The final blog of the African takeover is by Dr Samantha Masters, a lecturer at Stellenbosch University in South Africa. She teaches Ancient Cultures in the Department of Ancient Studies, and researches Attic pottery, local collections of antiquities and classical reception in South Africa.
Oddity or odyssey: Why I teach and research classics in South Africa
By Dr Samantha Masters
My journey as a classical scholar in South Africa has been, fittingly, something of an odyssey: a journey of discovery, with high points, set-backs and doubts, but also many marvels, successes, and epiphanies. Many South Africans (friends and strangers alike) consider the teaching of classics at a university at the tip of the African continent, an oddity. ‘What has that got to do with us?’ is a standard question. Critics also point to the baggage still attached to traditional classics: its colonial and elitist associations and its use as canon and universal standard in art, literature and culture. In recent years there have been calls for the transformation of higher education curricula and a rejection of the treatment of Africa (or the global south) as passive recipient of western (or global north) knowledge systems. Within a context moving towards the ‘decolonisation’ of knowledge and aesthetics, there are important questions that can be asked of classicists in South Africa. Can classics, baggage and all, still be relevant in this decolonising context?
My context: the odyssey begins
Being born on the privileged ‘side’ of apartheid, I got to know about classical antiquity as a child after seeing my grandmother’s European holiday snaps of Greece and Italy. Listening to her stories of visiting the Parthenon (the view from that vantage point!), queuing for the Colosseum in Rome, and her journey up the slopes of Vesuvius to peer into its famous smouldering caldera intrigued me and I couldn’t wait to walk in her footsteps one day. Though my curiosity for classical languages was already piqued by my English teacher’s memorable and lengthy tangents on Greek and Latin etymology, it was in the 1990s at the University of Natal, Durban[1] that my ‘classical education’ actually began. Alongside legal subjects and English, I took Latin (mainly because of law), Greek and Classical Civilisation as it was called (the study of culture, art, ancient history and classical literature in translation).
A few years later, standing at the threshold of postgraduate study and weighing up Law or Classics, the study of an iconic South African play The Island by Athol Fugard, John Kani and Winston Ntshona[2] nudged me along the classical route. The play takes place on an unnamed island, but surely modelled on Robben Island, the apartheid-era prison for political dissidents, where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for 27 years. In the play, two political prisoners, John and Winston, are rehearsing Sophocles’ Antigone; the Sophoclean themes and story are intricately interwoven with the modern play and contemporary South African context.[3] This unexpected mode of social and political critique of my own contemporary context in dialogue with antiquity stunned me into recognizing the diabolical, dehumanizing and devastating psychological and social violence of the apartheid state. This pivotal moment in my academic career also showed me the rich opportunities afforded by reception studies.
Changing lenses
At the time of this ‘epiphany’ (early 1990s) classical reception was not considered a proper academic branch of classics in South Africa. Nowadays it is better recognised and more scholars are following these research avenues. In addition to my research on Greek vase-painting and iconography (the subjects of my MA and PhD dissertations), I also have an ongoing project related to collections of ancient artefacts – and their reception – in South African Museums. While my work on the antiquities also links well with my specialisation in Attic pottery, the attention to the South African context also brought me closer to the work of contemporary South African artists who engage with classical antiquity. The exquisite and powerful art of Charlayn von Solms (see blogs #3 and #4) was my first foray into this field, followed by work on Wim Botha and Nandipha Mntambo. These artists reflect classical antiquity through totally different modern media including found objects, polystyrene shards, and photography. All ask pertinent questions of us as human beings, how we make meaning of what we see, and how we construct our own reality/meanings in context.
Looking forward at the past
In my teaching at the Ancient Studies Department[4] I encourage the students to reflect on their own engagement with the material whether it is literary or visual. My office is filled with artefacts, not ancient, but made by students over the years. In all of my courses there are components of reception, whether this is related to texts, contemporary art, popular culture or other media. In most of my courses, assessment options include allowing the student to participate in an act of reception of their own. They are invited to produce a creative assignment that engages with and reflects on techniques or themes covered in their module and their own world experience. Opting for a creative assignment as assessment allows students to channel their thought in a different medium while retaining a high level of critical engagement with the subject, and their context.
One of my favourite examples of a creative project takes a well-known sculptural bust of Homer in the Louvre and recreates it in glorious technicolour with M&Ms as a type of mosaic. The student played with the everyday mundane and transient medium, to capture the marble visage of such a lofty poet, a giant of the tradition. Furthermore, the colourful palette responds to her new discovery that ancient statuary was in fact painted.
Another piece comments on patriarchal values through engagement with the famous Greek statue of an all-powerful male god – Zeus or Poseidon in the Archaeological Museum of Athens – throwing his weapon. This student’s ‘sculpture’ shows a black female figurine (a doll tailored for the purpose) about to use her own weapon of choice, a scroll of paper, in other words, her education. Her commentary on the patriarchal attitudes of antiquity extended to a critique of contemporary societies, including South African traditional cultures. She answered the ‘god throwing a weapon’ vision of masculine power with an image of her own emergent power, a black woman empowering herself through education in South Africa.
Reception studies is, in my view, a vital addition to classics in South Africa and its many avenues allow researchers of all levels to confront subjects of immediate concern as well as the perceived baggage of classics itself. In a new book I am editing with Imkhitha Nzungu and Grant Parker, Africa, Greece, Rome: Decolonising Classics (forthcoming 2022, African Minds), my co-editors and contributors engage with such questions around teaching classics here, on this African continent, and now. By situating the study of the classical world in the local contemporary world and the world of our students, and adopting a critical approach, this area of academic activity remains relevant, robust and useful. It can contribute towards the critical citizenship that is one of the ideal graduate attributes. While remaining committed to seeing the many points of connection between ancient and modern, at the same time we can travel familiar territory afresh, with new eyes and through different routes. The lens of reception presents learning opportunities and empowers us to engage in our own processes of making sense of the past as well as the present.
This blog post brings the African takeover to a close. We have thoroughly enjoyed sharing the work with you and are grateful indeed for having been given this opportunity by the Classical Reception Studies Network! As co-ordinator of this takeover I would also like to thank the following colleagues for their engaging contributions: Prof. Mark Fleishman, Jayne Batzofin, Mandla Mbothwe, and Dr Lekan Balogun, from the University of Cape Town, South Africa; Prof Olakunbi Olasope, University of Ibadan, Nigeria; Ms Gifty Etornam Katahena from the University of Ghana, Legon; and Dr Carla Bocchetti from the French Institute in South Africa.
Postscript: Directory of Classical Scholars in Africa
I am compiling a directory of classical scholars in Africa and if you are a such a scholar and would like to be added to a mailing list and potentially be part of a network, please email me at masters@sun.ac.za.
[1] Now the University of KwaZulu-Natal.
[2] First performed as Die Hodoshe Span in 1973.
[3] The Island is based on an actual performance of the Antigone by Sophocles, on Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela acted the part of Kreon.
[4] The Department researches the ancient societies of Northern Africa, the Mediterranean, and Western Asia and offers modules in Ancient Cultures, Biblical Hebrew, Ancient Greek, Latin and Classical Legal Culture. Our material covers Egypt, the Sudan, Ethiopia, the Levant (Syria, Jordan, Palestine/Israel), Anatolia (Turkey), Mesopotamia (Iraq), Persia (Iran), Greece and Rome. http://www.sun.ac.za/english/faculty/arts/ancient-studies