This lecture examines some of ways research on ancient DNA has encouraged the treatment of race as both essential and biological; the danger of this trend is underlined by placing such research--as well as its appropriations by the far right--within the context of a broader resurgence of race science over the last ten years.
Denise Eileen McCoskey is a Professor of Classics and affiliate in Black World Studies at Miami University (Ohio). She is the author of Race: Antiquity and its Legacy and editor of A Cultural History of Race in Antiquity. She is currently working on a project examining the influence of eugenics on early 20th century American classical scholarship. This lecture is part of a volume she is co-editing, with Helen Roche of Durham University, that explores current far-right appropriations of the classical world.
