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Listen to a lecture by Martin Bernal on “Black Athena” delivered at the University of Witwatersrand, 7 June 2006, hosted by the Constitution of Public Intellectual Life Research Project in association with the University of the Witwatersrand.

>> Listen to Bernal “Black Athena”

Framing the Conversation
Martin Bernal vs. Mary Lefkowitz – History as Politics

“Bernal’s enterprise illustrates how a scholarly endeavor is also a political one…” – V.Y. Mudimbe

Philosopher V.Y. Mudimbe’s point was clearly illustrated in President Thabo Mbeki’s recent Millennium Parliamentary address in which he cited Bernal’s work to challenge the way European scholarship often ignores the contribution of Africa to world development.

While it is difficult for those of us outside of the field of classics to engage the technicalities of Bernal’s work, the political implications of Black Athena are more accessible.

In an article in which he defends Black Athena against an attack by the Wellesley College classicist Mary Lefkowitz, Bernal openly claims to be an advocate of a brand of Afrocentrism and states “Africans… have made many significant contributions to world progress for the past two centuries. These have been systematically played down by European and North American historians.” Almost in the same breath, he goes on to say, “historical researchers should try to transcend their own environments and achieve objectivity, as far as it is possible to do so.” The final clause in this sentence clearly illustrates Bernal’s position. Yes, Black Athena is a scholarly work but it is also, unashamedly, a political one.

In an article that responds to Bernal’s defense, Lefkowitz writes that the objective of her book Not Out of Africa: How Afrocentrism Became an Excuse to Teach Myth as History “is to explain why popular ‘Afrocentric’ mythologies of the ancient world appear to have been created”. She goes on to state that these mythologies “keep students from learning about the real history.” Lefkowitz’s concern is that if the Afrocentrist have succeeded in manipulating history to suite their own political objectives then what is to prevent other groups from doing the same. In support of this argument, her position is that that it is the scholar’s job to be custodian of the truth. In order to achieve objectivity, she argues, the scholar should stay well clear of politics.

Both Bernal and Lefkowitz are committed to an intense engagement with the archive albeit with different views of the possibility for objectivity.

The Archive is always a contested space, but is it itself a neutral repository? What historical forces are at play that direct our attention to the archives of the classical world that dominate the Bernal vs. Lefkowitz debate? What historical forces laid down the archives that Bernal and Lefkowitz investigate?

Perhaps more pertinently for us in South Africa, what archives do we have, how did they come into being and how do we approach them to explore our past? How are we using our archives in a public discussion of the pressing questions of our times?

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At a Glance

Martin Bernal is originally a scholar of modern Chinese political history who claims that classical civilization in Ancient Greece actually stems from Afroasiatic and Semitic cultures, not just from Europe. He calls this the Revised Ancient Model, based on ancient Greek historians recognition of an Egyptian and Phoenician cultural heritage. This model contrasts with what Bernal provocitively calls the Aryan Model, which posits Indo-European speakers from the north and indigenous Greeks as the main cultural source of Classical Greece. The crux of Bernal’s argument is that the Aryan Model excises the African contribution to Ancient Greek culture.

The Revised Ancient Model, he argues, has roots in the classical civilization he studies, while the Aryan Model stems from racial thinking that developed in the late 18th and 19th centuries. His theories are contested by some classical scholars, including Mary Lefkowitz of Wellesley College, a prominent critic. He has claimed that the force of her resistance supports his position of Classics as prisoner to embedded racial ideas. Beyond the debate about racial bias in scholarship, a host of facts about ancient civilization are contended and conceeded to in this debate.

Martin Bernal is now Professor Emeritus of Ancient Eastern Mediterranean Studies at Cornell University. He also taught Government Studies at Cornell. He is author of the three volume series, Black Athena, as well as the book Cadmean Letters, devoted to the origins of the Greek Alphabet. His earlier work focuses on China.

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Selected Publications

01. Books

* Bernal, M. Chinese Socialism Before 1907, Cornell University Press: Ithaca, New York. 1976
* Bernal, M. Black Athena The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization I: The Fabrication of Ancient Greece 1785-1985. Rutgers University Press: New Brunswick and Free Association Books: London, 1987
* Bernal, M. “Classics in Crisis: An Outsider’s View,” in Classics: A Discipline and Profession in Crisis? Ed. P. Culham and L.Edmunds. University Press of America (1989) Pp. 67-76
* Bernal, M. Cadmean Letters: The Westward Diffusion of The Semitic Alphabet Before 1400 B.C. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1990
* Bernal, M. Black Athena II: The Archaeological and Documentary Evidence. Rutgers University Press: New Brunswick and Free Association Books: London, 1990
* Bernal, M. Black Athena Writes Back. Ed. with David Moore. Duke University Press, London
* Bernal, M. Black Athena III: The Linguistic Evidence. Rutgers University Press: New Brunswick and Free Association Books London, 2006

02. Journal Articles

* Bernal, M. “The British Utilitarians, Imperialism and the Fall of the Ancient Model,” Culture and History 3. 98 (1988): 127
* Bernal, M. “Black Athena and the APA” in The Challenge of Black Athena Special issue of Arethusa (1989): 17-37
* Bernal, M. “Responses to Critical Reviews of Black Athena: Volume I” Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology, 3.1 (1990):111-137
* Bernal, M. “Animadversions on the Origins of Western Science” Isis, 83.4 (1992): 596-607
* Bernal, M. “The Afrocentric Interpretation of History: Bernal Replies to Lefkowitz” The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, No. 11(1996): 86-94.
* Bernal, M. “Black Athena: Ten Years After” Special issue of Talanta (1997)
* Bernal, M. “Mythologies of Neoconservatism in the American Academy” New Political Science (2000)
* Bernal, M. “India in the Making of Europe” Journal of the Asiatic Society, Vol. XLVI (2005): 37-66

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Selected Critical Resources

01. Books

* Bernal, Martin & Moore, David eds. Black Athena Writes Back. Duke University Press, 2001
* Berlinerblau, Jacques. Heresy in the University: The Black Athena Controversy and the Responsibilities of American Intellectuals. Rutgers University Press.1999
* Lefkowitz, Mary & Rogers, Guy eds. Black Athena Revisited. University of North Carolina Press. 1996
* Lefkowitz, Mary. Not Out of Africa: How Afrocentrism Became an Excuse to Teach Myth as History. Basic Books: New York, 1996

02. Journal Articles

* Bernal, Martin. “The Afrocentric Interpretation of History: Bernal Replies to Lefkowitz” The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, No. 11(1996): 86-94
* Bernal, Martin. “Animadversions on the Origins of Western Science” Isis, 83.4 (1992): 596-607
* Carruthers, Jacob H. “Outside Academia: Bernal’s Critique of Black Champions of Ancient Egypt” Journal of Black Studies, 22.4 (1996): 459-467
* Cohen, Walter & Bernal, Martin. “An Interview with Martin Bernal” Social Text, No. 35 (1993): 1-24
* Konstan, David. “Inventing Ancient Greece” History and Theory, 36.2 (1997): 261-269
* Lefkowitz, Mary. “The Afrocentric Interpretation of Western History: Lefkowitz replies to Bernal” The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, No. 12 (1996): 88-91
* Levine, Molly. “The Use and Abuse of Black Athena” The American Historical Review, 97.2 (1992): 440-460
* Levine, Molly. “Review Article: The Marginalisation of Martin Bernal” Classical Philology, 93:4 (1998), pp. 345-363
* Mudimbe, V. Y. “Black Athena?” Transition, No. 58 (1992): 114-123

03. Web Resources

* “Afrocentricity and the Black Athena Debate” by Wim Van Binsbergen

04. Book Reviews

* Bechaus-Gerst, Marianne. “Black Athena: Ten Years After” Canadian Journal of African Studies 33.1 (1999): 168-170
* Chioni, David. “Book Note: Black Athena Writes Back: Martin Bernal Responds to his Critics” The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, No. 33 (2001): 131
* Cline, Eric. “Black Athena Revisited” American Journal of Archeaology, 100.4 (1996): 781-782
* Meier, August. “Not out of Africa: How Afrocentrism became an Excuse to teach Myth as History” The Journal of American History, 83.3 (1996): pp. 988

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