Untangling Blackness in Greek Antiquity

Erscheinungsjahr 2024
ISBN: 978-1-108-81791-2
Verlag: Cambridge University Press

Buch, Englisch, 271 Seiten, Format (B × H): 152 mm x 229 mm, Gewicht: 399 g

How should articulations of blackness from the fifth century BCE to the twenty-first century be properly read and interpreted? This important and timely new book is the first concerted treatment of black skin color in the Greek literature and visual culture of antiquity. In charting representations in the Hellenic world of black Egyptians, Aithiopians, Indians, and Greeks, Sarah Derbew dexterously disentangles the complex and varied ways in which blackness has been co-produced by ancient authors and artists; their readers, audiences, and viewers; and contemporary scholars. Exploring the precarious hold that race has on skin coloration, the author uncovers the many silences, suppressions, and misappropriations of blackness within modern studies of Greek antiquity. Shaped by performance studies and critical race theory alike, her book maps out an authoritative archaeology of blackness that reappraises its significance. It offers a committedly anti-racist approach to depictions of black people while rejecting simplistic conflations or explanations.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Derbew, Sarah F.

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Architektur Geschichte der Architektur, Baugeschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtswissenschaft Allgemein
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literaturgeschichte und Literaturkritik

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction: The metatheater of blackness; 1. Masks of blackness: Reading the iconography of black people in ancient Greece; 2. Masks of difference in Aeschylus's suppliants; 3. Beyond blackness: Reorienting Greek geography; 4. From Greek scythians to black Greeks: Spectrum of foreignness in Lucian's satires; 5. Black disguises in an aithiopian novel; Conclusion: (re)placing blackness; Appendix 1; Appendix 2; Bibliography; Recommended translations of primary Greek texts; Index.

Über Autor(innen)

Derbew, Sarah F.
Sarah Derbew is an Assistant Professor of Classics in affiliation with the Center for African Studies and the Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity at Stanford University. She was previously a Junior Fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows.