>The Right Kind Of Multiculturalism
>
>By Camille Paglia, a professor of humanities at the University of the
>Arts in Philadelphia.
>
>The field of archaeology is under a political cloud because of its
>allegedly racist and exploitative history.
Allegedly? One can defend the objective independence of its achievements from the racism of many of its past practioners. But one cannot deny such a past history. That's silly.
American Indians have
>protested the "desecration" of tribal burial grounds by
>archaeological digs. A longstanding argument rages about the legal
>ownership of antiquities acquired by museums through donation or
>purchase since the late 18th century.
This is one example. She already displays no knowledge of what a Bernal or Trautmann have unearthed in their critical studies of historical archaelogy. Of course they may be wrong, but then state the actual argument and refute it.
>
>The brief against archeology for its physical predations has been
>extended to its interpretive system.
The brief is not only focused on its physical predations. Stunning ignorance of why the charge of racism is made against archaeology, though said scholars are not so interested in making the charge but in understanding how archaelogy actually worked to consolidate the new race science.
Militant identity politics
>claims that no culture can be understood except by its natives, as if
>DNA gave insight. All scrutiny by outsiders is supposedly biased,
>self-interested and reductive.
A vicious and pernicious caricature of those who have investigated the relationships between archaelogy, imperialism and modern race doctrine. By such a caricature, she hopes to delegitimate a whole line of productive inquiry about which she evinces no knowledge. By buddying up with the WSJ readership, donors to America's campuses, she is in a position to influence those who can shut up a whole body of scholarship.
At any rate, militant ignorance is no substitute for militant identity politics.
>A related complaint comes from poststructuralism, specifically the
>work of Michel Foucault, whom Edward Said introduced to American
>literary criticism in his 1975 book,
As I noted, Trautmann explores said relationships through a critique of Said. Bernal's argument is not dependent on such philosophical foundations. Which is not to say that Bernal is right. It is to say she simply doesn't know what she is talking about.
Mr. Said gives dismayingly short shrift to the
>massive achievements of Egyptologists and Orientalists, fomenting a
>suspicion of and cynicism about archaeology that have spread through
>the humanities.
Again she does not know what she is talking about. Archaeology was positioned *against* the Orientalists and Sanskritists, taking their claim of Aryan brotherhood as the object of its critique. Europeans were shown to have not recently broken away from the Aryan brotherhood; on the basis of archaelogy it was argued that the original Aryan population had been in Europe for a considerably longer time in which their full and hard racial difference was fully achieved, whatever the commonalities in speech they may share with darkies otherwise indicated. A principal component of the new race science, archaelogy helped to lay the foundations for the doctrine that culminated in genocide. It did so by developing a science that could undermine philology.
Hey, why be angry with her if she is calling for the suppression of this side of the story through a vicious caricature of those who would tell it?
Of course the real question is why she is able to write a critique of a certain line of scholarship without having taken the time to learn ANYTHING about its findings. Why can she get away with that? While at the same passing herself off as committed to truth, objectivity and scholarship against the postmodernists.
>This is regrettable, since archaeology is a perfect model for
>multiculturalism in the classroom.
Yes, this is half the story, but it is also a perfect candidate to explore the mechanics of racial and imperialist myth-making. The point is the two aspects of archaelogy stood together. And should be studied together. Through vicious and pernicious caricature of her opponents, Paglia would shut up a whole line of productive inquiry. This imposition of silence may not be good grounds for some on this list to be angry with her. It's something that can simply be passed over for some because Paglia is enthusiastic! Really who cares about the story a Trautmann has to tell? I don't think Jim H has commented on Trautmann's nuanced analysis of the relationship between Orientalism and archaeology in the age of imperialism.
Does it pale in significance to the discovery of the Rosetta stone, perhaps a monumental achievement in itself to have justified the whole colonial enterprise?
Unfortunately for unforseen personal reasons, I have to unsub for quite some time. This is not an argument which I want to back away from. Please send any replies to my personal address.
Thanks, Rakesh