasers: Euripides, Aristophanes, and their Reciprocal Pursuit of Poetic Identity” won a Winkler Prize for its analysis of how Aristophanic parodies of Euripides influenced the development of Euripidean style. She has served as board member and Director of Communications for the Paideia Institute for Humanistic Study, which she co-founded in 2012. She currently lives in the Bay Area with her two sons, and the world’s sweetest, dumbest bulldog.
Source: donnazuckerberg.com
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