Maximus Planudes – Medium

Maximus Planudes

Maximus Planudes

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Feb 17

The Anti-Empathy Movement & the End of the Iliad

I’ve been teaching the Iliad to undergraduates for several decades. Every semester, I argue that the core emotional scene in the whole poem…

Attic black‑figure amphora showing the ransom of Hector: white‑haired Priam strides toward the reclining warrior Achilles, arms outstretched in supplication, while Achilles lounges on a couch holding a shallow drinking bowl above Hector’s naked, blood‑streaked corpse on the ground; at the left the god Hermes and a young attendant carry a tripod and bowls as ransom, and at the right a female servant approaches with a water jar, all set against the glossy black body of the vase.

Maximus Planudes

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Feb 11

The Chains that Bind: Two Visions for the Future of Ancient Greek and Roman Studies

Classicism and Other Phobias by Dan-el Padilla Peralta (Princeton University Press, 2025)

Maximus Planudes

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Sep 9, 2025

The Best of All Possible Methods

The Gold and Katz Defense of Philology

Maximus Planudes

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Dec 28, 2021

Founders of the Race

I’m in the process of updating an old online English translation of Heliodorus for a class I’m teaching. I’m updating the 19C translation…

Clariclea, a princess of Ethiopia who was miraculously born white to black parents and abandoned, here returns to Ethiopia and reconciles with her parents. A painted enamel on gold, gilding, mercury-tin amalgam on rock crystal. 1650. Walters Art Museum

Maximus Planudes

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Dec 10, 2021

Books, they’re Gr-r-reat!

Humanities, Great Books, Classical Education, Liberal Arts

Tony the Tiger holding a copy of Alan Bloom’s translation of the Republic of Plato.

Maximus Planudes

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Nov 28, 2021

College Parrhēsia

παρρησίη belongs to freedom, but discerning the right moment (τοῦ καιροῦ) is risky. — attributed to Democritus (D344 (Loeb, p.314)=226…

College Parrhēsia

Maximus Planudes

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Oct 19, 2021

Thoughts on Grading

Inspired by having to turn in midterm grades.

stock image of old report card, with many columns and numbers that make little sense.

Maximus Planudes

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Oct 2, 2021

What’s Wrong With Being A Humanist?

I occasionally use the label “humanist” to describe myself. This behavior sets me apart from most professors of humanities, according to a…

Image of Erasmus

Maximus Planudes

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Jun 14, 2021

Summary of Roots: Tradition, Identity, Memory

Maurizio Bettini is well known among classicists. His important scholarship applying anthropological methods to Ancient Rome has been…

Summary of Roots: Tradition, Identity, Memory

Maximus Planudes

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Apr 3, 2021

Let’s not Be Political: Notes on Marks’ Conservative Case for Liberal Education

This was originally going to be a different post comparing Marks’ book with Hayot’s Humanist Reason. Although it would have made a pretty…

John Locke, coloured stipple engraving by James Godby after G.B. Cipriani. Wellcome Library, London (no. V0003673)

Maximus Planudes

Maximus Planudes

The online pseudonym of a perpetual adjunct in Ancient Greek and Roman Studies. Really, tho, who I am doesn’t matter.

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