Selected annotated 
bibliography of PCRS

Investigates theories of racial difference in 18th-century Britain and argues that skin color became the dominate marker of difference in the late 18th century. Wheeler traces the ways cultural signs such as clothing and religion were part of identifying human variety prior to the 18th century. This work engages in discussions of racialization, literary history, religion, and enlightenment thought.

Explores the uses of Blackness in 14th century English literature. It argues that the medieval reception of classical rhetoric is central to medieval race-thinking and the construction of what would later become modern racial ideology. The book makes the case that while in modernity the elements of race have coalesced and congealed, in the Middle Ages race is still under construction. It examines the relation between race and religion in metaphors deploying Blackness.

Surveys societies across Africa, Asia and Europe from the 5th to 15th centuries for a themed journal issue. The essays present medieval discourses and practices as not ‘pre-racial’ but instead participating in race-making and identity formation. The introduction argues that race-thinking shaped periodization, connectivity, and scholarly frameworks. The volume engages in studies of race-making, identity, global Middle Ages, and periodization.

Reflecting on contemporary scholarship concerning Europe and its wider networks between the 5th and 15th centuries, this essay situates the emergence of premodern critical race studies within both intellectual history and lived experience. It traces a legacy from postcolonial studies as it argues that the PCRS’s development as a field is inseparable from personal investment and institutional critique, shaping its methods and stakes.

Explores the dense engagement with Milton in the works of a Phillis Wheatley in the 18th century United States. Wilburn places this engagement within wider Black literary and Africanist discursive traditions. The article engages conversations on U.S. history, Milton, and captivity and enslavement.

Examines the presence and influence of John Milton within the early 17th century in a variety of early African American writing. Wilburn examines Milton’s presence in early African Americans’ rhetorical affiliations and his satanic epic for messianic purposes of freedom and racial uplift. Wilburn contends that African Americans executed a refusal to rhetorical incompetence by reinventing writing styles, themes, symbolism, imagery, and key figures in Milton’s writings to connect to the religious or scriptural significance in his texts.

Tells the story of Renaissance Europe’s first Black poet, Juan Latino, during the 16th century. His publication Austrias Carmen (Song of John of Austria) recounts the battle of Lepanto in 1571. Wright analyzes Juan Latino’s life through discourses on race, religion, and blood purity practices.

Considers the usages of Shakespeare as an appropriation of colonial text by colonized persons in English and Hawaiian newspapers at the end of the 19th century, in the context of the 1893 overthrow and the United States’ annexation of Hawai’i. The essay highlights invocations of Shakespeare’s Macbeth and the figure of Banquo’s ghost. The scholarship is of interest to students of Shakespeare, American studies, and postcolonial studies.

‍

A collection of essays exploring medieval English representations of Jews in literature and visual arts prior to the Norman conquest of 1066. The essays range in theme from studies of scriptural commentaries to images found in Christian manuscripts, excavating as a whole the deep history of English anti-Semitism. The book engages the study of medieval England, anti-Semitism, and Christianity.

Examines records of daily interactions of women and enslaved domestic servants in the city of Florence during the 15th century. Zhang explores how archival records of foundlings reveal emerging racialized hierarchies within Tuscan society. Zhang argues for an intersectional approach to studies of enslavement because gendered labor, hereditary racialization, and epidermal descriptors played a key role in early race-thinking.