“I’m just asking questions.” An analysis of White supremacist pseudo-archaeology
| dc.contributor.author | Vandersluis, Rylan | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2024-07-26T17:42:57Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2024-07-26T17:42:57Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2024 | |
| dc.description.abstract | Pseudo-archaeology is the rejection of academic archaeological explanations of the past, for the explicit purpose of inserting one's own speculative analysis. This research explores how white supremacists use pseudo-archaeology to propagate their ideology into the present, and how their ideas have adapted from their initial creation. It attempts to solve this question by a comparative synthetic analysis of the two case studies. The first is the ideologically dictated Archaeology that was carried out by nazi academics under the Third Reich, which was analyzed through a meta-analysis of secondary sources on the given subject matter. The second is the conspiratorial rhetoric propagated by Grahm Hancock’s media, using his first book Finger Prints of the Gods, and his docutainment series Ancient Apocalypse as an analytical framework. This research reveals the continued legacy of white supremacist ideas into modern pseudo-archaeology with the use of prehistory as a medium, the concept of a white precursor civilization, and the use of pseudo-intellectual echo chambers to bolster their ideas. The results of this study also reveal the changes in their methodologies and how Nazi rhetoric has been adapted to modernity through the modification of the concept of “Aryaness” to just “Whiteness,” The change from a war of races to a war against culture, and the effective modernization of propaganda. The results of this research attempt to unveil how Hancock has modified white supremacist history, in order to make it more palatable to the modern white audience. | |
| dc.description.reviewstatus | Reviewed | |
| dc.description.scholarlevel | Undergraduate | |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://hdl.handle.net/1828/16878 | |
| dc.language.iso | en | |
| dc.subject | controlling history | |
| dc.subject | Graham Hancock | |
| dc.subject | prehistory | |
| dc.subject | modernization | |
| dc.subject | Nazi archaeology | |
| dc.title | “I’m just asking questions.” An analysis of White supremacist pseudo-archaeology | |
| dc.type | Honours thesis |