Talk by Stuart McManus, Chinese University of Hong Kong: “Agency, Intersectionality, and the Classical Tradition in the Early Modern Hispanic World

How did Mediterranean culture shape life in the multiethnic global empires of Spain and Portugal? To answer this question, this talk will explore the role of the classical tradition in structuring and disseminating early modern Hispanic discourses on empire, slavery, and Christian missions with a particular focus on the ways ancient literary forms and civic practices (from the epigram to Ciceronian public speaking) were then appropriated by ethnically Iberian, indigenous, and African students of antiquity to carve out a place for themselves within this hierarchical global space. By taking a global and intersectional approach to classical reception studies, this talk makes the case that the global impact of Greece and Rome cannot be understood without reference to historically-specific constructions of race, gender,  and class.