Dear colleagues,
It’s been a long time since I’ve posted on HASTAC—for which, my deep apologies—but just before the holidays, I published a blog essay entitled “Why the Hate? The Invention of Race in the European Middle Ages, and Race, Racism, and Premodern Critical race studies today”: https://www.inthemedievalmiddle.com/2020/12/why-hate-invention-of-race-i…
The essay uses a 46-page screed (published as a book review), to discuss the implications of white privilege, the status of critical race analysis in premodern studies today, the vulnerability of junior scholars who want to undertake new work on race, and what race scholarship and pedagogy might look like in the future.
I’m not on social media, but Medievalists of Color, and feminist and race studies colleagues, have been circulating the essay. If HASTAC colleagues can also help to circulate the essay, I would be very grateful.
Wishing everyone a good start to 2021,
Gerry Heng
Perceval Professor, University of Texas at Austin; Founder & Director, the Global Middle Ages Project (G-MAP): www.globalmiddleages.org