Dartmouth Events

“The Roman Empire occupies a paradoxical place in the discourse of contemporary hate groups: it serves simultaneously as an admirable model of a hyper-masculine, militarily successful, autocratic state and a warning against the dangers of immigration, multiculturalism, and governmental overreach. Yet even without explicitly totalitarian or xenophobic politics, a similar paradox informs the place of Rome in the formal practice of ancient history and the popular imagination. In this lecture Dr. Dozier, explores the implications of hate groups’ discussions of the fall of Rome for these latter two spheres.” 

Curtis Dozier received his PhD from the University of California, Berkeley in 2008.  He is the director of Pharos: Doing Justice to the Classics, a site devoted to documenting and responding to appropriations of ancient Greece and Rome by hate groups. He is also the producer and host of The Mirror of Antiquity, a podcast featuring classical scholars discussing the intersections of their research, the contemporary world, and their own lives.

His research focuses on Latin poetry, classical rhetoric, and ancient literary criticism. He has published a series of articles on various aspects of Quintilian’s Institutio Oratoria. His course on Classical Rhetoric and the Presidential Campaign has been featured on Vassar News and his work has appeared in Salon.com, the online journal for Classics and Contemporary Culture Eidolon, and Public Radio’s Academic Minute. In addition to his work in the department of Greek and Roman Studies, Professor Dozier serves as faculty advisor to Iraq and Afghanistan veterans studying at Vassar through the college’s partnership with the Posse Foundation.

Free and open to public.

Sponsored by the Classics Department