'A happy coincidence': race, the cold war, and Frank M. Snowden, Jr's Blacks in Antiquity. (24th February 2021)
- Record Type:
- Journal Article
- Title:
- 'A happy coincidence': race, the cold war, and Frank M. Snowden, Jr's Blacks in Antiquity. (24th February 2021)
- Main Title:
- 'A happy coincidence': race, the cold war, and Frank M. Snowden, Jr's Blacks in Antiquity
- Authors:
- Parmenter, Christopher Stedman
- Abstract:
- Abstract: Between 1947 and 2001, the African American professor, diplomat, and dean Frank M. Snowden, Jr laid out an influential thesis about 'race relations' in the ancient Mediterranean. According to Snowden, Greeks and Romans were 'white'; Africans, whom Greeks and Romans called 'Ethiopians', were 'black'; Greek and Roman societies lacked modern 'color prejudice'. In this article, I contextualize the development of Snowden's 'race relations' thesis in the politics of the early Cold War. Reviewing Snowden's research notes archived at Howard University, I argue that Snowden — who travelled widely after the Second World War as a US diplomat — purposefully distanced his thesis from the sociology of race during the 1940–50s. Instead, Snowden envisioned American racial categories as permanent fixtures of world history, optimistically looking to Greece and Rome as models for a post-segregation America. Finally, I trace the enduring impact of Snowden's thesis by unpacking his historiography of Naukratis in the Archaic Period, which he had identified as the west's first multiracial society.
- Is Part Of:
- Classical receptions journal. Volume 13:Number 4(2021)
- Journal:
- Classical receptions journal
- Issue:
- Volume 13:Number 4(2021)
- Issue Display:
- Volume 13, Issue 4 (2021)
- Year:
- 2021
- Volume:
- 13
- Issue:
- 4
- Issue Sort Value:
- 2021-0013-0004-0000
- Page Start:
- 485
- Page End:
- 506
- Publication Date:
- 2021-02-24
- Subjects:
- Civilization, Classical -- Periodicals
Classical literature -- History and criticism -- Periodicals
Philosophy, Ancient -- Periodicals
Classical antiquities -- Periodicals
880.09 - Journal URLs:
- http://crj.oxfordjournals.org ↗
http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/ ↗ - DOI:
- 10.1093/crj/clab001 ↗
- Languages:
- English
- ISSNs:
- 1759-5134
- Deposit Type:
- Legaldeposit
- View Content:
- Available online (eLD content is only available in our Reading Rooms) ↗
- Physical Locations:
- British Library DSC - 3274.582500
British Library DSC - BLDSS-3PM
British Library HMNTS - ELD Digital store - Ingest File:
- 19779.xml