Join our first event in this year’s Washington Latin Speaker Series on October 6th with Dr. Michelle Valerie Ronnick, Distinguished Service Professor Emerita in the Department of Classical and Modern Languages, Literatures, and Cultures at Wayne State University in Detroit. Her talk is entitled, “Searching for William Sanders Scarborough (1852-1926): ‘The Black Scholar’s Scholar.’
William Sanders Scarborough (February 16, 1852 – September 9, 1926) was an American classical scholar and academic who is considered to be the first African American classical scholar. Born into slavery in Georgia, Scarborough was secretly educated, eventually completing his high school education and then attending Atlanta University (now Clark Atlanta University.) He graduated in 1879 from Oberlin College, also the alma mater of Anna Julia Cooper (namesake of the Cooper Campus). Scarborough served as president of Wilberforce University between 1908 and 1920 and authored a university-level Classical Greek textbook that was in wide use during the 1800s.
Read about his life and work in The Autobiography of William Saunders Scarborough: An American Journey from Slavery to Scholarship, edited by Dr. Ronnick. (You can order this from the Wayne State Bookstore with this 20% coupon.)
Details about this event
When
October 6th, 6:30 pm
Where
Zoom – register here to receive link
Who
Any member of the extended community of Washington Latin students, faculty, families, and partners – both current and alumni – or the general public who is interested in the Classical tradition, particularly Classica Africana (Black classicism)
About Dr. Ronnick
Dr. Ronnick’s scholarship includes studies of Latin literature, the classical tradition, and in particular its reception and impact on people of African descent, a field she opened up in 1996 with the first panel ever presented on Classica Africana, a.k.a. black classicism. This was presented in NYC under the aegis of the Society for Classical Studies as part of its annual meeting. (Please see below for more information about her publications and awards.)
Her photo installation, “12 Black Classicists,” developed with two grants from the James Loeb Classical Library Foundation at Harvard University and expanded over the years, has been displayed at 80 venues since its inaugural exhibit at the Detroit Public Library in September 2003. Her article “William Sanders Scarborough: The First African American Member of the Modern Language Association,” Publications of the Modern Language Association, Special Millennial Edition 115 (2000) 1787-1793 stimulated the MLA to create the William Sanders Scarborough Book Prize which has been given annually since 2001, and in 2020 the American School for Classical Studies established the “William Sanders Scarborough Fellowships” for study in Greece.
