Black History Month: Classical Humanism and White Supremacy

To most in the twenty-first century, humanism means putting human reason at the centre of ethical systems. Yet, in the centuries in which the reinvigoration of ancient Greek and Latin literatures led to the first articulations of humanism, it meant something very different.

In this talk, we will encounter two early modern humanists, whose engagement with Latin literature challenged classical humanism's narrow conception of who counted as fully human. Juan Latino was a formerly enslaved Black African in sixteenth-century Spain, who rose to become the first Black professor of Latin. Phyllis Wheatley, also born into slavery in eighteenth-century New England, also gained her freedom in part through asserting her humanity through her Latinity.

The lives of both offer salutary lessons for more inclusive visions for a humanism which genuinely encompasses all of humanity since it is, as Edward Said suggested, our last defence against the inhumanity that scars human history.

Dr Sam Agbamu is a Lecturer in Classics at University of Reading with particular interest in race in antiquity, imperial and postcolonial receptions of antiquity.

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