Anxieties about Race in Egyptology and Egyptomania, 1890–1960

Date: 

Thursday, April 6, 2017, 6:00pm

Location: 

Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford Street, Cambridge MA 02138

 

Race, Representation, and Museums Lecture Series

Donald Reid, Professor Emeritus, Department of History, Georgia State University; Affiliate Professor, Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilization, University of Washington

Despite ideals of scientific and scholarly objectivity, both Egyptologists and non-specialists have often projected their own racial anxieties onto ancient Egypt. Recurrent attempts to prove that the ancient Egyptians were white or black, for example, reveal more about modern societies than about ancient Egypt. Donald Reid will discuss the history of how such debates have played out among Western and modern Egyptian scholars, artists, and writers, and how interpretations of ancient Egypt are intertwined with personal values.

Free and open to the public. Free parking at 52 Oxford Street Garage

Presented by Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology and Harvard Semitic Museum in collaboration with the Departments of Anthropology and Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University