{"id":129,"date":"2026-07-30T20:24:45","date_gmt":"2026-07-31T01:24:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lacisreview.lacis.wisc.edu\/?p=129"},"modified":"2026-08-21T10:38:31","modified_gmt":"2026-08-21T15:38:31","slug":"intersecting-classical-and-latin-american-caribbean-and-iberian-studies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lacisreview.lacis.wisc.edu\/?p=129","title":{"rendered":"Intersecting \u201cClassical\u201d and Latin American, Caribbean, and Iberian studies"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Intersecting \u201cClassical\u201d and Latin American, Caribbean, and Iberian studies<\/h1>\n\n\n

Grant Nelsestuen<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Beige Analog Compass. Ylanite Koppens. Nov. 22, 2017. Photo from pexels.com. CC0.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Encompassing the literature, history, and culture of the ancient Greeks and Romans, the discipline historically\u2014and Eurocentrically\u2014known simply as \u201cClassics\u201d might initially appear peripheral to the theme of \u201cborders,\u201d as so evocatively conceived within this issue of the LACIS Review<\/em>. This article traces some starting-points for thinking about how the bounds of the \u201cclassical\u201d world intersect with those of Latin America, the Caribbean, and the Iberian peninsula\u2014to the mutual benefit of all alike.  

We might start with the question of how the Iberian peninsula was conceived in Greek and Roman antiquity. The name \u201cIberian\u201d (ib\u0113r<\/em>) is attested as early as the fifth-century B.C.E. Greek historian Herodotus (Histories <\/em>7.165; cf. 1.163)\u2014though he interestingly uses it to refer to the Elisyci, a tribe who dwelled along the Mediterranean coast between the Pyrenees and the Rhone River. By the time of the first-century B.C.E. geographer Strabo\u2014who came from Amaseia (in modern Turkey), wrote in Greek, and himself lived under Rome rule\u2014the confines of \u201cIberia\u201d would largely match contemporary ones: the peninsula as defined by the Atlantic, Mediterranean, and Pyrenees (Geography <\/em>3.4.19). Still, Strabo\u2019s identification comes amidst a survey of prior delineations and appellations. The Ebro, in particular, receives attention as both etymology and the earlier eastern boundary for \u201cIberia\u201d\u2014attesting to the ongoing mutability of names and borders within antiquity. Even more interesting is Strabo\u2019s comment on the use of the name \u201cHispania\u201d interchangeably with that of \u201cIberia\u201d\u2014a practice he imputes to Rome\u2019s conquest of the peninsula (starting in 197 B.C.E.). But as Strabo also observes, Rome\u2019s bifurcation of Hispania into the provinces of \u201cFarther\u201d and \u201cHither\u201d\u2014where each appellation turns on their relative proximity to the metropole of Rome\u2014varied over time and in accordance with their administrative (read: imperial) needs. None of this necessarily tells us anything about how the local denizens of Iberia-cum-Hispania conceived their own lands or identities, but it does speak to the way that, whatever role geography or other \u201cnatural\u201d considerations may have played in defining them, borders remained matters of power and perspective in antiquity\u2014just as today.   

But what might ancient Greek and Roman studies have to offer in Latin American and Caribbean contexts? Of course, neither Greeks nor Romans were aware of anything beyond the confines of what they called Okeanos. Instead, reception furnishes one bridge over this spatial and temporal gulf: early modern European colonizers brought \u201cclassical\u201d knowledge with them, employed in ways large and small. A 2018 edited volume, Antiquities and Classical Traditions in Latin America<\/em>, adumbrates the liveliness of this tradition\u2014sometimes appropriated by indigenous peoples as well.  More pernicious is the case of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Luso-Brazilian Jesuits, who, as Rafael de Bivar Marquese and F\u00e1bio Duarte Joly show, synthesized the precepts of ancient household management and agricultural texts with Christian tradition to shore up the practice and institution of slavery in the face of resistance by the enslaved. Perhaps more felicitous is the famous case of Toussaint Louverture, whose signal role in securing autonomous borders for Haiti, earned him the sobriquet of \u201cBlack Spartacus.\u201d One could cite numerous other examples of creative re-deployments of the \u201cclassical\u201d tradition in later periods: from invocations of Athens as part of Jos\u00e9 Enrique Rod\u00f3\u2019s efforts to construct a uniquely Latin American identity in Ariel<\/em> to the imaginative reworkings of threads from \u201cclassical\u201d mythology in the celebrated writings of Gabriel Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez.  In these respects, reception offers an opportunity to span temporal, geographical, and disciplinary divides\u2014as well as to destabilize any notion that the Greek and Roman \u201cclassics\u201d belong solely to Greece or Rome or, for that matter, the European tradition.

Yet, we might also flip the question and briefly consider the important contributions that scholars with various connections to Latin America and the Caribbean are currently making to reinvigorating the discipline of Greek and Roman studies. One could cite the explosion in Spanish and Lusophone scholarship in recent years as evidence for the vibrant contributions that Latin American scholars are making to the field. In my own work, for example, a new edition of the ancient Roman writer, Cornelius Nepos,is now required reading. But let me instead close by considering one of the leading voices on the future of \u201cclassical\u201d studies: Dan-el Padilla Peralta.

A Princeton professor and an accomplished scholar of ancient Rome, Padilla was born in the Dominican Republic and came to the United States as the four-year-old son of a family who had initially traveled for medical care. Padilla\u2019s 2015 biography, Undocumented: A Dominican Boy\u2019s Odyssey from a Homeless Shelter to the Ivy League<\/em>, relates the subsequent story of his life\u2019s journey and can be read as a profound meditation on the way that borders\u2014political, social, educational, linguistic, and otherwise\u2014suffuse and stratify American society to its detriment. And there is a certain irony to the way that, even as Padilla adroitly navigates the vast divides between his two worlds of East Harlem and Manhattan prep school, his lapsed visa and the impediments he faces in normalizing it circumscribe his ability to travel abroad even as they threaten deportation. Padilla\u2019s Undocumented<\/em>, in these respects, can be read as a testament to the inordinate power that some borders might retain in simultaneously entrapping and excluding\u2014however many other borders an individual might otherwise traverse.

Which makes Padilla\u2019s professional profile even more salient and crucial.  On the one hand, Padilla\u2019s work entails meticulous work in \u201cphilology\u201d: the skills underpinning close-reading of Latin and Greek texts (esp. linguistics\/etymology, textual criticism, and literary criticism of a strongly historicist bent) and traditionally regarded as the qualitative benchmark for scholarship in \u201cClassics.\u201d  On the other hand, by incorporating multiple strands of contemporary sociological and critical theory, Padilla has broken new, and highly original, ground in his various areas of research.  For example, a 2020 article synthesizes rigorous analysis of the ancient evidence with critical theory on \u201cepistemicide\u201d and comparative discussions of the Americas to argue that Roman imperialism entailed immense violence to local ways of knowing alongside its better-known depredations of enslavement, slaughter, and ecological destruction on mass scales\u2014with the history of Roman mining operations on the Iberian peninsula as a central case-study.  But it is his efforts in challenging the historically Eurocentric, often elitist, and sometimes racist terms of the discipline of \u201cClassics\u201d that have yielded the most attention from a non-specialist audience, rendering him one of the field\u2019s most prominent public figures.  A profile in the The New York Times Magazine<\/em> is required reading for those interested in Padilla\u2019s efforts to reform the discipline of \u201cClassics\u201d in ways that mutually advance the field\u2019s inclusivity and our knowledge of the ancient Mediterranean world. In opening up new areas for scholarly investigation even as it simultaneously interrogates and reformulates disciplinary boundaries, Padilla\u2019s work might thus be understood to serve as an exemplum for all of us alike in our own scholarly endeavors\u2014be they Greek and Roman studies, or Latin American, Caribbean, and Iberian studies, or, as this essay briefly sketches, the numerous intersections that perhaps bind disciplines closer together than one might initially think.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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About the Author<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Grant Nelsestuen<\/strong> is a Professor of Classical Studies in the Department of Classical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies as well as an affiliate and former director of Integrated Liberal Studies.  His research focuses on ancient Greek and Roman political thought, Roman cultural history, and Latin literature.  He teaches a wide variety of courses, including ones on conspiracy and conspiracy theories in antiquity and modernity and on the concept and practice of friendship across time and cultures.  Since August 2023, Nelsestuen has served as Associate Dean for Arts and Humanities in the College of Letters & Science.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Works Cited<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Laird, Andrew, and Nicole Miller. Antiquities and Classical Traditions in Latin America (Bulletin of Latin American Research Book Series)<\/em>. Wiley, 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marquese, Rafael de Bivar, and F\u00e1bio Duarte Joly. \u201cPanis, disciplina, et opus servo: The Jesuit ideology in Portuguese America and Greco-Roman ideas.\u201d Slave Systems: Ancient and<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Modern<\/em>, edited by E. Dal Lago & C. Katsari, Cambridge University Press, 2008, pp. 214-30.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oliveira, Francisco. Corn\u00e9lio Nepos. Vidas de Epaminondas, Cat\u00e3o e \u00c1tico. Fragmentos.<\/em> Imprensa da Universidade de Coimbra, 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peralta, Dan-el. \u201cEpistemicide: The Roman Case.\u201d Cl\u00e1ssica: Revista Brasileira de Estudos Cl\u00e1ssicos<\/em>, vol. 33, no. 2, 2020, https:\/\/doi.org\/10.24277\/classica.v33i2.934<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014. Undocumented: A Dominican Boy\u2019s Odyssey from a Homeless Shelter to the Ivy League<\/em>. Penguin Books, 2015.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Poser, Rachel. \u201cHe Wants to Save Classics From Whiteness. Can the Field Survive?\u201d The New York Times Magazine<\/em>, 2 Feb. 2021, https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2021\/02\/02\/magazine\/classics-greece-rome-whiteness.html<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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ancient modern boundaries<\/a>, <\/span>border<\/a>, <\/span>classics<\/a>, <\/span>Greeks<\/a>, <\/span>history<\/a>, <\/span>reception<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Grant Nelsestuen Encompassing the literature, history, and culture of the ancient Greeks and Romans, the discipline historically\u2014and Eurocentrically\u2014known simply as \u201cClassics\u201d might initially appear peripheral to the theme of \u201cborders,\u201d as so evocatively conceived within this issue of the LACIS Review. This article traces some starting-points for thinking about how the bounds of the \u201cclassical\u201d …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3828,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uw_seo_meta_title":"","_uw_seo_meta_description":"","_uw_seo_twitter_card_type":"summary_large_image","_uw_seo_meta_image":"","_uw_seo_meta_image_url":"","_uw_seo_meta_image_sizes":[],"_uw_seo_custom_meta_tags":[],"uw_external_link":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[61,41,59,62,58,60],"class_list":["post-129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-issue-2-fall-winter-2023","tag-ancient-modern-boundaries","tag-border","tag-classics","tag-greeks","tag-history","tag-reception"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lacisreview.lacis.wisc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lacisreview.lacis.wisc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lacisreview.lacis.wisc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lacisreview.lacis.wisc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3828"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lacisreview.lacis.wisc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=129"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/lacisreview.lacis.wisc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":989,"href":"https:\/\/lacisreview.lacis.wisc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129\/revisions\/989"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lacisreview.lacis.wisc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lacisreview.lacis.wisc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lacisreview.lacis.wisc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}