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In "Race in Antiquity: Truly Out of Africa" <ref>{{Cite web|title = Race in Antiquity: Truly Out of Africa {{!}} Dr. Molefi Kete Asante|url = http://www.asante.net/articles/19/race-in-antiquity-truly-out-of-africa/|website = www.asante.net|accessdate = 2015-08-31}}</ref>Dr. Molefi Kete Asante states: |
In "Race in Antiquity: Truly Out of Africa" <ref>{{Cite web|title = Race in Antiquity: Truly Out of Africa {{!}} Dr. Molefi Kete Asante|url = http://www.asante.net/articles/19/race-in-antiquity-truly-out-of-africa/|website = www.asante.net|accessdate = 2015-08-31}}</ref>Dr. Molefi Kete Asante states: |
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"...Professor Lefkowitz is conversant with many Greek sources but as '''''she admits this is the first time that she has ventured into these waters'''''. This is unfortunate because she has created a false security among those who believe that Greece sprung like a miracle unborn and untaught. Bringing Frank Snowden in the discussion of the ancient world does not help because Professor Snowden's book "Blacks in Antiquity: Ethiopians in the Graeco-Roman Experience"<ref>{{Cite book|title = Blacks in Antiquity: Ethiopians in the Greco-Roman Experience|url = http://www.amazon.com/Blacks-Antiquity-Ethiopians-Greco-Roman-Experience/dp/0674076265|publisher = Belknap Press|date = 1971-01-07|location = Cambridge, Mass.|isbn = 9780674076266|language = English}}</ref> is '''fatally flawed as a Eurocentric interpretation of the African past.''' His objective was to demonstrate that Africans existed in the imaginations and experience of Greece and Rome. He succeeded in stripping all agency from Africans. The problem is that Ethiopia in the form of Nubia and Kemet (Egypt) existed thousands of years before there was a Greece or Rome. '''''To start a discussion of the ancient world with 800 B.C is certainly poor scholarship''.''' But Professor Lefkowitz ''reliance on Snowden'' is the '''''least'' of her problems'''." |
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"Any attempt to question the authenticity of ancient Greek civilization is of direct concern even to people who ordinarily have little interest in the remote past. Since the founding of this country, ancient Greece has been intimately connected with the ideals of American democracy." |
"Any attempt to question the authenticity of ancient Greek civilization is of direct concern even to people who ordinarily have little interest in the remote past. Since the founding of this country, ancient Greece has been intimately connected with the ideals of American democracy." |
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No one could have given a better reason than that for Professor Lefkowitz' spirited but misguided attempt to defend a falsification of history in the name of attacking Afrocentricity. When all is said and done a more perfect union of this nation can only be based on facts." |
No one could have given a better reason than that for Professor Lefkowitz' spirited but misguided attempt to '''''defend a falsification of history''''' in the name of attacking Afrocentricity. When all is said and done a more perfect union of this nation can only be based on facts." |
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In 2008, Lefkowitz published ''History Lesson,'' which the Wall Street Journal described as a "personal account of what she experienced as a result of questioning the veracity of Afrocentrism and the motives of its advocates."<ref>[[John Leo]]. [http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120821739801814533.html The Hazards of Telling the Truth], ''[[The Wall Street Journal|Wall Street Journal]]'', April 15, 2008</ref> She was attacked in newsletters from the Wellesley Africana Studies Department by her colleague [[Tony Martin (professor)|Tony Martin]],<ref>''History Lesson'', p. 55</ref> which turned into a rancorous, personal conflict with anti-Semitic elements. Martin stated in May 1994 at Cornell University that "Black people should interpret their own reality. . . . Jews have been in the forefront of efforts to thwart the interpretation of our own history."<ref>''Cornell Daily Sun'', 2 May 1994, p. 1</ref> In another incident described in her book, [[Yosef Ben-Jochannan|Yosef A. A. ben-Jochannan]], the author of ''Africa: The Mother of Western Civilization,'' gave the Martin Luther King lecture at Wellesley in 1993. Lefkowitz attended this lecture with her husband, Sir Hugh Lloyd-Jones, Regius Professor of Greek at Oxford University. In that lecture, ben-Jochannan stated that Aristotle stole his philosophy from the [[Library of Alexandria]], Egypt. During the question and answer session following the lecture, Lefkowitz asked ben-Jochannan, "How would that have been possible, when the library was not built until after his death?" ben-Jochannan replied that the dates were uncertain. Sir Hugh responded, "Rubbish!" Lefkowitz writes that ben-Jochannan proceeded to tell those present that "they could and should believe what ''black'' instructors told them" and "that although they might think that Jews were all 'hook-nosed and sallow faced,' there were other Jews who looked like himself."<ref>''History Lesson'', pp. 67–69.</ref> |
In 2008, Lefkowitz published ''History Lesson,'' which the Wall Street Journal described as a "personal account of what she experienced as a result of questioning the veracity of Afrocentrism and the motives of its advocates."<ref>[[John Leo]]. [http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120821739801814533.html The Hazards of Telling the Truth], ''[[The Wall Street Journal|Wall Street Journal]]'', April 15, 2008</ref> She was attacked in newsletters from the Wellesley Africana Studies Department by her colleague [[Tony Martin (professor)|Tony Martin]],<ref>''History Lesson'', p. 55</ref> which turned into a rancorous, personal conflict with anti-Semitic elements. Martin stated in May 1994 at Cornell University that "Black people should interpret their own reality. . . . Jews have been in the forefront of efforts to thwart the interpretation of our own history."<ref>''Cornell Daily Sun'', 2 May 1994, p. 1</ref> In another incident described in her book, [[Yosef Ben-Jochannan|Yosef A. A. ben-Jochannan]], the author of ''Africa: The Mother of Western Civilization,'' gave the Martin Luther King lecture at Wellesley in 1993. Lefkowitz attended this lecture with her husband, Sir Hugh Lloyd-Jones, Regius Professor of Greek at Oxford University. In that lecture, ben-Jochannan stated that Aristotle stole his philosophy from the [[Library of Alexandria]], Egypt. During the question and answer session following the lecture, Lefkowitz asked ben-Jochannan, "How would that have been possible, when the library was not built until after his death?" ben-Jochannan replied that the dates were uncertain. Sir Hugh responded, "Rubbish!" Lefkowitz writes that ben-Jochannan proceeded to tell those present that "they could and should believe what ''black'' instructors told them" and "that although they might think that Jews were all 'hook-nosed and sallow faced,' there were other Jews who looked like himself."<ref>''History Lesson'', pp. 67–69.</ref> |
Revision as of 09:19, 31 August 2015
Mary R. Lefkowitz (/ˈlɛfkoʊwɪts/; born c. 1935) is an American classical scholar and Professor Emerita of Classical Studies at Wellesley College. She is best known to non-Classicists for her anti-Afrocentricity book, Not Out of Africa (1996). She is the widow of Sir Hugh Lloyd-Jones.
Biography
Lefkowitz earned her B.A. from Wellesley College in 1957, Phi Beta Kappa with honors in Greek, and received her Ph.D. in Classical Philology from Radcliffe College (now part of Harvard University) in 1961. She returned to Wellesley College in 1959 as an instructor in Greek. In 1979 she was named Andrew W. Mellon Professor of the Humanities, a position she held until her retirement in 2005. Lefkowitz holds an honorary degree from Trinity College (1996), which cited her “deep concern for intellectual integrity,” and also from the University of Patras (1999) and from Grinnell College (2000). In 2004 she received a Radcliffe Graduate Society Medal. In 2006 she was awarded a National Humanities Medal “for outstanding excellence in scholarship and teaching.” In 2008 she was the recipient of a Wellesley College Alumnae Achievement Award.[1]
Lefkowitz has published on subjects including mythology, women in antiquity, Pindar, and fiction in ancient biography. She came to the attention of a wider audience through her criticism of the claims of Martin Bernal in Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization in her book Not Out of Africa: How Afrocentrism Became an Excuse to Teach Myth As History. In Black Athena Revisited (1996), which she edited with Guy MacLean Rogers, her colleague at Wellesley College, the ideas of Martin Bernal are further scrutinized.
Anti-Afrocentricity
In "Race in Antiquity: Truly Out of Africa" [2]Dr. Molefi Kete Asante states:
"...Professor Lefkowitz is conversant with many Greek sources but as she admits this is the first time that she has ventured into these waters. This is unfortunate because she has created a false security among those who believe that Greece sprung like a miracle unborn and untaught. Bringing Frank Snowden in the discussion of the ancient world does not help because Professor Snowden's book "Blacks in Antiquity: Ethiopians in the Graeco-Roman Experience"[3] is fatally flawed as a Eurocentric interpretation of the African past. His objective was to demonstrate that Africans existed in the imaginations and experience of Greece and Rome. He succeeded in stripping all agency from Africans. The problem is that Ethiopia in the form of Nubia and Kemet (Egypt) existed thousands of years before there was a Greece or Rome. To start a discussion of the ancient world with 800 B.C is certainly poor scholarship. But Professor Lefkowitz reliance on Snowden is the least of her problems."
"...In the end I have asked myself, what is Professor Lefkowitz' point, why does she see the need to challenge Bernal, James, Diop, or to question my integrity? She states very clearly that her project is about sustaining the American myth of European triumphalism. In her own words:
"Any attempt to question the authenticity of ancient Greek civilization is of direct concern even to people who ordinarily have little interest in the remote past. Since the founding of this country, ancient Greece has been intimately connected with the ideals of American democracy."
No one could have given a better reason than that for Professor Lefkowitz' spirited but misguided attempt to defend a falsification of history in the name of attacking Afrocentricity. When all is said and done a more perfect union of this nation can only be based on facts."
In 2008, Lefkowitz published History Lesson, which the Wall Street Journal described as a "personal account of what she experienced as a result of questioning the veracity of Afrocentrism and the motives of its advocates."[4] She was attacked in newsletters from the Wellesley Africana Studies Department by her colleague Tony Martin,[5] which turned into a rancorous, personal conflict with anti-Semitic elements. Martin stated in May 1994 at Cornell University that "Black people should interpret their own reality. . . . Jews have been in the forefront of efforts to thwart the interpretation of our own history."[6] In another incident described in her book, Yosef A. A. ben-Jochannan, the author of Africa: The Mother of Western Civilization, gave the Martin Luther King lecture at Wellesley in 1993. Lefkowitz attended this lecture with her husband, Sir Hugh Lloyd-Jones, Regius Professor of Greek at Oxford University. In that lecture, ben-Jochannan stated that Aristotle stole his philosophy from the Library of Alexandria, Egypt. During the question and answer session following the lecture, Lefkowitz asked ben-Jochannan, "How would that have been possible, when the library was not built until after his death?" ben-Jochannan replied that the dates were uncertain. Sir Hugh responded, "Rubbish!" Lefkowitz writes that ben-Jochannan proceeded to tell those present that "they could and should believe what black instructors told them" and "that although they might think that Jews were all 'hook-nosed and sallow faced,' there were other Jews who looked like himself."[7]
Personal life
Lefkowitz was married to Sir Hugh Lloyd-Jones, Regius Professor Emeritus of Greek at Oxford University from 1982 until his death in 2009.[8]
Books
- The Victory Ode : An Introduction (1976), ISBN 0-8155-5045-6 ISBN 978-0815550457
1976 [9]
- Heroines and Hysterics (1981), ISBN 0-7156-1518-1 ISBN 978-0715615188
- The Lives of the Greek Poets (1981), ISBN 0-8018-2748-5 ISBN 978-0801827488
- Women's Life in Greece and Rome (1982) editor, with Maureen Fant, ISBN 0-8018-8310-5 ISBN 978-0801883101
- Women in Greek Myth (1986), ISBN 0-8018-8649-X ISBN 978-0801886492
- First-person Fictions : Pindar's Poetic "I" (1991), ISBN 0-19-814686-8 ISBN 978-0198146865
(1997), ISBN 0-465-09838-X ISBN 978-0465098385
- Black Athena Revisited (1996), limited preview online ISBN 0-8078-4555-8 ISBN 978-0807845554
- Not Out of Africa: How Afrocentrism Became an Excuse to Teach Myth As History 1996[10]
- Greek Gods, Human Lives: What We Can Learn From Myths (2003), ISBN 0-300-10769-2 ISBN 978-0300107692
- History Lesson (2008), ISBN 0-300-12659-X ISBN 978-0300126594
See also
References
- ^ Template:Wayback, Wellesley College
- ^ "Race in Antiquity: Truly Out of Africa | Dr. Molefi Kete Asante". www.asante.net. Retrieved 2015-08-31.
- ^ Blacks in Antiquity: Ethiopians in the Greco-Roman Experience. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press. 1971-01-07. ISBN 9780674076266.
- ^ John Leo. The Hazards of Telling the Truth, Wall Street Journal, April 15, 2008
- ^ History Lesson, p. 55
- ^ Cornell Daily Sun, 2 May 1994, p. 1
- ^ History Lesson, pp. 67–69.
- ^ Daily Telegraph obituary of Hugh Lloyd-Jones
- ^ "Not Out of Africa: How Afrocentrism Became an Excuse to Teach Myth As History". Worldcat. Retrieved 12 May 2015.
- ^ http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/1996/96.04.05.html
External links
- Excerpts from Mary Lefkowitz's Not Out of Africa
- Afrocentrism, Talk of the Nation, 1997-07-09. NPR discussion with Lefkowitz and Maulana Karenga
- Audio interview with Lefkowitz at National Review Online
- Robert T. Carroll's book review of Mary Lefkowitz's Not Out of Africaat Skepdic.com
- Martin Bernal's review of Mary Lefkowitz's Not Out of Africa
- Black Athena and the debate about Afrocentrism in the US by Thomas A. Schmitz (PDF)
- The great Greek race odyssey an account of Lefkowitz's conflict with Tony Martin in her book: 'History Lessons' (The Times of London)
- ^ "Race in Antiquity: Truly Out of Africa | Dr. Molefi Kete Asante". www.asante.net. Retrieved 2015-08-31.