História pública às avessas: o programa “alienígenas do passado” e a (des)construção da História da África

Abstract

The present academic work seeks to identify the argumentative resources used by the TV show “Ancient Aliens”, from History Channel, intending to highlight the version that they present about African History and, in that way, collaborate with the debate about Public History, as well as the africanist studies. The current research starts from the idea that the history of the african people is, still, diffused usually at the so called occidental countries in a generalizing and prejudiced way, generally summarized in slavery and colonialism, forgetting to mention that the continent is a huge and plural territory, with innumerable peoples, organized in different social, cultural, political and religious manners, way before the arriving of the white man. In that regard, the Public History field has become an excellent tool to change those outdated narratives. Therefore, before we get into the referred TV show that has in its core the idea of extraterrestrial beings in the center of human history, I’ll present the concepts of denialism, ideological revisionism, fake news and conspiracy theory, such as exposing some of the online pages and profiles in different digital plataforms that act in favor of the Public History and some that create an actual disservice to the others.