Herskovits at the Heart Of Blackness

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Description

Who has the authority to define a culture-especially if people from that culture are denied the opportunity to engage in the scholarly discourse of defining themselves? Is there a politics of knowledge? This program examines these questions through a look at the career of pioneering anthropologist Melville J. Herskovits. A son of Jewish immigrants, Herskovits played a decisive role in shaping modern African-American identities. He established the first African Studies Center at an American university and authored the seminal Myth of the Negro Past, yet much of his work was criticized by blacks and whites alike. This documentary traces Herskovits' development as a scholar of the shared African-American and Jewish experiences of oppression to his establishment as one of the most controversial intellectuals of the 20th century.