DOCSLIB.ORG

History Lesson: a Race Odyssey, by Mary Lefkowitz. New Haven, CT

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
History Lesson: a Race Odyssey, by Mary Lefkowitz. New Haven, CT Acad. Quest. (2008) 21:477–481 DOI 10.1007/s12129-008-9079-1 REVIEWS History Lesson: A Race exists, or the one who doesn’t and Odyssey, by Mary Lefkowitz. claims there are only “competing New Haven, CT: Yale narratives”? University Press, 2008, 202 Lefkowitz is a distinguished classi- pp., $25.00 hardbound. cal scholar whose research has been mostly on “the ways in which myth Edward Alexander and empirical reasoning intersect in ancient Greek historical writing, and this is probably why...it seemed only Published online: 4 October 2008 natural to want to find out why some # Springer Science + Business Media, LLC 2008 people firmly believed that Greek philosophy was stolen from Egypt, Truth exists and can be known. even when it so obviously was not.” This once unremarkable conviction Among the believers in and propaga- is at the core of Mary Lefkowitz’s tors of the “Stolen Legacy” myth was compelling first-person narrative of an Africana [sic] studies professor at her decade-long struggle, beginning Wellesley named Anthony Martin, at Wellesley College in the early who was telling his students that nineties but extending well beyond Aristotle was a thief who pilfered the bucolic shores of Lake Waban, books out of the great library of against a cadre of Afrocentrists, Alexandria and then presented their postmodernists, devotees of “com- ideas as his own. The slight difficulty pensatory politics,” and litigious with this myth is that the Alexandria race racketeers. It is a conviction library was not built until after that gives her a distinct advantage Aristotle’s death. But when Lefkowitz over her opponents because it took it upon herself to point this out, prompts the obvious rhetorical ques- she was accused (by Martin and other tion: which of two combatants in a Afrocentrists) of being a racist, a dispute is more likely to be telling the conservative, a Jew, among other truth, the one who believes that truth crimes. Martin is the protagonist of History Edward Alexander is professor emeritus of Lesson’s foundational incident, which English at the University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195-4330 USA; [email protected]. took place in a dormitory in October He is co-author, with Richard Dunn and Paul 1991 and provides a nearly perfect Jaussen, of Robert B. Heilman: His Life in Letters (University of Washington Press, forthcoming). existential realization of his belief 478 Alexander that any dispute involving a black aware of the lurid myths about the person must be viewed as a racial origins of Greek philosophy and the incident. Martin, one of a group of responsibility of Jews for the African faculty and students gathered to read slave trade that Martin was teaching in Twelfth Night, left the reading to go his classes, with the help of a text to the men’s room. As he left, Martin published by the Nation of Islam. In was asked by a student dorm officer December 1993 Martin initiated a whose job it was to pose the question frivolous lawsuit against Lefkowitz to unescorted males: “Excuse me, sir, (which dragged on for five years who [sic] are you with?” Martin before being tossed out) for her article would not stoop to explain, but about the “racist” incident and for instead berated the student for being damaging his reputation—by showing “a fucking bitch, a racist, and a him ignorant of history. bigot.” The student, Michelle Plantec, How, Lefkowitz asks, with startling later recalled: “Martin’s reaction was innocence, could such things have very violent. I don’tknowhowto happened at Wellesley, “where we express how violent his reaction was. pride ourselves on being a multicul- Plus, he is a very tall man and he was tural community, with all the values of towering over me, pointing down tolerance and understanding that the into my face, and he wasn’tsaying term implies”? But she has already very nice things. I was very scared answered this question in describing and shaking.” the political movement, which she had Martin, for his part, claimed that her supported, to give black students question was typical of the “bigotry” privileges granted to no other ethnic that pervaded the Wellesley campus. group through “affirmative action and To combat this “racist” assault, he equal opportunity programs.” At marshaled his acolytes among the play Wellesley, these include the right to readers, “the black community,” and appoint one black person to serve on the head of the black student organi- any college committee, and to exclude zation “Ethos” to retaliate against from Ethos and the Africana studies Plantec. Plantec had a nervous break- department anyone not of African down and, after receiving psychiatric descent. But inequality is not the best treatment (a fact widely advertised by school in which to inculcate equality. Martin when he learned of it), dropped It should not have come as a surprise out of school. Particulars of the inci- to Lefkowitz that institutionalized dent did not appear until May 1993, by affirmative action bred, as she herself which time Lefkowitz had become admits, “an affirmative action program Reviews 479 for the rewriting of history.” One demonstrated conclusively that there Wellesley history professor actually was no historical evidence that the came under attack for “hindering Greeks ever stole anything from diversity” by saying the Holocaust Egypt, including their philosophy. was unique. Bernal had gained undeserved au- One question about Martin that thority for his espousal of “the Stolen Lefkowitz does not answer: how did Legacy” because he flew the flag of the author of, among other master- the academic Left, depicted European pieces, The Jewish Onslaught: Des- civilization as a pod of muck, and patches [sic] from the Wellesley claimed to be attacking racial and Battlefront (Majority Press, 1993), religious prejudice—as if this were come to be hired by Wellesley in the only possible explanation for the the first place? Martin was appointed classicists’“pro-Greek” position. in the sixties, when do-gooders at It was not long before the Afrocen- schools across the country were trists trained their guns on Lefkowitz, intent on hiring black faculty without and only a woman of remarkable looking closely at credentials. One courage—she was receiving chemo- wonders—if not for long—whether, therapy for breast cancer at the time— at Wellesley at least, these individuals could have withstood and thrown have come to recognize that they back the assault. The level of dis- confused doing good with feeling course among her attackers is epito- good about what they were doing. mized in the sputtering of historian In 1991 the New Republic sug- Wilson Jeremiah Moses, who called gested that Lefkowitz review a slew her “an obscure drudge in the of books, including the second vol- academic backwaters of a classics ume of Martin Bernal’s Black Athe- department.” In the world of faculty na (Rutgers University Press, 1991), time-servers and timid administrators which argued not merely that Greek (“the most sensitive region of an culture was heavily dependent on academic administration’s anatomy,” earlier cultures in Egypt and the she remarks, “is the institutional Near East, but had been stolen from pocketbook”) bravery is a rare com- Egypt, and that the inhabitants of modity. Lefkowitz’s attackers es- ancient Egypt were Africans. In her poused the (fascist) idea that 1992 review essay, the forerunner of physiology determines culture, so Not Out of Africa: How Afrocentrism that knowledge of Africa is some- Became an Excuse to Teach Myth as thing you have to be born into, by History (Basic Books, 1996), she African descent. It was a curious 480 Alexander revival of the once-dominant WASP one. A glance at another book about resistance to hiring Jews in English race-thinking among university pro- departments: how could a Jew un- fessors will explain why: it is called derstand or interpret the literature of Hitler’s Professors: The Part of Christendom? In the course of end- Scholarship in Germany’s Crimes less disputes with her adversaries, Against the Jewish People (Yiddish Lefkowitz challenged the multicul- Scientific Institute, 1946), by Max turalist dogma that members of Weinreich. minority groups cannot be racists, History Lesson at its best reminds pointing out that race professionals one of Matthew Arnold. Arnold too like Martin and Wilson had turned defended the Greek classics, not themselves into professional racists. against racist yahoos but against Why, Lefkowitz often asks, did positivism and science. On visiting she feel compelled to get at the truth America he was delighted to find that about the relations between the “in colleges like Smith College in Greeks and the Egyptians? Who Massachusetts, and Vassar College in would be harmed by being taught the state of New York,” young women what is not true? Her question (“the fair host of the Amazons”)were reminds me of an exchange that studying Greek. Arnold also defined once took place over my dinner himself as “a Liberal, yet...a Liberal table between a physician friend tempered by experience, reflection, and the eminent literary scholar and renouncement.” That is almost Robert Heilman. The physician had true of Lefkowitz, except, perhaps, for a Ph.D. in English and had pub- the renouncement. She shows very lished a highly regarded book about powerfully the horrendous effects of Shakespeare when he gave up a liberal shibboleths and nostrums— desirable tenure-line position to start affirmative action, compensatory pol- medical school (at an advanced age). itics, “diversity,” academic freedom to “Whydidyoudoit?” asked Heilman. indoctrinate, multiculturalism, hate “Because I wanted to go into a field speech codes, condescension towards where mistakes have consequences blacks—and yet she can never quite and can be fatal,” was the response.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • PDF Download
    while on milit ary campaigns within Greece arc part of a "cover-up ," beyond even Oliver Stone's imaginings, of Soc­ BOOKS, ARTS rates' Egyptian sojourn . Plato derived many of his key doctrin es from "Mem­ phit e theolo gy" and plagiarized entire treatises that are now ascribed to him . This makes Socrates , of course , merely ~ MANNERS the "alleged teacher of Plato. " In sum , James denied that the ancient Greeks had any intellectual or creative powers of their own. They there fore stole from black Egyptian civilization all Corcyraeanization the cultural forms that , since the Ren­ aissance, we have considered part of our Greek heritage. James never explained THOMAS G. PALAIMA why a "co ntenti ous and nonc ontempla ­ tive people" would have go ne to all the N his case study of the horrors of civil strife within the Greek city-state bother that such colossal thi every and of Corcyra, Thuc ydides clinically describes how opposing factions, in deception would entail. But he argues I their pursuit of power and hatred of one another, dehistoriciz ed the that , for racist reasons, white European meanmg s of words and ideas and invented new ones. The Greek historian culture has hidden from black culture would consider it a small and predictable historical irony that recent factional the fact of thi s who lesale cultural pil­ warfare in the Balkan peninsula , where Corcyra itself is located, has made fering. Absurd . Prepos terou s. U ntil now in "Balkanized" the fashionable replacement for "Co rcyraean" or "Orwellian" in American society an intelligent person discussions of such phenomena.
    [Show full text]
  • Women's Access to Political Power in Ancient Egypt And
    WOMEN’S ACCESS TO POLITICAL POWER IN ANCIENT EGYPT AND IGBOLAND: A CRITICAL STUDY A Dissertation Submitted to the Temple University Graduate Board In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY by Antwanisha V. Alameen January 2013 Examining Committee Members: Dr. Molefi Kete Asante, Advisory Chair, African American Studies Dr. Ama Mazama, African American Studies Dr. Kimmika Williams-Witherspoon, Theater Dr. Adisa Alkebulan, External Member, San Diego State University i Copyright By Antwanisha Alameen 2012 All Rights Reserved ii ABSTRACT This is an Afrocentric examination of women’s use of agency in Ancient Egypt and Igboland. Most histories written on Kemetic women not only disconnect them from Africa but also fail to fully address the significance of their position within the political spiritual structure of the state. Additionally, the presence of matriarchy in Ancient Egypt is dismissed on the basis that patriarchy is the most visible and seemingly the most dominant form of governance. Diop contended that matriarchy was one of the key factors that connected Ancient Egypt with other parts of Africa which is best understood as the Africa’s cultural continuity theory. My research analyzes the validity of his theory by comparing how Kemetic women exercised agency in their political structure to how Igbo women exercised political agency. I identified Igbo women as a cultural group to be compared to Kemet because of their historical political resistance in their state during the colonial period. However, it is their traditional roles prior to British invasion that is most relevant to my study. I define matriarchy as the central role of the mother in the social and political function of societal structures, the political positions occupied by women that inform the decisions of the state and the inclusion of female principles within the religious-political order of the nation.
    [Show full text]
  • Higher Education in Africa, Then It Is Eric Ashby
    This is a copyrighted document COPYRIGHT 2005. All rights reserved. This document, either in whole or in part, may NOT be copied, reproduced, republished, uploaded, posted, transmitted, or distributed in any way, except that you may download one copy of it on any single computer for your personal, non-commercial home use only, provided you keep intact this copyright notice. Higher Education in Pre-Colonial Africa Y. G-M. Lulat NOTE: This reading comprises Chapter 2 ( “Premodern Africa) of a book titled A History of African Higher Education from Antiquity to the Present: A Critical Synthesis by Y.G-M. Lulat (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2005) For more on the book click here: http://bit.ly/hedbook Chapter Contents THE HISTORICAL RECORD/ 42 HIGHER EDUCATION IN ANCIENT EGYPT/ 43 Pharaonic Egypt’s Per -ankh/ 43 Hellenistic Egypt’s Bibliotheca Alexandrina/ 47 The Destruction of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina/ 51 HIGHER EDUCATION IN PREMODERN ETHIOPIA/ 52 Islamic Education/ 57 HIGHER EDUCATION IN PRECOLONIAL ISLAMIC AFRICA/ 60 Al-Zaitouna/ 69 Al-Qarawiyyin/ 70 The Madrasahs of Timbuktu: Jewels of Islamic West Africa/ 72 Al-Azhar: The Jewel of North Africa/ 76 HISTORIOGRAPHICAL IMPLICATIONS/ 81 On African Historicity/ 81 2 Pre modern Africa History without historiography is meaningless. This chapter, therefore, has two objectives: one is to establish the precolonial historical record; the other is to confront the more contentious task of examining the larger theoretical implic a- tions of this record. Ultimately any historical record is of value only to the e x- tent that it is the subject of a historiographical exegesis. (Upon further refle c- tion, it appears that the historical record is equally contentious, as will be ev i- dent shortly.) First, however, a necessary point of prolegomena: The conve n- tional dichotomous periodization by historians of African history into, princ i- pa lly, the precolonial and colonial periods may give pause to those seeking an anti -Eurocentric perspective on African history (see Appendix II).
    [Show full text]
  • Blacks Respond to the Dis-Invitation of Prof. Tony Martin to UK!
    Prof. Tony Martin Dis-Invited to UK! Page 1 of 17 Blacks Respond to the Dis-Invitation of Prof. Tony Martin to UK! Mayor's Uncle Tom Lee Jasper Does Dirty Work -- UK Blacks Protest -- Ask Other Invitees Not to Attend Blacks are responding forcefully to the dis-invitation of the highly renowned Marcus Garvey scholar Dr. Tony Martin to a Black History Month event scheduled for October 25th in London. The event, an annual opportunity for Blacks to hear lectures from the world's top Black scholars, is arranged through the mayor's office which funds and promotes the event through its yassir-boss-negro Lee Jasper. It is Jasper who the mayor told to rescind the invitation. [Read Jasper's Dis-Invitation letter and responses from Dr. Martin] Below are the international comnmunity's expressions of outrage. Dr. Raymond Winbush's Strong Endorsement of Prof. Tony Martin Black Scholar Withdraws From anti-Black "Black History" Conference London Taxpayer Outraged at "shameful insult" THE ATTACK ON TONY MARTIN BY LEE JASPER, KEN LIVINGSTONE AND THE BRITISH JEWS: A PAN AFRICAN RESPONSE Trinidad and Tobago Blacks express "ABHORENCE" Important Question for Black Londoners Response to the "puppet" Lee Jasper from the Truth Establishment Institute Response to the "Diabolical" Lee Jasper from GlobalAfrica.com Response to the "Robotic" Lee Jasper by Sis. Carol Taylor Response from the Hon Marcus Garvey's UNIA to the "Rude" Lee Jasper http://www.blacksandjews.com/Martin.UK.Disinvitation2.html 26/10/2003 Prof. Tony Martin Dis-Invited to UK! Page 2 of 17 UK Black History Month Event Background, by Lester Lewis JEWS AND AFRICAN STORY: THE ATTACK ON TONY MARTIN BY BRITISH JEWS, by Lester Lewis [See also a response by Min.
    [Show full text]
  • Innovation and Experimentation in the Victory Odes of Pindar and Bacchylides
    Emergent Genre: Innovation and Experimentation in the Victory Odes of Pindar and Bacchylides By Christopher J Waldo A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Classics in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in Charge: Professor Leslie Kurke Professor Mark Griffith Professor James Porter Professor Mario Telò Spring 2019 @ Christopher J Waldo May 2019 Abstract Emergent Genre: Innovation and Experimentation in the Victory Odes of Pindar and Bacchylides by Christopher J Waldo Doctor of Philosophy in Classics University of California, Berkeley Professor Leslie Kurke, Chair This dissertation argues that the victory ode was a genre characterized by formal innovation and experimentation. While much scholarship over the last half century has stressed the existence of rhetorical continuities between the victory ode and other genres of Greek poetry, I emphasize the ways in which these poems set themselves apart. The victory ode came into being late in the life of archaic Greek poetry, and there may have been initial uncertainty on the part of both poets and their patrons as to the generic expectations of these commissions. Examining the surviving victory odes of Pindar and Bacchylides, I explore the innovative and experimental formal approaches employed by the poets to meet the demands of an emergent genre. The first chapter discusses the victory ode’s presentation of itself as transgressive. Pindar and Bacchylides often bring their mythological accounts to a close with statements marking them as inappropriate. I contend that these moments, rather than representing genuine confessions of transgression, serve to define the boundaries of the genre.
    [Show full text]
  • Levin, Jeffries, and the Fate of Academic Autonomy
    William & Mary Law Review Volume 36 (1994-1995) Issue 2 Symposium: Brown v. Board of Education After Forty Years: Confronting the Article 10 Promise February 1995 Levin, Jeffries, and the Fate of Academic Autonomy Nathan Glazer Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/wmlr Part of the Constitutional Law Commons, and the First Amendment Commons Repository Citation Nathan Glazer, Levin, Jeffries, and the Fate of Academic Autonomy, 36 Wm. & Mary L. Rev. 703 (1995), https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/wmlr/vol36/iss2/10 Copyright c 1995 by the authors. This article is brought to you by the William & Mary Law School Scholarship Repository. https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/wmlr LEVIN, JEFFRIES, AND THE FATE OF ACADEMIC AUTONOMY NATHAN GLAZER* Not long after Brown v. Board of Education,' as the courts continued to grapple with Brown's first-generation proge- ny-those cases dealing directly with segregation-a second-gen- eration of desegregation cases began to emerge. Second-genera- tion cases arose when, for example, blacks lost positions as prn- cipals and teachers during desegregation ' and when parents ob- jected to the disproportionate disciplimng of black students in desegregated schools.3 Third- and fourth-generation cases, high- lighting the subissues which flow from each successive judicial interpretation and order, also exist. Brown, as we all know, marked not only the end of a series of major constitutional cases, but the beginmng of new issues lead- ing to new cases, issues that are still with us. Among these issues is that of "hate speech,"4 which concerns the language used by students, faculty, and adminstrators in integrated schools when referring to race, and its potential impact on school atmosphere, students, and faculty5 The issue is whether under the First Amendment,6 the use of the varieties of what we have * Professor, Graduate School of Education, Harvard Umversity.
    [Show full text]
  • African Americans; Afrocentrism; Howard University DC
    DOCUMENT RESUME ED 399 591 CS 509 336 AUTHOR Schnell, Jim TITLE In Search of Afrocentric Perspectives on Human Communication. SPONS AGENCY Lilly Endowment, Inc., Indianapolis, Ind. PUB DATE [96] NOTE 26p.; For a related document, see ED 367 039. PUB TYPE Information Analyses (070) EDRS PRICE MF01/PCO2 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS Black Influences; *Blacks; *Case Studies; *Communication (Thought Transfer); Higher Education; Literature Reviews; *Resource Materials IDENTIFIERS *African Americans; Afrocentrism; Howard University DC ABSTRACT This paper describes a literature review that searched for afrocentric perspectives on human communication theory. The search described in the paper was focused on the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center at Howard University, reportedly one of the largest collections of African-Americanliterature in the United States. The search described in the paper was done by researching key words in the subject card catalog and then studying entries relevant to communication arts. The search described in the paper reveals a rich abundance of material suitable foranalysis in case study assignments, but the search did not reveal anytheoretical frameworks unique to the African-American perspective. Contains 61 references. (Author/RS) *********************************************************************** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. *********************************************************************** IN SEARCH OF AFROCENTRIC PERSPECTIVES ON HUMAN COMMUNICATION U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE AND Office of Educational Research and Improvement DISSEMINATE THIS MATERIAL EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER HAS BEEN G NTED BY ciThis document has been reproduced as Jim Schnell, Ph.D. received from the person or organization Associate Professor originating it. Minor changes have been made to Department of Communication improve reproduction quality.
    [Show full text]
  • Pindar's Olympian 2, Theron's Faith, and Empedocles' Katharmoi Nancy Demand
    Pindar's "Olympian 2", Theron's Faith, and Empedocles' "Katharmoi" Demand, Nancy Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies; Winter 1975; 16, 4; ProQuest pg. 347 Pindar's Olympian 2, Theron's Faith, and Empedocles' Katharmoi Nancy Demand N 476 B.C. Theron, tyrant of Akragas, won a victory in the Olympic I games. In celebration of this victory Pindar, visiting the court of the tyrant, composed Olympian 2, incidentally providing us with one of the earliest literary expressions of a belief in transmigration of souls by his mention of the beliefs of Theron concerning the life of the soul after death. While many scholars identify these beliefs as Pythagorean,! the ode seems to me to contain clues which point to an independent, non-Pythagorean origin for the Akragantine cult. Before we turn to the ode itself, however, we should first review the ancient evidence which supports a Pythagorean origin. This evidence goes back only as far as the scholium (Drachmann I 92) on Olympian 2.234a, which may derive from Aristarchus (third century B.C.),2 or perhaps from Crates of Mallus, head of the school at Pergamon (slightly later than Aristarchus), who seems to have had a special interest in Sicilian affairs; five of the six Pindar scholia specifically attributed to him deal with Sicily or Sicilian history.3 At any rate, there seems no reason to believe that the scholiast was basing his statement on anything more than the appearance of the 'Pythag­ orean' concept of metempsychosis in the ode itself.4 Another possible bit of evidence lies in the fact that Clement of Alexandria calls Pindar himself a Pythagorean;5 aside from the fact, however, that in Olympian 2 we are dealing with the beliefs of Theron and not with those of 1 L.
    [Show full text]
  • Peter Hugh Jefferd Lloyd-Jones 1922–2009
    HUGH LLOYD-JONES Peter Hugh Jefferd Lloyd-Jones 1922–2009 HUGH LLOYD-JONES was born on 21 September 1922 at St Peter Port, Guernsey, the fi rst child and only son of Brevet-Major William Lloyd- Jones and Norah Leila Jefferd. His parents had moved to the Channel Islands where it was then possible to live more economically than on the mainland, but soon returned. His father William belonged to a family from the Lleyn peninsula in North Wales; one of his distant relatives had been a Fellow of Jesus College, Oxford, which had strong Welsh connec- tions. William was a regular army offi cer who had been posted to India in 1908. Since he found little satisfaction in soldiering there in peacetime he arranged a transfer to Africa; in his own words he chose to go there ‘for experience and big-game shooting’. His tour of duty in the King’s African Rifl es, a regiment of which he wrote a history, is described in his other book Havash! FrontierAdventures in Kenya (London, 1925).1 In 1913 in an engagement with brigands far out in the wilds he was seriously wounded in the leg, but managed to rally his men and complete the mission; how- ever, gangrene and tetanus set in, and the journey back to a place where proper medical care was available was a terrifying ordeal lasting forty- three days, which left him white-haired at an early age. For his services he was awarded the DSO. When the First World War began he was fi t enough for service, and for a time undertook the extremely dangerous duty of fl y- ing light aircraft to photograph enemy positions; most of the pilots fortifi ed themselves with alcohol before taking off.
    [Show full text]
  • The Development of Afrocentricity: a Historical Survey
    M Chawane The development of Afrocentricity: A historical survey DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2223-0386/2016/n16a5 Midas Chawane Auckland Park Campus, University of Johannesburg [email protected] Abstract The origin of the Afrocentric philosophy cannot be established with certainty. The most influential book advocating it was published in 1954. Marcus Garvey was one of the most influential propagators of the ideology. Afrocentricity as an idea and a philosophy gained momentum during the Civil Rights Movement in the United States of America. It was in the Temple University School of Scholars, frequently referred to as the Temple Circle, where the philosophy was institutionalised. The abstract noun “Afrocentricity” dates to the 1970s and was popularised by Asante during the 1980s, when he developed epistemological and methodological foundations for an Afrocentric curriculum based on an African perspective but aiming at global understanding.1 The approach proposes that blacks (at home and abroad) must look at knowledge from an African perspective. It suggests looking at matters at hand from an African viewpoint; that we misunderstand Africa when we use viewpoints and terms other than that of the African to study Africa. When Africans view themselves as centred and central in their own history, they see themselves as agents, actors, and participants rather than as marginal and on the periphery of political or economic experience. Although not the antithesis of Eurocentrism, Afrocentrism has become the most explosive and controversial subject, with both black and white scholars squaring off on its viability and non-viability. Mary Lefkowitz, Stanley Crouch, and Anthony Appiah are some of the main opponents of the Afrocentric idea.
    [Show full text]
  • 2020 Newsletter Published
    Spring 2020 Letter from the Chair by Michael Flower wo Thousand and Nineteen proved to be an eventful year admission. The both for the department and for me personally. On July 1, Department of Classics, T I took over as Chair, well aware that filling the shoes of my and the other Princeton predecessor would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, given departments that are Andrew Feldherr’s selfless dedication to the Department and following our lead, his many contributions to its welfare. Working with him during are demonstrating my three years as Director of Graduate Studies helped prepare our conviction that me for this position, in so far as anyone is ever prepared for the students who come many tasks and responsibilities that the job entails. I am very from underprivileged grateful for his mentorship, and I only hope that I have been half and underrepresented as effective in providing advice and support to our current DGS, backgrounds can and Johannes Haubold. will succeed. Readers of this newsletter may Having supportive colleagues and a truly dedicated, and highly well wonder why we professional, staff has also made a huge difference. Christopher are accepting only one Valentine took over from Kai Laidlaw in the fall as our Tehnical new student into the Support Specialist, and all of us in the Department feel very pre-doctoral program fortunate indeed that he decided to join us. There are no other next year. The answer is new faces this academic year, but with any luck we will be joined lack of funding, since pre-doctoral students pay the same tuition next year by a new colleague with expertise in ancient Philosophy as students who are already in the regular program.
    [Show full text]
  • Pindar the Pious Poet: Prayer and Its Significance in Pindar’S Epinician Odes
    PINDAR THE PIOUS POET: PRAYER AND ITS SIGNIFICANCE IN PINDAR’S EPINICIAN ODES By KRISTEN N. BAXTER A Dissertation submitted to the Graduate School-New Brunswick Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Program in Classics written under the direction of Timothy Power and approved by _________________________ _________________________ _________________________ _________________________ New Brunswick, New Jersey May 2012 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Pindar the Pious Poet: Prayer and its Significance in Pindar’s Epinician Odes by KRISTEN N. BAXTER Dissertation Director: Timothy Power Scholars studying Pindar’s epinician odes have often focused on the relationship of the victor with his family, his community, and the poet. The odes have even been labeled secular poems because of this perceived emphasis on mortal parties. An athletic victory is a moment of divine favor, however, and Pindar’s epinician odes deal with the relationship between the victor and his gods. The victor has received favor from the gods in the form of his victory, and now must discharge his debt to the gods through praise and thanks. He may then reassess his relationship with the gods, and attempt to secure future favors from them. Pindar uses the epinician performance as a medium in which to mediate this interaction. Prayers act as a nexus of communication between men and the gods. By studying the prayers of five of Pindar’s epinician odes (Pythian 8, Isthmian 6, Nemean 9, and Olympian 13), I show how Pindar uses his position as an aoidos, an intermediary between men and gods, to facilitate communication between them.
    [Show full text]