Famous Classicists

Many of us are familiar with the old flyer promoting the study of Classics (PDF) by listing famous people like Ted Turner and Vince Lombardi. Here’s the list:

1) Sigmund Freud, pioneer in psychoanalysis
2) W.E.B. DuBois, sociologist and co-founder of NAACP
3) Jane Addams, social worker,
founder of Hull House, and recipient of 1931 Nobel Peace Prize
4) Lynn Sherr, ABC-TV correspondent
5) Friedrich W. Nietzsche, philosopher
6) Gerda Lerner, pioneer in teaching women’s history
7) Nancy Vickers, president of Bryn Mawr College
8) William Cohen, former U.S. Secretary of Defense
9) Willa Cather, author
10) Vince Lombardi, football coach
11) J.K. Rowling, author of Harry Potter books
12) Betty Friedan, founder of NOW
13) Rita Mae Brown, animal enthusiast
14) James Baker, former U.S. Secretary of State
15) Jerry Brown, mayor of Oakland, CA, and former governor of California
16) Chuck Geschke, co-founder of Adobe Systems
17) Toni Morrison, author and recipient of 1993 Nobel Prize for Literature
18) Alicia Stallings, prize-winning poet; and
19) Ted Turner, founder of CNN.

Not only is the list out of date and filled with names that students will not recognize (William Cohen?), it’s also inaccurate. Ted Turner, for instance, only briefly studied classics, and you may already have read the letter his father sent when he learned of his son’s classical frivolity (“…I almost puked …“). It’s often given a positive spin and has gotten some good press lately, but Turner later changed his major to economics before being expelled. The best you can say is that someone who wanted to study Classics ended up a success, yet to connect the two is dishonest as it suggests to potential majors a connection between a Classics degree and the kind of success enjoyed by Turner.

And describing Rita Mae Brown as an ‘animal enthusiast’ is even more absurd. While it may be true, it ignores the fact that she hunts foxes for fun (I guess that’s a kind of enthusiasm), and that she is most famous as a writer, which one could note without mentioning her sexuality or her most famous book, Rubyfruit Jungle. (I assume that’s what they wanted to avoid.)

We need a new list, and the LatinTeach blog has given us a great starting point: Chris Martin of Coldplay.

And while that is a good start, the notion of listing famous Classics majors seems a bit wrong-headed. It’s glamor-baiting, really, and if we want to show the viability of Classics we should really consider including successful people beyond celebrities. We can do this, perhaps, by appealing to people’s career aspirations and showing that Classics is a road others have taken to get there.

First up is a person who seems an obvious choice. Not only does he have a classics degree, but he is an outspoken advocate of the classics.

In the field of politics: Boris Johnson, mayor of London.

In journalism: Jeffrey Brown, senior correspondent on PBS’s NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.

How about nursing?: Dame June Clark, professor emerita and member of the Royal College of Nursing.

Or the priesthood: Peter Moran, the Bishop of Aberdeen. “His personal motto is ‘Gaudium et Spes’ – Joy and Hope.”

Or law: Kannon Shanmugam, who has argued ten cases before the Supreme Court. He’s a partner at Williams & Connolly and a former law clerk to Antonin Scalia.

This is a start, and I welcome additions to the list.