Selected annotated 
bibliography of PCRS

The work argues for the existence of a decentralized technological and financial membrane that bound East Asia, West Asia, and Europe between 1250 and 1350 CE into an economic superstructure. The book posits that these areas existed under a single world system, and explores the reasons for its eventual collapse, arguing against the teleology of Europe’s rise to world dominance in the early modern period. The work engages fields such as economics, history of science, and global studies.

Examines cultural constructions of the body in 16th and 17th century England with specific reference to the works of William Shakespeare. The work argues that socially hierarchical conceptions of appropriate comportment were irreducible from embodied traits for the early modern English, in turn tying bodily difference to the threats posed by persons coded as non-normative. The book engages discussions in the fields of Shakespeare studies, embodiment, drama, social history, and early modern England.

Explores the relationship between Black identity and political activism in the nineteenth century U.S., using New York City as an illustrative example. The book examines whether newly emancipated Black northerners viewed themselves as Africans or as Americans and discusses how the answer to that influenced the nature and form of Black political and intellectual thought in the nineteenth century.

Examines how Haiti—as a sovereign Black nation—created a beacon of hope for free and enslaved Black people throughout the African diaspora in the early 19th century. The book argues that free and enslaved Black people in the United States, cognizant of Haiti’s centrality to the global struggle for Black liberation, defended Haiti and its sovereignty eventually giving birth to Black internationalism. This movement both demanded an end to slavery and insisted on full freedom, equality, and sovereignty for Black people throughout the African diaspora.

Engages racialization in the portrayal of a character from a 13th century French drama. The essay examines the ways in which skin pigmentation and other somatic markers were coded to prompt audience responses, and in this way argues against some attitudes in contemporary medieval history which assume racialization is a modern phenomenon. Takes part in discussions about French literature, embodiment, and the history of art.

Investigates the conceptualization of Muslim societies among early modern English women. The work draws upon a range of sources—including romances, travelogues, and diplomatic correspondence—to sketch the ways in which English women took part in early modern Orientalist encounters. Engages conversations in gender studies, Mediterranean studies, and the cultural history of England.

Interrogates the construction of sameness in medieval Arabic literature through a close reading of one story from the Thousand and One Nights. Antrim offers an argument about how an erotics of physical sameness renders a binary understanding of sex unsuitable for the study of premodern Islamic and Arabophone contexts, and how the reception of medieval Arabic materials reads a sexual binary into older works. The article engages conversations in the study of gender, Islam, race, and Arabic.

Engages racialization in the portrayal of a character coded as “Saracen” from medieval English Arthurian literature. The essay argues that the “Saracen” knight ultimately serves to place a limit upon an idealized chivalric community, posing a problem that cannot be resolved through their embodied presence. The work engages the study of conversion, embodiment, and medieval English literature.

A study of Thomas Hobbes's sociopolitical theory in the context of early modern European commercial contracts. Azfar delves into the intersection of racializing practice and early capitalism by embedding the composition of Hobbes's Leviathan within the context of European slaving contracts, providing a trajectory for the history of white supremacy. The work deals with debates in the study of political theory, capitalism, and enslavement.

Investigates the rhetorical construction of Jews in medieval English texts. The book is specifically concerned with tropes—such as Jewish murder of Christian youths and Jewish participation in the death of Jesus—circulating in the elite intellectual circles of medieval England long after the forced expulsion of Jews from England. The work engages in the study of religion, anti-Semitism, and English literature.

Interrogates the common culture of slavery between the Genoese, Venetian, and Mamluks in and around the later medieval Mediterranean. The work uses Arabic and Latin sources to present the ways in which the Black Sea trade in enslaved persons entwined actors across cultures and kingdoms, while also portraying the social landscape against which medieval enslaved persons lived and acted. Barker's work demonstrates that an integral part of that landscape was the construction of racial difference. This work is part of broader conversations in the study of the Mediterranean, cultural history, enslavement, and trade.

Examines Muslim scholars' refutations of the "Curse of Ham" narrative in largely medieval Arabic religio-historical works. The article draws upon a breadth of sources from premodern Muslim historians, theologians, and Sufis to excavate a longstanding tradition of Black Excellence in Islamic contexts, within which the Curse of Ham narrative was refuted on religiohistorical grounds. The article engages conversations in the study of religion, Islam, historiography, and Blackness.

A compendium of essays engaging race and sainthood in largely Christian global contexts. The essays are interested in the tension between the titular “marked flesh” of the racialized body and the “holy flesh” of a presumably universal saint, interrogating this dichotomy in premodern Aztec, Andean, Caribbean, English, Indian, and other contexts. The collection deals with discussions in the study of colonialism, sainthood, and global studies.

This book outlines new analytics for framing the earliest history of the African-European encounter between the 11th to 19th centuries. It outlines how and under what circumstances Catholic dogma, institutions, and law mattered in the European encounter with Africans. Bennett argues that the under-examined and under-theorized African presence should be examined for its role in Western formation—a history in which Africa and Africans figured as objects and as historical subjects.

Investigates the entanglements between concepts of sexuality, gender, and race in the context of the Byzantine Empire from the 4th to 15th centuries. The book draws upon a range of case studies to excavate a history of overlapping marginalizations and minoritizations in the Byzantine world. It engages conversations across several fields including the study of gender, sexuality, religion, and art history.

A diachronic engagement with racializing projects in global contexts from largely European perspectives, from premodern to contemporary times. The work argues against a grand narrative of racism in favor of a contextualized approach, emphasizing that projects of racism must be understood as facets of specific sociohistorical conditions. It engages conversations in the study of captivity, displacement, colonialism, and global studies.

Analyzes and theorizes the presence of the Hispano-Moorish in Spanish imperial theater in the 16th and 17th centuries. The book discusses how Spain visualized the religious and dark-skinned outsider. Beusterien seeks to depict how theater in imperial Spain showed blackness as a defiled religion and skin color.

Presents the transatlantic transfer of knowledge and language of mining developed in the 16th and 17th centuries from the Americas that contributed to European colonization of the New World. This study describes how the impurity of ores and metals was employed to describe the religious, racial, and gender markers of the mine and metalworkers. Bigelow uncovers ways in which Indigenous and African metallurgists aided or resisted imperial mining endeavors.

Analyzes a series of texts from antiquity and their reception among medieval intelligentsia on Black women’s bodies. The essay demonstrates a typography and conceptualization of Black women as objects of sexual desire through scientific traditions, such as the theory of humors. The essay engages conversations in the study of Blackness, sexuality, and history of science.

Examines figural representations of Black bodies in medieval European Christian visual arts, including manuscripts, portraiture, and sculptures. The work addresses a wide array of contexts—including Black saints, such as St. Benedict and St. Maurice, and literary characters such as Othello—to trace a range of attitudes on Blackness. The work engages the fields of art history, religion, and embodiment.