The University of Wisconsin Department of Classical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies hosted Halls Visiting Scholar Emily Greenwood in a lecture titled “Classical Naming and Free Black Histories: Fugitive World Making.” on Thursday, Nov. 7.
Greenwood, professor of classics and comparative literature at Harvard University, spoke about the history of classical naming of Black individuals pre and post-emancipation.
During the lecture, Greenwood spoke about her early life, which helped her relate cultural and colonial history in her studies.
Greenwood was born in the Caribbean to a British father and Ugandan mother and grew up in East Africa. She would grow an interest in the classics in Malawi when living under the Banda dictatorship.
Greenwood would later move to the United States where she began teaching at Yale University. Here, Greenwood hoped to find a common place in a shared environment through researching the classics.
Her diverse heritage and time spent in multiple countries would give her a sense of classical identities.
Discussing her early life and inspirations, Greenwood then introduced what formed the majority of her lecture — her research of a man named Adrastus Hazzard.
As a new resident moving to Groton, Mass., Greenwood found records of a free Black farmer and later union soldier named Adrastus Hazzard.
Greenwood said she was struck by Hazzard’s classical name, and that three questions surfaced in her mind — “why the name Adrastus?” “which Adrastus in Greek Literature is this referencing?” and “might this name be linked to slavery and a more cynical etymology?”
Greenwood discussed how slave owners often gave their slaves classical names as a show of power and, for slaves brought to the United States through Africa, a form of cultural deletion. Names were often chosen sadistically, and the name “Adrastus” could have referred to a classical prince who could not run away or escape his fate, according to Greenwood.
Greenwood described her research into Hazzard’s military service, in which he likely met Charles Remond Douglass, the son of Frederick Douglass and the first black man from New York to enroll in the Union Army, in the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry regiment.
According to Greenwood, this regiment — historically known for being composed of African Americans — contained many names indicative of the classics.
According to Greenwood, Hazzard may have had ties to the Lew family, a prominent Black family who advocated for further freedoms and rights for African Americans. The Lew family had multiple members with the first name “Adrestus,” suggestive of where his first name might have appeared from.
Greenwood also spoke about the meaning entailed in the name of Hazzard.
According to her, it bears a different meaning than what slave owners may have assumed. On a greater scale, Hazzard’s story can represent how names can represent any number of things, whether they be the mockery of slave owners or the hope of Black families.
“The life of Adrestus suggests that old metaphors expire and new ones replace them,” Greenwood said.
The Badger Herald asked professor Greenwood how someone’s name relates to their identity alongside aspects such as one’s gender, ethnicity, or religious belief in the modern era.
There is and always has been a difference between intrinsic (self-given) and extrinsic (placed-on-a-person) identities, Greenwood said. Slave naming was an extrinsic identity that deterritorialized Black individuals and cut them off from kinship and language groups.
The concept of a “name” as an extrinsic identity can be subverted, however, if someone makes a conscious decision to retain it and tie it to a new identity it has the ability to shift from a characteristic prescribed to a person to that same characteristic being self-defined and is not confined to the names alone.
The journey of the name Adrastus Hazzard through the metamorphing political and social climates shows the broader use and purposes names are assigned and used throughout history and today.
