Scholars of color have always led the conversation and done the hard work of anti-racism in premodern and early modern studies. The genealogies of this work reach deep and wide, encompassing the scholarship, mentorship, and public advocacy of numerous figures including (but not limited to) Drs. Anna Julia Cooper, Jacqueline de Weever, Imtiaz Habib, Shelly Haley, Kim Hall, Margo Hendricks, Geraldine Heng, Gordon David Houston, Barbara Lalla, Arthur Little, Ania Loomba, María Rosa Menocal, Francesca Royster, and Ayanna Thompson.
The timeline below seeks to offer a window onto a more specific effort: that of self-identified medievalists of color in recent years to build public anti-racist conversations in and about the field of medieval studies and to confront misapprehensions and appropriations of the medieval past. This effort has often subjected participating scholars to explicitly racist and violent threat through online and in-person harassment. These forms of abuse have been severe and ongoing, especially against female scholars of color.
While this conversation has its own long history, its publicly visible side gathered online momentum in 2016. The timeline begins with these early interventions and traces their development through the third RaceB4Race Symposium, held in January 2020 on the topic of Appropriations. Since then, this public-facing conversation has only grown in breadth and impact; a non-exhaustive collection of links to this outpouring of work can be found on the Forums and Conversations pages.
The work appearing in the timeline below is valuable, risky, and rigorously intellectual; it represents the underrecognized, undercompensated, and undervalued labor of disciplinary and institutional reform, labor traditionally borne by scholars of color. These authors make substantial scholarly contributions to the field of medieval studies through their public writing. Their work deserves to be recognized and accredited as such in our profession.
Each node in the timeline below is doubly linked. Clicking on the title for each node (in red) will open a new window to each item of online public writing. Hovering over the author’s name will call up a dialogue window that contains links to the author’s professional pages and published scholarship. We have also endeavored to archive as much of the linked content as possible to preserve this important body of work following digital preservation best practices.
Errors and oversights are our own. We eagerly welcome suggestions of relevant materials for inclusion in the timeline at whosemiddleages@gmail.com. Some scholars who have produced important and relevant work do not wish to appear on the timeline below; we encourage readers to search for and discover this work, and deepen their encounter with the crucial labor to which it belongs.
Timeline of Anti-Racist Public Writing
