|
Books
by Michele Valerie Ronnick
Cicero's "Paradoxa Stoicorum"/
The
Autobiography of William Sanders Scarborough /
The Works of William Sanders Scarborough
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The Works of William Sanders Scarborough
Black
Classicist and Race Leader
Edited by Michele
Valerie Ronnick
Greetings from
Detroit. I am very pleased to tell you that after a
decade of work, my comprehensive collection of William
Scarborough's writings from the years 1876 to 1926 has
been published by Oxford University Press. The
book's 560 pages offer us for the first time his
published works—a lifetime of writing. It was cut down
from the original 800 pages due to lack of space. The
deleted items were placed in footnotes for the
interested reader. I hope that this volume along with
Scarborough's autobiography insures that he is never
lost from view again. Best regards,
Michele Valerie Ronnick
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William Sanders
Scarborough was born a slave in 1852 in Macon, GA. After
study at Atlanta University, he earned his B.A. and M.A.
from Oberlin College. His Greek textbook (1881) drew
national attention. He was a member of the American
Philological Association for 44 years, and presented
many papers. He was the first black member of the Modern
Language Association (1884) and was president of
Wilberforce University (1908-1920).
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The first
professional classicist of African American descent,
William Sanders Scarborough (1852-1926) rose from
slavery to become president of Wilberforce University in
Ohio. Excelling at Latin and Greek, he crossed the color
line both socially and intellectually with his entry
into a field of study commonly seen as elitist and
dominated by white men. Although unknown to classicists
today, Scarborough had a distinguished career in the
field and held membership in many learned societies and
had an active publication record. His life as an engaged
intellectual, public citizen, and concerned educator was
admired and emulated by W. E. B. Du Bois.
This collection, which spans a half a century from the
end of Reconstruction through the vagaries of World War
I and the rise of Jim Crow, gives us a window we have
not had before into the challenges and ambiguities of
this period. As a committed intellectual, concerned
educator and loyal citizen, he served as an ambassador
to and for his race to several generations of people
both in the U.S. and abroad. In Scarborough's writings
we have a portrait of a man whose struggle for physical
and intellectual freedom can inform us all.
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The first
publication of the writings of William Sanders
Scarborough: organized by topic, the volume includes
speeches, biographies, book introductions, and more;
provides insight into this highly engaged intellectual,
public citizen, and educator
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Reviews
"It is a tribute to
the industry of Michele Valerie Ronnick that she has
gathered in this volume several dozen of Scarborough's
many writings: book reviews, essays on politics,
scholarly articles, letters to editors, forewords to
books, and the texts of some speeches. All of these help
fill out the picture of Scarborough as a tireless
advocate for justice, one who spoke with care,
cognizance of facts, and fearlessness. This is a
splendid volume that merits a place in all academic
library collections. Ronnick's editorial comments help
make Scarborough's writings understandable to a wide
readership, and we may hope that she and Oxford
[University Press] can locate and publish his
correspondence in addition to these writings."—Catholic
Library World
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Scarborough was the
consummate black academic, devoting most of his career
to the classroom and to academic administration. . . .
If W. E. B. Du Bois, the antecedent of today's black
public intellectuals, himself has an antecedent, it is
W. S. Scarborough, the black scholar's scholar.—Henry
Louis Gates, Jr.
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The meticulous scholarship of
Michele Valerie Ronnick on William Sanders Scarborough
is a deep act of labor and love. It also is a grand
contribution to classical studies.—Cornel
West, Princeton University
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William Sanders
Scarborough was an American whom neither Mark Twain nor
Henry James could have imagined, though either would
have been a better writer if he had. Michele Valerie
Ronnick gives us back his deeply, genuinely American
voice and lets him show us an America not many of us
could have imagined without his—and her—help.—James
O'Donnell, Provost of Georgetown University
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Historians of African American
history long have recognized William S. Scarborough's
commanding presence as a black intellectual during the
Age of Jim Crow. Given his monumental corpus of
writings on philology, politics, and race relations,
one wonders just how much more he could have published
had his work not been circumscribed by the veil of
white racism. Michele Valerie Ronnick's
comprehensive anthology of Scarborough's writings will
prove immensely valuable to historians, classicists, and
to students of African American history.—John
David Smith, Charles H. Stone Distinguished Professor
of American History, University of North Carolina at
Charlotte
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Michele Valerie
Ronnick has recovered much of the dialogue between
African Americans and Classics in the 19th and early
20th centuries, and with an energy and dedication few
can equal. Following close on the heels of her
magisterial edition of Scarborough's memoirs, her new
collection of his scholarly and occasional works will be
indispensable to anyone interested in the new and--with
no little thanks to Prof. Ronnick—rapidly
expanding study of African American writers and the
Classical tradition.—James
Tatum, Dartmouth College.
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Michele Valerie
Ronnick is Professor in the Department of
Classics, Greek and Latin at Wayne State University. A
Latinist by training with a book on Cicero's Stoic
Paradoxes, she has published widely in journals here and
abroad and has won a number of professional awards for
excellence in scholarship, teaching and service on
regional and national levels. Ronnick's special interest
in the Classical Tradition led her to open up a new
subfield of reception studies, Classica Africana, a.k.a.
black classicism, which examines the influence of
classics upon the creative and professional lives of
people of African descent. She is the editor of a
critical edition of
The Autobiography of William Sanders
Scarborough.
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posted 21 November 2007 |
