Classical Education has been growing by leaps and bounds at the secondary level and in graduate programs that are training teachers. By contrast, traditional Classics departments at many universities have been one of the casualties of the great humanities cuts of the past decade. I am grateful to Joshua Kinlaw, Affiliate Assistant Professor of Classical Education at the Graduate School at the University of Dallas for taking the time to answer some questions about the Classics and Classical Education.
Nadya Williams: I want to hear a bit of your intellectual journey: How did you get into Classics to begin with? In my case, it all started with high school Latin. Was it a similar tale for you as well?
Joshua Kinlaw: I was relatively late to Classics. I was an undergraduate biology major until my third year of college, when I studied abroad at a place where Classics had always thrived. It’s hard to imagine now, but I recall Oxford’s website declaring something along the lines of “Classics is the backbone of any institution calling itself a ‘university.'”
This struck me as politically incorrect even then, yet also true: Every interesting conversation there seemed to reference classical authors. Classics was an agreed-upon starting point. And it struck me as more inclusive than elitist. It sounds hopelessly romantic, but I believed a shared foundation of any sort fostered more fruitful conversations—even as premises were interrogated. Debate—even humor—flourished. I wanted more of that. So I worked my way back from modern science and history towards antiquity.
This is all to say, I finally read Plato.
Nadya Williams: At some point you have made the transition from what I would consider more traditional Classical Studies into the world of Classical Christian Education and its companion—Great Books education. How did this transition occur, or do you even see it as a transition? On a related note, how do you envision the ideal relationship between Classics and Classical Christian education? In what ways are the two similar and different? What can the two learn from each other?
Joshua Kinlaw: Two things are true about Classical Education in this century: a) it is flourishing in the USA; b) no one can define it with any sort of finality, let alone predict its future.
This second point need not worry us too much: Humans have been debating “liberal learning” since the concept was invented (even before Plato). However, the dynamic nature of “canon” in particular and educational discourse in general is worth bearing in mind.
I mention the unsettled nature of our classical-ed discourse to point out obvious ramifications: To my knowledge, no one has successfully delineated a relationship between Classical Studies and Classical Christian Education. Indeed, I know of no attempt to do so.
Your choice of words—transition—is intriguing since it assumes some fundamental difference. That may well be; my point is, this is very much to be determined. As of now, there is more of a gap between these two than not. This is in keeping with the 20th– century’s academic tension between teaching and research—reified in Education departments viz-a-viz any given humanities discipline. That gap is probably artificial. It is nonetheless real, in my experience.
What if we challenged this assumption without availing ourselves to culture-war stereotypes? That would be truly classic.
The history of Classical Education in its current iteration should be written by a woman. “Classical School Moms” are the most significant voices in the community. This seems blindingly obvious to me, and I suspect most of us know women who are building schools, so I’m genuinely surprised I’ve not seen anything written about this.
Nadya Williams: My idea for this interview stemmed in part from a recent Twitter debate about the merits of Xenophon. It turns out that Xenophon fans are quite vocal these days! But Xenophon-bashing is also a popular sport in some circles. This raises the question, in my view: how would you recommend that modern readers, especially those reading Classics in translation, judge ancient authors? Are there particular criteria you recommend to your students? On a related note, I know it feels awfully restrictive, but if you were to recommend just a handful of essential ancient authors that everyone should read, who is on your list and why?
Joshua Kinlaw: Your questions here present another issue. How many of us have read enough to have an informed prejudice against Xenophon? I have no doubt there is a number. I’m equally certain that number is greatly exaggerated. The same applies to the nefarious conceit of “preferred translations”: unless one reads two to three languages, s/he has nothing to offer on the matter.
This will sound like grumpy twenty-first-century snobbishness, but I am fairly sure the same issue—the pretense—was present in fifth-century Athens. “Let the kids read!” is probably the best slogan for the Classical cause. Education may or may not have declined. It is certainly a perennial controversy.
I would suggest avoiding originality in your reading. The staying power of any author is not the most important power, but it counts for more than most of us assume. Be humble. Resist the temptation to refer to “The West” until you have read more of The West. Are the proper distinctions between Petrarch and Plutarch, Pantheon and Parthenon in our long-term memories? If so, we may be ready to move on to Moses, Confucius, or Al-Farabi.