UIowa prof: Certain fields of study should be ‘dismantled and burned’

American Wire February 15, 2021

A professor at the University of Iowa tweeted that certain academic fields, specifically the classics, should be “dismantled and burned” in order for “white supremacy to be smothered.”
She stated that her desire to abandon the classics field is “just an attempt to flatten the hierarchy and embrace a more global approach that doesn’t privilege one language or culture.”

A professor at the University of Iowa tweeted that entire academic fields should be “dismantled and burned” in order for “white supremacy to be smothered.”

Sarah Bond, a history professor and director of undergraduate studies at the University of Iowa, made the argument that certain academic fields should be dismantled so that “white supremacy can be smothered.”

You can care about certain scholars, students, material culture, and texts within a field and still want that field to be dismantled and burned so that those elements can be truly saved & white supremacy can be smothered.

— Dr. Sarah Bond (@SarahEBond) January 23, 2021

In follow-up tweets, Bond proposed abandoning the entire classics field to make it a “global antiquity department,” while “abandoning Latin and Greek as its core basis.”

I would just like to make it a global antiquity department and to rename it while abandoning Latin and Greek as its core basis. I am not proposing firing people in the least. Quite the opposite. Expanding, combining, and learning—and then abandoning Classics as a field.

— Dr. Sarah Bond (@SarahEBond) January 23, 2021

Bond then tweeted that her desire to abandon the Classics field is “just an attempt to flatten the hierarchy and embrace a more global approach that doesn’t privilege one language or culture.”

Bond’s published works include “Advancing Feminism Online: Online Tools, Visibility, and Women in Classics,” and “The Corrupting Sea: Law, Violence, and Compulsory Professions in Late Antiquity,” in “A History of Anticorruption: From Antiquity to the Modern Era.”

Bond did not respond to Campus Reform in time for publication.

Nyasha Junior commented on Bond’s tweet saying, “This could be about so many fields…”, Bond responded with “True. For me it is about Classics. But as usual, you’re right.”

Junior is a visiting professor at Harvard Divinity School and an associate professor in the department of religion at Temple University.