Arion-A Journal Of Humanities And The Classics

(ISSN 0095-5809)

More than humane philology is essential for keeping the classics as a living force. Arion therefore exists to publish work that needs to be done and that otherwise might not get done. We want to stimulate, provoke, even "plant" work that now finds no encouragement or congenial home elsewhere. This means swimming against the mainstream, resisting the extremes of conventional philology and critical fashion into which the profession is now polarized. But occupying this vital center should in no way preclude the crucial centrifugal movement that may lead us across disciplinary lines and beyond the academy. Our commitment is to a genuine and generous pluralism that opens up rather than polarizes classical studies. We will not be coerced into conforming either to the traditional paradigms or to the "new" metaphysic and ideological absolutism of contemporary theory. If we are to move beyond the cant of "isms" now dominating the academy, intellectual daring is needed, not disciplinary diffidence.