How should articulations of blackness from the fifth century BCE to the twenty-first century be properly read and interpreted? This important and timely new book is the first concerted treatment of black skin color in the Greek literature and visual culture of antiquity. In charting representations in the Hellenic world of black Egyptians, Aithiopians, Indians, and Greeks, Sarah Derbew dexterously disentangles the complex and varied ways in which blackness has been co-produced by ancient authors and artists; their readers, audiences, and viewers; and contemporary scholars. Exploring the precarious hold that race has on skin coloration, the author uncovers the many silences, suppressions, and misappropriations of blackness within modern studies of Greek antiquity. Shaped by performance studies and critical race theory alike, her book maps out an authoritative archaeology of blackness that reappraises its significance. It offers a committedly anti-racist approach to depictions of black people while rejecting simplistic conflations or explanations.

Winner, 2023 PROSE Classics Award, Association of American Publishers

‘Sarah Derbew’s impressive first book is a carefully reflective study which is also provocative in the best sense, and a significant intervention in the field of classics. She untangles the vocabulary of race, ethnicity, skin colour and identity to let us see the vested interests and misrecognitions of modern scholarship - and offers a transformative vision of ancient Greek engagements with Africa.’

Simon Goldhill - Professor of Greek Literature and Culture, University of Cambridge

In Untangling Blackness in Greek Antiquity, Sarah Derbew provides a radical and desperately needed reframing of Greek antiquity, weaving together a breathtaking range of ancient and modern sources to probe not only the complexity and richness of black presences in the ancient Greek world, but also the modern structures of thought, disciplinary training and even museum curation that have prevented us for far too long from seeing them.’

Denise Eileen McCoskey - Professor and Affiliate in Black World Studies, Miami University, Ohio

… ambitious and groundbreaking … Untangling Blackness in Greek Antiquity is proof that the future of classics is already here. It’s simply waiting for everyone else to catch up.'

Najee Olya Source: Los Angeles Review of Books

‘… an important and thoughtfully written book…’

Jonas Scherr Source: H-Soz-Kult

‘[Derbew’s] Untangling Blackness in Greek Antiquity (2022) is a sharp and sensitive exploration of the rootedness of our understandings in unexamined prejudices and - by means of a rich, ambitiously wide-ranging, and theoretically-engaged reading of black characters in Greek art and literature from the 5th c. BCE to the 4th c. CE - a powerful refutation of the invisibility, marginality, and inherent inferiority attributed to ancient black people by classical scholarship … An instant classic … [this book] is not just a book but a curriculum: its careful analysis of Greek art and literature … in dialogue with Black theory and literature offers the reader a pathway to disciplinary change which may be immediately implemented in a variety of pedagogical and scholarly contexts.'

Hannah Čulík-Baird Source: Bryn Mawr Classical Review

‘This is the first book-length study on Black people in the Greco-Roman world since Frank Snowden’s works, which makes it a critical addition to the growing discourse on those racial dynamics.’

Talawa Adodo Source: International Journal of the Classical Tradition