Professor Richard Thomas gave a paper on March 10, 2021 as part of the two Mahindra Humanities Seminars "Classical Traditions" and "Civilizations of Ancient Greece and Rome." The talk, entitled “Viktor Pöschl’s Virgil and Fascist Aesthetics,” was recorded and is available for viewing on YouTube.

The talk was was well attended and was followed by lively and productive discussion. It focused on the ways in which Classics can engage with and expose the distortions and misuses of the texts of classical antiquity, here at the hands of a fascist reader of Virgil. Professor Thomas focuses on the need for classical reception to be an integral part of the discipline if we are to nurture the positive and more salutary aspects of those texts, and liberate them in particular from the racist and dictatorial uses to which they have at times been diverted, then and now.