Heresy In The University: The Black Athena Controversy and the Responsibilities of American Intellectuals [Paperback]

Jacques Berlinerblau (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 1999 | ISBN-10: 0813525888 | ISBN-13: 978-0813525884

One of the most controversial books to come out of the academy in the last fifteen years is Martin Bernal's Black Athena. It has been a true cause celebre. Afrocentrists have both praised the book and claimed that Bernal stole from the work of black scholars to create his study of the Afroasiastic roots of classical civilization. Classicists feel passionately about what they perceive as an attack from an outsider on the origins not only of ancient Greece but of their own discipline. It seems that everyone has something to say about the book; the question is how many really understand it. In Heresy in the University, Jacques Berlinerblau provides an exegesis of the contents of Black Athena, making it accessible to a wider audience. As he clarifies and restates Bernal's opus, Berlinerblau identifies Bernal's flaws in reasoning and gaps in evidence. He cuts to the heart of Bernal's prose, singling out the key points of Bernal's argument, explaining and arranging them in a cogent manner. Berlinerblau addresses the critics' really important objections, including his own, and links each of them to the appropriate substantive argument in Black Athena. He goes beyond simple summary and exposition to present the underlying --stated and unstated--agendas of Bernal and his critics. Ultimately, he exposes both sides and asks what the flawed reasoning from all concerned reveals about the stakes in this key academic dispute and what that, in turn, says about the modern academy. Jacques Berlinerblau is an assistant professor and director of Judaic studies at Hofstra University.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Heresy in the University is an exemplary act of adjudication-genuinely clarifying about matters that have so often been obscured by angry polemic; genuinely judicious in a way that only a very capacious, open-minded, and broad-ranging mind could manage; charming self-conscious about its own limits and yet quite passionate about its loyalties....An exemplary book. -- Bruce Robbins, coeditor of Cosmopolitics: Thinking and Feeling Beyond the Nation and author of Feeling Global: Internationalism in Distress

Berlinerblau's ability to integrate far-reaching serious scholarly and ethical issues within the substantive content of the Black Athena debate is impressive. -- Molly Myerowitz Levine, Howard University, coeditor of The Challenge of Black Athena

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Rutgers University Press (March 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0813525888
• ISBN-13: 978-0813525884
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,550,656 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

67 of 78 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Balanced and thoughtful, December 6, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Heresy In The University: The Black Athena Controversy and the Responsibilities of American Intellectuals (Paperback)

Berlinerblau wades into the Black Athena controversy and calls a lot of people to task. He summarizes the weighty work of Martin Bernal (who he apparently interviewed and commented on various parts of the book) and critiques both Black Athena and its critics. In short, Berlinerblau concludes: Martin Bernal proves that a lot of antiquity studies have had some serious biases, and his work has forced a lot of reassessment on the part of antquity scholars, but; the antiquity scholars prove that Bernal has made a lot of errors. Berlinerblau also calls some of Bernal's critics to task for the vehemence of their attack on Bernal, punishing him on facts while dismissing some larger points. As far as some of the big arguments (was Athena black, were Egyptians 'black', etc.) Berlinerblau explains the sources, arguments, problems (like projecting 19th century concepts of race back 3000 years) and concludes that the most extreme viewpoints (on either side of the argument) are probably not true, though many of Bernal's points quite possibly are, and that, barring some spectacular discoveries, we will probably never know for certain. Berlinerblau praises Bernal for engaging the public in his work, and feels that scholars should work more to became public intellectuals. One can tell that the author cares and wants to be understood, admitting his weaknesses and trying to be fair to all viewpoints.

29 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Should have a wider appeal, March 8, 2001

By 

Aristotle's Beast (Monrovia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Heresy In The University: The Black Athena Controversy and the Responsibilities of American Intellectuals (Paperback)

This is a good book. Berlinerblau has done a convincing job of being fair to all sides, and he does not appear to admire any of the people he writes about. This book says a lot about the way scholars look at one another these days, and the lessons he brings are useful in considering any number of entrenched disputes in the academy today. In the end, the book has a rather depressing message: moral zealots are in charge on both sides of so called 'ideological warfare' today, and neither side is prepared to doubt their right to lie. The book can be dry, but the kind of thing under discussion has no finer demonstration in any work I have read. Luckily, the topic, Bernal's BLACK ATHENA, is a very curious case, especially since Bernal is a white man. Some parts of this are engrossing.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars AN OVERVIEW OF THE "BLACK ATHENA" CONTROVERSY, September 21, 2009

By 

Steven H. Propp (Sacramento, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Heresy In The University: The Black Athena Controversy and the Responsibilities of American Intellectuals (Paperback)

Martin Bernal (now a Professor Emeritus of Government and Near Eastern Studies from Cornell University) wrote one of the more controversial books in the 1980s, Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization (The Fabrication of Ancient Greece 1785-1985, Volume 1)), which suggested that the classical Greeks borrowed heavily from "Afroasiatic" cultures. Bernal's book has been very influential in the Afrocentrism movement, and has also been criticized (see Not Out Of Africa: How "Afrocentrism" Became An Excuse To Teach Myth As History (A New Republic book) and Afrocentrism: Mythical Pasts and Imagined Homes). Bernal himself has responded to many of the criticisms of his 3-volume book in Black Athena Writes Back: Martin Bernal Responds to His Critics.

Berlinerblau's book, however, was written in 1999, and has a considerable advantage in terms of PERSPECTIVE. Berlinerblau (associate professor and Director of the Program for Jewish Civilization at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University) first makes a very helpful summary of the contents of Bernal's book, and divides his presentation into three sections: 1. The Historical Argument, 2. The Sociological Argument, and 3. "Black Athena and the Culture Wars."

Berlinerblau clarifies the record about Bernal about several issues (e.g., Bernal is white and Jewish; he is not a Marxist, nor is he an Afrocentrist); he also includes a number of very helpful pieces of information about Bernal and his book (e.g., Bernal had a difficulty finding a publisher; he agrees that his work is "politically motivated"; Bernal thinks that the book's title should have been "AFRICAN Athena," but the publisher thought the "BLACK Athena" title would sell better).

Berlinerblau makes worthwhile criticisms of Bernal; e.g., "The author has again neglected to articulate a program for the implementation of his ideas. How exactly do we distinguish plausible theories from implausible ones? Bernal offers no answers to this vexing question." Berlinerblau's final chapter ("Contentious Communities") discusses the matter of "Blacks and Jews and Black Athena."

For anyone interested in Martin Bernal's "Black Athena," the debate over Afrocentrism, or scholarly controversies, this book is a "must read."