By Sara Patterson

Prof. Shadi Bartsch-Zimmer would like to abolish the siloed nature of knowledge and embrace the interdisciplinarity of the humanities and sciences. For the broad scope of her scholarship and innovative ideas, the University of Chicago classics scholar was elected on July 18 as a fellow to the British Academy.

Bartsch-Zimmer is well known for her books and articles on ancient Rome, on rhetoric and philosophy, and on the reception of the western classical tradition in contemporary China. Her book Persius: A Study in Food, Philosophy, and the Figural received the 2016 Goodwin Award of Merit, and her translation of the “Aeneid” was one of The Guardian’s best books of the year.

“Shadi Bartsch-Zimmer is one of our most innovative scholars of the ancient world,” said Dame Mary Beard, professor emerita of classics at Cambridge University and a member of the British Academy. “She has brilliantly exposed the complicated structures of Roman power (and the literature of power). She always opens my eyes to a better and more sophisticated reading of ancient texts.

“More than that, she has worked far beyond the so-called ‘heartlands’ of the Greek and Roman world. Her recent book Plato Goes to China: The Greek Classics and Chinese Nationalism (2023) gives a brilliant new perspective both on modern China and on ancient Greece. She is the kind of scholar I would love to be—a real star. I am so pleased that we are welcoming her to the British Academy.”

To read what the Chinese intellectuals write about the classics, Bartsch-Zimmer first had to learn Mandarin, which she found a bit daunting. Her rigor, however, paid off. After the government crushed student-led protesters in Tiananmen Square in 1989, Bartsch-Zimmer contends Chinese scholars looked at the classics differently.

“Now the Chinese use the classics as evidence that the Chinese CCP is the best form of government,” said Bartsch-Zimmer, the Helen B. Regenstein Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Classics and the College. “They believe that the West has fallen away from the classics and democracy and has become a soulless version of its former self.”

She also notes after being banned by Mao Zedong, Confucius is again revered. Chinese intellectuals even compare Confucius to Plato, a contest in which Confucius triumphs because he values the nuclear family. Some Chinese scholars are even reading Confucius as the first environmentalist.

“Shadi Bartsch-Zimmer is a rare, glowing, Renaissance woman in the modern world,” said Daniel A. Bell, professor and chair of Political Theory with the Faculty of Law at the University of Hong Kong. “In addition to her brilliant scholarship in the Western classics, she mastered classical and modern Chinese and wrote an erudite and accessible study that shows how the Greek classics have provided inspiration for contemporary Chinese intellectuals. It is perhaps the most fascinating cross-cultural encounter of our age.”

Just as her views on how the Chinese use the classics challenge the status quo, so does her translation of Vergil’s “Aeneid” contend with tradition. Bartsch-Zimmer believes the previous English translations of the epic strayed too far from Vergil’s intended impact and meaning.

To start, the Latin language packs more meaning into fewer words than English. She set out to match the conciseness and rigor of the Latin dactylic hexameter—a meter of six feet per line containing two or three syllables each—giving readers the experience of reading “The Aeneid” in Latin. Vergil’s language is straight forward, with its impact coming from the imagery and sound.

Also, Bartsch-Zimmer points to misunderstandings about the characters, principally Aeneas and Queen Dido. Bartsch-Zimmer does not believe Vergil intended Aeneas to be a hero, despite the common perception. In the poem, Aeneas frequently lies and recalls the Trojan traitor who received treasure from the occupying Greeks.

Where Queen Dido is concerned, Bartsch-Zimmer believes her belief in her marriage with Aeneas is legitimate. His departure leads her to kill herself rather than become prey to the local chieftains she rejected for him.

“Shadi has a quick analytic mind, a gift for analogies and tireless curiosity,” said Haun Saussy, University Professor in the Department of East Asian Literatures and Civilizations and the Committee on Social Thought and the College at UChicago. “Texts that might seem worn out from overuse, or contrariwise neglected and dusty, wake to a new life through her interpretations.” 

Every generation finds relevance in the classics

An avid defender for the relevance of classics today, Bartsch-Zimmer argues that despite being 2,500 years old the classics have resonated for diverse cultures and generations. “The classics are a mirror of every age,” she said.

For example, in the Middle Ages Vergil’s “Aeneid” was read as an allegory of the Christian everyman. Later generations have read it as an instance of Manifest Destiny that justified conquering the American west. Others see the epic reflecting colonialism and historical injustice.

“As a scholar and translator, Shadi Bartsch-Zimmer combines great precision with remarkable breadth,” said Clifford Ando, the David B. and Clara E. Stern Distinguished Service Professor in the Departments of Classics and History and the College at UChicago. “She has performed exemplary modern readings of classical texts, revealing remarkable intersections between contemporary concerns and responsible, historical interpretation.”

Bartsch-Zimmer admires classical scholars Vergil, Lucretius, and Herodotus, a Greek historian. Lucretius wrote a beautiful epic poem about the atomic make-up of the world and indeed of human beings.  His philosophy marries physics and self-knowledge. Meanwhile, according to Bartsch-Zimmer, Herodotus was the first cultural relativist. The histories that he wrote demonstrated different civilizations have different values.

“At a time of increasing fragmentation in science and society, Shadi Bartsch-Zimmer with her meticulous and distinguished scholarship has forged new paths toward restoring the Hellenic ideal of the unity of knowledge and the universal value of humanistic pursuit as the standard for human flourishing,” said Anastasia Giannakidou, the Frank J. McLoraine Professor in the Department of Linguistics and the College at UChicago. “Shadi’s vision has built bridges— between the classical and the modern, the sciences and the humanities, the quantitative and the intuitive— and her unparalleled achievements will have long standing impact in many fields.”  

Currently, Bartsch-Zimmer is focusing on the mutual influence of the sciences and humanities in human history. She is working on two manuscripts. The first is with co-author Scott Montgomery and is called “Ten Tales from the Graveyard of Science: How Ancient Theories Shaped the Modern World.” The second is entitled “Symbiosis: The Meeting of Humanities and Science” and argues that all knowledge has a humanistic context.