Bret Devereaux "Why stone-faced fascists keep getting antiquity wrong" thebulwark.com
Homer is back in the discourse on account of Christopher Nolan's upcoming film, The Odyssey. The latest controversy began with Elon Musk, among others, protesting the supposed inaccuracy of casting Lupita Nyong'o as Helen, a fictional character, who among other fantastic elements is the daughter of the god Zeus and was laid as an egg by her human mother. On X, the debate has spiraled to include renewed criticism of Emily Wilson's 2017 translation of the Odyssey, attacked for being "ideological," which is to say that it attempted to more clearly portray the perspectives of the women in the narrative, as compared to earlier translations.George Connor "Book review: The White Pedestal: How White Nationalists Use Ancient Greece and Rome to Justify Hate workingclassicists.com
Because the study of the ancient world is so associated with high-brow intellectualism, white supremacists trying to strengthen weak arguments and add substance to insubstantial positions turn to ancient sources. This elitist perception gives the discipline power for those who want to proclaim their erudition – a power that is the direct result of centuries of silencing contrary voices. As long as Classics remains "paywalled" by elite private institutions and marginalised in state education, it is perhaps inevitable the subject has become synonymous with privilege.Tallulah Trezevant "The antiquity to alt-right pipeline" workingclassicists.com
The goal of my investigation was to explore how engaging with ancient history-related content as a hobby-historian impacted my user experience on Twitter, with particular attention to the posts placed on my timeline and accounts recommended to me to follow. If I did end up being exposed to alt-right content, which was not a guarantee when I began my project, I wished to understand the connection between contemporary extremist political movements and Greco-Roman aesthetics as well as the rhetorical tactics creators use to radicalize their audience.



