Around Black Athena (forthcoming)

Notes from 19 February 2016

This is a record of a seminar series held at the Institute of Classical Studies, University of London, during the Spring Term of 1990. Plus a series of discussions which expand on the issues brought up both by the seminars, and the three volumes of  Martin Bernal's Black Athena itself.

The seminars were organised by Amelie Kuhrt and John North. The speakers were, in addition to the organisers of the series, Philip Lomas, Tim Cornell, Robert Morkot, Edith Hall, Andrew Sherratt, Chloe Chard, Alex Potts, Sue Frankenstein, and Daniel Pick. As far as I know, only one of the presentations was formally published (Edith Hall's contribution, which appeared in Arethusa in 1992).

The book also contains an analytical summary of the third volume of Bernal's Black Athena, which considered the linguistic evidence in detail (the summary is currently available on this website - 'Language and Abstraction in Egypt and Greece'). This illustrates in a relatively compact space the usefulness of Bernal's approach. An extract from my notes for the second seminar in the series - 'Representations of Carthage' - is also available here.

The publication has been delayed because of two other volumes in progress. The corrected text exists however, so it will arrive sooner rather than later.

[Under way! March 5, 2019].


Contents of the volume (in progress):

Introduction

The Seminars:

Representations of Carthage (Tim Cornell) January 25

Greece and Egypt: Bernal vs the Egyptologists (Robert Morkot) February 1

When is a Myth not a Myth: Bernal's Ancient Model (Edith Hall) February 8

Bronze Age Greece and the Orient: Images and Expectations (Andrew Sherratt) February 15

Pleasure and Guilt in Greece and Egypt (Chloe Chard) February 22

Ideas of Racial Difference in the Enlightenment view of Greek Art (Alex Potts) March 1

Phoenicians and Greeks: a Western Venture (Sue Frankenstein) March 8

Theories of Race in the Nineteenth Century (Daniel Pick) March 22


Discussion:

Cultural Continuity in the Ancient World, and 'Black Athena' [originally published in Man and the Divine, 2018]

The East in the West: the Western Venture of Assyria

Divine Cult and the Origins of Philosphical Thought

Christoph Meiners, Source Criticism, and the development of 'Scientific Racism'

Obliteration through Scholarship and Science

Categories of Thought, and the History of Ideas

Postscript: The Reception of the Past

Appendices:

Language & Abstraction in Egypt and Greece; an analytical summary of 'Black Athena' v 3.

[Updated August 5, 2016, and December 10, 2016. May 2017, May 2018, March 2019, and November 2019.]