ASORing Again: “The Sun Ra Papyrus: Black Pseudoarchaeology in Context”

On Saturday afternoon (the coveted 4 pm on the last day of the conference slot) at this year’s ASOR annual meeting, I’m contributing to a work shop that Kevin McGeough and I organized titled “Contemporary Perspectives on Near Eastern and Mediterranean Pseudoarchaeology.” The work shop will feature 10 minute papers that introduce case studies of pseudoarchaeology by myself, Kevin, Helen Dixon, Laura Mazow, and Eric Cline. 

This is workshop centered on a series of five questions that each paper is meant to address (to whatever extent it is possible):

1. What are the intellectual, social, political, and material contexts for pseudoarchaeology?

2. How have pseudoarchaeologists responded to normative archaeological arguments, methods, epistemologies, and institutions?

3. How have pseudoarchaeological ideas circulated? What genres, media, and institutions create space for pseudoarchaeology?

4. Have disciplinary efforts to debunk or critique pseudoarchaeology benefited or harmed the discipline?

5. How does the growing appreciation of the plurality of archaeologies create new space within the discipline to recognize and learn from pseudoarchaeological traditions?

My paper is another version of some the pseudoarchaeology and Sun Ra stuff that I’ve been slowly pulling together. It’s titled “The Sun Ra Papyrus: Black Pseudoarchaeology in Context”.

You can download my paper here.