Blog: The Benefits and Costs of DEI Research in Classics

Over the past half-decade or so, I’ve written and spoken a lot about race, diversity, and Classics. As a woman of color in a historically white and male field, I have experienced my “fair” share of race- or gender-based injustice, so it feels rewarding (and overdue) to witness and participate in the discipline’s current moment of critical self-reflection. Each of my DEI-focused projects, essays, and speaking engagements has given me a kind of satisfaction that I do not typically derive from my primary work on philological and literary approaches to ancient Greek texts. This is undoubtedly because diversity, equity, and inclusion are personal for me in a way that, say, the authorship of Prometheus Bound is not. Furthermore, I have been able to blend the personal aspects of DEI with my intellectual interests in Classics. My work in diversity and inclusion has not only an ethical dimension but also an intellectual one, since I study the intersection of demographics and scholarship. This work has broadened my view of Classics as I explore the scholarly innovations of members of marginalized populations, innovations that are often informed by or even rooted in their marginalized identities and experiences.

This kind of work is premised on the entwined relationship between intellectualism and personal experience, as it involves considering the epistemic possibilities of greater inclusiveness (and, conversely, taking note of how exclusion has historically constrained the study of antiquity). When a topic engages the critical tools I have acquired in my academic training along with the knowledge and experience particular to my identity as a woman, a person of color, an Asian American—the combination is fulfilling in a way very different from teasing out and explicating moments of unclarity in an ancient Greek text.

Unfortunately, I’ve learned that the unique satisfaction of DEI work is also accompanied by unique distress. In some of the feedback I have received on DEI-focused projects I have proposed or conducted, I’ve detected an underlying expectation of perfection, an unspoken criticism for not solving racism. I’ve encountered this phenomenon in grant proposals for DEI-centered projects (which, until very recently, have always been unfunded) and in conducting and writing about a data collection and analysis product that was published in TAPA’s special issue “Race and Racism: Beyond the Spectacular.” Part of this project involved disseminating a simple survey focused on demographic data and race/ethnicity studies in Classics; in the dissemination stage, I received a number of emails expressing scrutiny, resistance, skepticism, and implicit expectations of my project to be comprehensive and exhaustive—or to provide further justification for its failure to be. Some of the people I reached out to questioned the validity of the survey instrument I created, my methods, and my intentions, all of which were clearly outlined in the recruitment materials. While I also received supportive messages, the criticisms of the survey far exceeded what I have experienced in my philological or literary work. Well before any official peer review stage—which is when I normally expect to encounter negative feedback—I found myself expending unanticipated effort and time justifying my work. The process was mentally taxing, as I engaged in constant self-interrogation to assess which criticisms were warranted and which were not, and I drafted and redrafted my responses to perform the tonal balancing act that women and people of color know well: restrained professionalism with firm assertiveness, excising any hint of petty defensiveness to avoid damaging my credibility.

What I learned, in other words, is that the personal satisfaction of DEI work in Classics can also come with a personal cost, at least for me, since DEI work is inextricably intertwined with my minoritized identity. The process of receiving unexpected and uninvited criticism of the project even during its execution took a kind of emotional toll that I had not experienced with my traditional philological and literary work. Writing about the project several years later, too, felt like reliving that experience—again, not something I have encountered with philological or literary work. My only near parallel is in my scholarship on gender, which has also been subject to a degree of scrutiny that my work on, for example, intertextuality has not. It is telling that gender, like race, is both a marker of identity as well as a scholarly lens, which makes it prone to personalization by author and reviewer alike.

I write this to add my voice to those who have shed light on the realities of research that is entangled in our personal identities. My thoughts here dovetail with those of a number of other scholars. Kelly Nguyen, a Vietnamese American Classicist whose work centers on Vietnamese liberation movements and their engagements with Greco-Roman Classics, has written courageously about the palpable toll her scholarly work takes on her. Ibram X. Kendi has described the intertwined relationship between his research into the origins of racism and his battle with stage 4 colon cancer. Catherine Ceniza Choy relays the difficulties of writing her 2022 book Asian American Histories of the United States against the backdrop of anti-Asian sentiment during the COVID-19 pandemic crisis: “Writing in these years of great hatred, I greeted each chapter of this book with a heavy heart. While I am deeply grateful for the many privileges of my work, confronting histories of violence is emotionally and psychologically difficult. I admit that there were moments when I wished that I could forget the horrors of our past and present” (p. 171).

I am not equating or even comparing myself to these brilliant scholars; I am merely echoing their point about the risks certain kinds of scholarship carry. I am issuing a word of caution to those who inhabit marginalized identities about what emotional landscape might reveal itself along the way if they make this kind of work central to their professional activity. For those who do not inhabit similarly marginalized identities, I am raising awareness and calling attention to the magnitude of labor undertaken by their colleagues of color who engage with efforts to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion.

To end on a positive note, I turn again to Catherine Ceniza Choy, who writes in Asian American Histories, “And, yet, with the writing of each chapter, I have also encountered something or someone that leaves me in awe. I am especially moved by the creative ways that so many Asian Americans have resisted omission, dismissal, and denigration” (p. 171). On good days, I remember that the pitfalls of DEI work are balanced by the joys. I have found a fantastic and ever growing community in my work with and for the Asian and Asian American Classical Caucus, In writing and speaking about diversity efforts in Classics, I have met so many amazing and inspiring people committed to advancing justice. Amidst the risks and costs of researching personal topics, it is worth remembering, as I wrote at the beginning of this piece, that unexpected inspiration, reward, and even joy can be found too.