#MedievalTwitter thread: The medieval studies field is founded in 19th-century imperialism and nationalism, and the idea of the scholar-as-monk is part of that. The prof-as-monk ideal emerged in part as a backlash to profs speaking out against racism and violence.
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Kathleen Biddick opens her book on the discipline with an apt story: in 1866, Oxford made William Stubbs Regius Prof. of History. Stubbs inaugurated the idea that a “professional medieval scholar” should be silent on politics.pic.twitter.com/HkMHHyBq67
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Stubbs made no comments on politics, refused to teach contemporary history bc it was “controversial,” and only produced “neutral” scholarly work. He stated that “I desire to use my office as a teacher of facts and of the right habit of using them.”pic.twitter.com/XY9KgISGwf
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BUT, Stubbs replaced the previous Regius Prof., Goldwin Smith, who was ousted bc he condemned the British violence in the wake of the 1865 Jamaica uprising, when over 400 black protesters were executed en masse by the British gov. Smith condemned this and was forced to resign.
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Oxford chose Stubbs for his conservative views and unwillingness to discuss politics. Biddick’s closing comment on the story and the profession’s inherited idea of “monastic-like silence” on politics as ideal is striking in the context of the NYT story from yesterday.pic.twitter.com/Ny145UXIiR
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The idea that we are/want to be monks has a history, as does the idea that the purview of the medievalist is (solely) correcting misconceptions about the Middle Ages (such as whether monks were “really” a-political). /fin
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Replying to @erik_kaars
Isn't this the Stubbs that taught a host of colonial bureaucrats to man the English empire, the one whose legal teaching helped set up S. African apartheid? I think I remember a talk that discussed this at MLA.
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I think the talk was by D. Vance Smith.
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