The Classicizing Chicago Project
New work in the growing field of Classical Reception Studies has drawn attention to classical antiquity as a reference point and catalyst in the social, cultural and intellectual development of the United States. In Chicago, we can trace patterns of engagement with Greece and Rome across multiple forms of cultural production; this famously commercial, modern midwestern city is full of scattered traces of a changing, sometimes antagonistic, but always keen relationship with the classical past. This pilot website and database offers the first results of an interdisciplinary and collaborative research project to investigate how and why antiquity has been not just a legacy but a living presence and a resource for a diverse set of Chicago visual artists, activists, architects, politicians, writers, journalists, educators and entrepreneurs from the 1830s through today.
