Cinzia Arruzza recently joined Arts & Sciences as a professor of philosophy and Maria Stata Professor of Classical Studies. The Maria Stata Professorship, which supports a distinguished senior faculty member with scholarly and teaching expertise in the classical period of Greek history, is funded through a $2.5 million gift from Maria Stata (CAS’62).
What inspired your work in feminism, anti-capitalism, eco-socialism, and anti-racism? Can you tell us more about your academic journey so far?
I am a historian of ancient Greek philosophy, who works especially on Plato and Platonism. Studying and writing on ancient Greek thought, but also history, culture and literature has always been my main intellectual passion (at least since my high school years in Sicily – a former part of the ancient Greek world!) Next to this I also write on contemporary political theory, especially Marxism and feminism: this is work I do out of my political commitments and of my belief that our social form of life is neither just nor sustainable. I have been an activist my whole life and I see my theoretical interventions as a natural expansion of my activism.
Has the breadth and interdisciplinary nature of your areas of work proven challenging? How should we juggle the topics wholly instead of separately?
As a historian of philosophy, I have a strong interest in understanding philosophical arguments and texts in their historical context. This is probably shaped by my Marxist background: I take it that philosophical ideas and debates are always embedded in a given social and cultural context. This does not mean that the context alone can explain a philosophical argument or a text, but it means that ignoring the context altogether may lead to misreadings of texts and, in the case of ancient Greece, projections of our own contemporary concerns upon the ancient world.
This approach requires me, for example, to be in constant dialogue with historians, archeologists, and classicists and also to acquire competence beyond the narrow boundaries of the philosophical discipline. So, it is challenging but also extremely interesting. An interdisciplinary approach is even more important for my work on contemporary political theory, which focuses on capitalism, as what philosophy can do on its own in this regard is very limited.
How does your academic work influence your activism (and/or vice versa)?
In 2019 I published a feminist manifesto, co-authored with Tithi Bhattacharya and Nancy Fraser, Feminism for the 99%. This is not an academic publication, but one addressed to activists and the general public interested in these topics. I am a strong believer in the possibility of communicating complex topics in clear and accessible terms.
What do you hope to achieve with the support of the Maria Stata Professorship, at BU and beyond?
The Maria Stata Professorship is an extraordinary opportunity and a huge honor for me. The study of ancient worlds is a contentious field, for it’s often a matter of what past we want to imagine for ourselves, and hence of the kind of identities we want to ascribe to ourselves. This is why the Greek and Roman world has been appropriated – and largely rewritten – for example, by German Nazis, Italian fascists, and US white suprematists… What I would like to achieve is to contribute to BU being a reference point for a certain way of studying ancient Greek philosophy: attentive to historical and literary context, open to feminist and antiracist critical perspectives, committed to rejecting the ‘white washing’ of the Greek world, and capable of putting in communication European traditions of history philosophy and the more analytical, Anglo-American tradition.