Shedding new light on political culture and intellectual life in the early American republic (opens in new tab)

With the United States’ 250th anniversary on the horizon, many Americans are reflecting on the nation’s past. Early in his graduate studies, Daniel Graves PhD ’26 (Classics and History) became intrigued by the role of the classics in shaping early national America. In his dissertation, Graves shows how a late seventeenth century debate within the French Academy—now known as the Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns—became the animating force of political culture and intellectual life in the...