Dr. Mary Rambaran-Olm and I recently wrote a chronological bibliography of work on pre-modern race studies. It shows how important and central the early work of Black scholars has been, especially Black women. This work is often erased.https://medium.com/@mrambaranolm/race-101-for-early-medieval-studies-selected-readings-77be815f8d0f …
-
-
Näytä tämä ketju
-
Let's take one of the central claims of pre-modern race studies: that skin color & whiteness have a history, and that they were not always important in the Middle Ages. Medieval Europeans (it is argued) did not describe themselves as "white" for centuries.
Näytä tämä ketju -
Black intellectuals and scholars have made this point for *at least* a hundred years. Here's W. E. B. Du Bois in 1920, in his book Darkwater: "The Middle Age regarded skin color with mild curiosity." He states that some peoples "discovered" that they are white recently.pic.twitter.com/d8yk73jlNJ
Näytä tämä ketju -
Again, Du Bois was deconstructing the construction of race and arguing that we need to historicize it, at the turn of the twentieth century. As Matthew Vernon has recently argued in his book The Black Middle Ages, Du Bois frequently drew upon the medieval.pic.twitter.com/rnZBhyuRwS
Näytä tämä ketju -
Du Bois made arguments that deconstructed white Western narratives of history throughout his career. He argued for the contributions of Africa and the Global South to Ancient Greek and Roman culture and to European society. Medieval studies has ignored these arguments.
Näytä tämä ketju -
This is why the claim that various white medievalists (Tolkien, etc) were "people of their time" is so pernicious. Medieval studies is not simply a "product of its time." It is a product of medievalists choosing to ignore and erase certain views and voices.
Näytä tämä ketju -
Dr. Mary Rambaran-Olm has written about another example of this: Gordon D. Houston, a Black scholar who worked on Old English and taught it at Howard University from 1912-1919.https://medium.com/the-sundial-acmrs/houston-we-have-a-problem-erasing-black-scholars-in-old-english-821121495dc …
Näytä tämä ketju -
Back to the history of skin color. The idea that it can be historicized, that its seeming "naturalness" is the product of *political* work, is not a new idea, nor is it simply an academic idea. Black public intellectuals like James Baldwin also discussed it in quite famous ways.
Näytä tämä ketju -
Here's James Baldwin in his 1962 book The Fire Next Time (perhaps his most famous book), decrying the historical amnesia of white Christians about how their religion emerged in a time "before color was invented."pic.twitter.com/f3hoHSwdsm
Näytä tämä ketju -
Baldwin has argued clearly, repeatedly, and urgently that "Color is not a human or a personal reality; it is a political reality."pic.twitter.com/WmbzIl4Kjx
Näytä tämä ketju -
Baldwin continues, reminding Christians of the Catholic Church's historical role in the Middle Passage and the enslavement of Black Africans, who -- he argues -- "until that event, incidentally, had not considered [themselves] to be black."pic.twitter.com/dnlmNV8vj9
Näytä tämä ketju -
(Baldwin's use of the medieval is really underdiscussed but is fascinatingly nuanced and subtle. Look out for his subtle little aside about Old Norse sagas in Just Above My Head)pic.twitter.com/mSx7g9pZU9
Näytä tämä ketju -
Black Classicist Frank Snowden Jr. wrote two pioneering books (in 1971 & 1991) on skin color in Ancient Greek & Rome, in which he argues that "Homer’s gods […] knew no color line." Snowden's argument has been criticized since, but his work is rarely cited in medieval studies.pic.twitter.com/Yjlprw3FkG
Näytä tämä ketju -
Another scholar, Cedric Robinson, wrote in fairly significant detail about the European Middle Ages in his 1983 book Black Marxism, arguing that the system of race could be traced back to then.pic.twitter.com/OHeA7EW7cx
Näytä tämä ketju -
Robinson's argument is complex, detailed, and studded with references. I won't attempt to do it justice here, but simply note that he traces the emergence of a Western system of race to Europe around the twelfth-century, one that draws upon older ideas drawn from Aristotle.pic.twitter.com/metxYTJ1bl
Näytä tämä ketju -
Robin Kelley's forward to the 2000 reissue of Robinson's book argues that Robinson's insights have largely been ignored and that he made a masterful, underdiscussed set of claims about the medieval origins of European racism and Europeans claims to "whiteness."pic.twitter.com/uUlnrHcQE7
Näytä tämä ketju -
Early modern studies made serious strides in discussing pre-modern race in the early 1990s, with groundbreaking books by scholars like Profs. Margo Hendricks and Kim Hall.pic.twitter.com/67PAwtZsnC
Näytä tämä ketju -
In their anthology, Profs. Margo Hendricks and Patricia Parker centralize discussions of race, pointing out how they have been previously marginalized or ignored in early modern studies, despite the period's investment in the slave trade and colonialism.pic.twitter.com/3o2ijRCXdS
Näytä tämä ketju -
Prof. Kim Hall's book gives a wide-ranging account of how whiteness and Blackness were constructed in the medieval and early modern periods. She argues that "the binarism of black and white might be called the originary language of racial difference in English culture."pic.twitter.com/4Lgxa9GmYg
Näytä tämä ketju -
There is a seemingly endless list of scholars of color, particularly Black scholars, who have been deconstructing race and skin color for over a century. Frantz Fanon, Toni Morrison, Angela Davis, etc etc etc. All prior to the race scholars usually cited by medievalists.
Näytä tämä ketju -
When medieval studies claims these conversations are recent, they mean they have only chosen to HAVE these discussions recently. The history of the field is a history of deliberately ignoring and not discussing critiques and historical analysis, largely by Black scholars.
Näytä tämä ketju -
It's worth noting that many of these scholars are STILL doing this work. See, for example, the AMAZING talk last year at RaceB4Race by Prof. Margo Hendricks:https://www.folger.edu/institute/scholarly-programs/race-periodization/margo-hendricks …
Näytä tämä ketju -
Or Prof. Hall from earlier this month on Frederick Douglass' relationship to Shakespeare. Prof. Hall continues to do important work excavating erased histories of Black intellectuals engaging with the premodern.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-o7wtZt4Dqc&feature=youtu.be …
Näytä tämä ketju -
That's all from me today. Please read & cite Black scholars on the premodern. Please educate yourselves on what's happening in Kenosha now. And please sign and share the call to strike for Black lives Sept 8-9:https://twitter.com/AntheaButler/status/1298792595750096896 …
Näytä tämä ketju
Keskustelun loppu
Uusi keskustelu -
Lataaminen näyttää kestävän hetken.
Twitter saattaa olla ruuhkautunut tai ongelma on muuten hetkellinen. Yritä uudelleen tai käy Twitterin tilasivulla saadaksesi lisätietoja.