COURSE SYLLABI

AMES 159

Prof. Goldenberg
The Historical Origins of Racism: Views of Blacks in Classical Antiquity, and Early Judaism, Christianity, and Islam
Cross-list: AFAM 159/RELS 119
Phone: 238-1290

INTRODUCTION

Goals, Purposes: What the Course Is, Is not, and May Be

Definition of Terms: Racism, Ethnocentrism, Prejudice, Discrimination

D.L. Noel, "Slavery and the Rise of Racism," in The Origins of American Slavery and Racism (Columbus OH, 1972), pp. 153-163

J. Lester, "The Outsiders," Transition 5.4 (68), Winter 1995, pp. 76-82 (excerpt)

A. Smedley, Race in North America (Boulder, 1993), pp. 21, 29-35

R. Preiswerk, R. L^?pke, S.J. Gould, J.N. Pieterse --quotations

"Racism: Some Definitions," Crime Prevention Association, Philadelphia

Color Symobolism

K.J. Gergen, The Significance of Skin Color in Human Relations," Daedulus 96 (1967): 390-406. Reprinted in J.H. Franklin, Color and Race (Boston, 1968), pp. 112-128

Theological Dictionary of the New Testament 4:241-250, s.v. leukos (Michaelis); 4:549-551, s.v. melas (Michaelis); 7:423-445, s.v. skotos (Conzelmann)

K. Russell, M. Wilson, R. Hall, The Color Complex: The Politics of Skin Color among African Americans (New York, 1992), pp. 62-65

Harold Isaacs, "Blackness and Whiteness," Encounter 21 (London, August 1963): 8-21

Who Were the Black Africans?

Frank Snowden, Before Color Prejudice: The Ancient View of Blacks (Cambridge, 1983), pp. 3-34

Frank Snowden, "Bernal's 'Blacks.' Herodotus, and Other Classical Evidence," Arethusa Special Issue (Fall 1989): 83-93

Frank Yurco, "Were the Ancient Egyptians Black or White?" Biblical Archaeology Review 15.5 (Sept/Oct 1989), pp. 24ff

History of Black Slavery

Patrick Manning, Slavery and African Life (Cambridge, 1990), pp. 10 (maps),12, 27-30

David B. Davis, Slavery and Human Progress (Oxford, 1984), pp. 32-51

Thomas Sowell, Race and Culture (New York, 1994), pp. 186-223

Henry L. Gates, "Black Demagogues and Pseudo-Scholars," New York Times, July 20, 1992, Op-Ed

How Early Black Slavery? A Reassessment - Selection of Primary Sources

The Chicken (Slavery) or Egg (Racism) Controversy

D.L. Noel, "Slavery and the Rise of Racism," in The Origins of American Slavery and Racism, pp. 163-169

Winthrop Jordan, White Over Black (North Carolina, 1968), pp. vii-11

THE GRECO-ROMAN WORLD

Greco-Roman Knowledge of, and Attitudes toward, Blacks

Frank Snowden, Before Color Prejudice: The Ancient View of Blacks (Cambridge, 1983), pp. 37-59

Frank Snowden, Blacks in Antiquity: The Ethiopians in the Greco-Roman Experience (Cambridge, 1970), pp. 101-168

Frank Snowden, Before Color Prejudice, pp. 63-99

Frank Snowden, Blacks in Antiquity, pp. 169-195

David Wiesen, "Juvenal and the Blacks," Classica et Mediaevalia 31 (1970): 132-150

Juvenal: selections from The Satires

Lloyd Thompson, Romans and Blacks (Norman, Oklahoma, 1989), pp. 21-49

Reviews of Thompson: E. van der Vliet in Mnemosyne 45 (1992): 424-427; F. Snowden in American Journal of Philology 111 (1990): 543-557; Dean A. Miller in Journal of Social History 24 (1991): 664-665

Orlando Patterson, Slavery and Social Death (Cambridge MA, 1982), pp. 177-178, 420-421

Review of Snowden: Dean A. Miller in Journal of Social History 20 (1987): 646-647

David M. Goldenberg, "The Development Of The Idea Of Race: A Review Essay of Ivan Hannaford, Race: The History of an Idea in the West (Baltimore, 1996)

Environmental Theory to Monstrous Races

Lloyd Thompson, Romans and Blacks, pp. 86-113

Strabo, Diodorus, Pliny, etc.: selections

JUDAISM

Examination of the Sources: Biblical

Genesis 9:25
Numbers 12:1
Amos 9:7
Song of Songs 1:5

Peter Frost, "Fair Women, Dark Men," History of European Ideas 12 (1990): 669-679

Examination of the Sources: Rabbinic

R. Patai and R. Graves, Hebrew Myths: The Book of Genesis (Garden City NY, 1964), pp.120-121

Zohar and Talmud passages

Winthrop Jordan, White Over Black (North Carolina, 1968), pp. 11-20, 32-43

W.M. Evans, "From the Land of Canaan to the Land of Guinea: The Strange Odyssey of the 'Sons of Ham,'" American Historical Review 85 (1980): 15-27 + Kausner passage

Joseph Washington, Jr., Anti-Blackness in English Religion 1500-1800 (New York, 1984), pp. ix-xiii, 1-25, 42, 52-53, 114

Ephraim Isaac, "Genesis, Judaism and the 'Sons of Ham,'" Slavery and Abolition 1 (1980): 3-17. Reprinted in J.R. Willis, ed., Slaves and Slavery in Muslim Africa (London, 1985) 1:75-91

David Goldenberg, "The Curse of Ham: A Case of Rabbinic Racism?" in Struggles in the Promised Land: Toward a History of Black-Jewish Relations in the United States, ed. Jack Salzman and Cornel West (New York/Oxford, 1997), pp. 21-51.

BLACK AFRICAN JEWS: RABBINIC VIEWS OF THE ETHIOPIAN JEWS (Beta Israel)

Readings from Responsa literature from the 16th to the 20th centuries.

CHRISTIANITY: LATE ANTIQUITY

Origen and the Origin of Color Symbolism

Origen: selections from Homilies on Genesis and Commentary to Song of Songs

Church fathers and early Christian writers: selections

Frank Snowden, Before Color Prejudice, pp. 99-108

Frank Snowden, "Blacks, Early Christianity and," The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible, Supplementary Volume, pp. 111-114

Frank Snowden, Blacks in Antiquity, pp. 196-215

R.E. Hood, Begrimed and Black: Christian Traditions on Blacks and Blackness (Minneapolis, 1994), pp. (45-71), 80-90

The Devil as Black African

Philip Mayerson, "Anti-Black Sentiment in the Vitae Patrum," Harvard Theological Review 71 (1978): 304-311

Peter Frost, "Attitudes Toward Blacks in the Early Christian Era," The Second Century 8 (1991): 1-11

R.E. Hood, Begrimed and Black, pp. 73-79

"The Arabic Infancy Gospel," chap. 40 in Hennecke, E. and W. Schneemelcher, New Testament Apocrypha. English edition, ed. R. McL. Wilson (Philadelphia, 1965) 1:409

CHRISTIANITY: MEDIEVAL EUROPE

The Image and Meaning of the Black

Paul H. Kaplan, Ruler, Saint, and Servant: Blacks in European Art (Ph.D. diss., Boston University, 1983), pp. 153-174

R.E. Hood, Begrimed and Black, pp. 91-131

Kim F. Hall, Things of Darkness: Economics of Race and Gender in early Modern England (Ithaca, 1995), pp. 1-11

ISLAM

Minoo Southgate, Negative Images of Blacks in Some Medieval Iranian Writings," Iranian Studies 17 (1984): 3-36

Bernard Lewis, Race and Slavery in the Middle East (Oxford, 1990), pp. 3-49, 50-102

Aziz Al-Azmeh, "Barbarians in Arab Eyes," Past and Present: Studies in the History of Civilization 134 (1992): 3-18

THE CURSE OF HAM: BLACKNESS AS CURSE

Tracing the idea and its development through Jewish, Samaritan, Christian (early and medieval), and Islamic writings.

Werner Sollors, Neither Black Nor White Yet Both: Thematic Explorations of Interracial Literature (Oxford, 1997), pp. 78-111, 438-457

Selections from primary sources

THE CURSE OF HAM: JUSTIFICATION FOR BLACK SLAVERY IN AMERICA

Thomas Peterson, Ham and Japheth: The Mythic World of Whites in the Antebellum South (Metuchen, NJ and London, 1978)

Caroline L. Shanks, "The Biblical Antislavery Argument of the Decade 1830 - 1840" Journal of Negro History 16 (193), reprinted in Religion and Slavery, ed. P. Finkelstein (NY, 1989)

H. Shelton Smith, In His Image, but... Racism in Southern Religion, 1780-1910 (Durham, NC, 1972)

MORMONS AND BLACKS: THE CAIN CONNECTION

Newell Bringhurst, Saints, Salves, and Blacks: the Changing Place of Black People Within Mormonism (Westport, CT, 1981)

Naomi Woodbury, "A Legacy of Intolerance: Nineteenth Century Pro-Slavery Propaganda and the Mormon Church Today" (M.A. thesis, Univ. of Nevada, 1966

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

G. Wilmore, "The Black Messiah: Revising the Color Symbolism of Western Christology," Journal of Interdenominational Theological Center 2 (Fall 1974): 8-18

- Required readings are found in Bulk-pac or one of Required Books
- Recommended readings are found in library

REQUIRED BOOKS

Frank Snowden, Before Color Prejudice: The Ancient View of Blacks (Cambridge, 1983)

Frank Snowden, Blacks in Antiquity: The Ethiopians in the Greco-Roman Experience (Cambridge, 1970)

Lloyd A. Thompson, Romans and Blacks (Norman, Oklahoma, 1989)

Robert E. Hood, Begrimed and Black: Christian Traditions on Blacks and Blackness (Minneapolis, 1994)

Bernard Lewis, Race and Slavery in the Middle East (Oxford, 1990)