Patrice Rankine, a distinguished scholar of classical literature and modern reception, has joined the Classics Department as Professor of Classics. The author of pathbreaking readings of classical texts, his monographs, Ulysses in Black: Ralph Ellison, Classicism, and African American Literature (2006) and Aristotle and Black Drama: A Theater of Civil Disobedience (2013), have been fundamental to understanding the reception of Classics among Black and minority authors and artists. He is also co-editor of The Oxford Handbook of Greek Drama in the Americas (2015). His current book projects include Theater and Crisis: Myth, Memory, and Racial Reckoning, 1964–2020 (Lever Press) and Slavery and the Book (Harvard University Press). A critic of rare power in matters of politics and race, Rankine also brings to the department very considerable experience of academic leadership at Purdue University, Hope College, and the University of Richmond.
