Alex Loney

The courage to teach hard subjects

Alexander Loney, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Classical Languages; Classical Languages Section Coordinator

When I saw the call for joining the CACE seminar on polarization and difficult conversations, I at first did not think I had anything to offer or would bring anything away relevant to the kinds of teaching I do. I teach ancient Greek and Latin language and literature. Most of our class time is spent in rather specific and technical areas of grammar and language usage. Whether a given noun is an accusative form or a nominative never excites polarized answers. There is little controversy—but sometimes healthy, technical debate—about such questions. Very occasionally slightly more controversial subjects may come up. For instance, Greek and Latin are languages with grammatical gender. This means that questions will arise about how to handle gender-inclusive language in English translation when an original text uses gender-specific language. But, again, such a question is hardly going to provoke strong reactions. I enrolled in the seminar anyway, knowing that I would find the topic interesting in itself, whether or not it was directly applicable to my classroom.

But as the seminar progressed, and we discussed various topics that can provoke controversy in a classroom, I came to realize the lessons we learned in this seminar were more relevant than I expected. Indeed, I reflected that I had been avoiding in my upper-level courses some topics and questions that might provoke controversy. For, in addition to basic grammar, I also teach literature courses on major classical texts. These texts more often than one might expect involve some challenging topics. Perhaps out of a bit of fear, I hesitated to address such topics when they would arise in the assigned texts, and I even hesitated to assign other texts because I felt the grappling with such questions would be inevitable when reading them.

The topics that gave me pause were ones having to do with sex, violence, and race. For example, I knew that next year I would assign a dialogue by Plato. For some time, I considered assigning the Symposium. This dialogue is often regarded as Plato’s “artistic masterpiece”; its literary structure and Greek style are superb. However, its topic is eros, sexual desire. And more difficult still, one of the kinds of eros that is featured—indeed, called superior, by one interlocutor—is pederasty, the love of an adult man for a male youth. This kind of love was shockingly common in classical Greece. I hesitated to assign this text, because addressing pederasty and the various forms of homo- and heterosexuality in ancient Greece would be inevitable. And so, I assigned a different text for next year.

But now, after the seminar, I feel that I have new courage and some helpful resources to engage this text and ones like it. Still further, I think I am called to take on such a challenge and model for my students what it means to faithfully, critically, and charitably engage such hard subjects.