Teaching race and ethnicity in the Greco-Roman world

Denison Associate Professor of Classics Rebecca Futo Kennedy and her colleague University of Kentucky Associate Professor of Classics Jackie Murray discuss their experiences teaching about race and ethnicity in the Greco-Roman world and the reception of these ideas in modern constructions of race in this video.

The conversation includes a short overview of their different approaches to teaching the material and what they mean by the terms “race” and “ethnicity.” They also address some of the problems one might face in the classroom surrounding ideas of biorace and other forms of white supremacism, and reflect upon the differences between teaching these courses as faculty racialized differently as White and Black. Drs. Murray and Kennedy are currently in the development stage of a co-authored textbook on understanding race, ethnicity, and racism in antiquity and Classics for Routledge.