Selected annotated 
bibliography of PCRS

Interrogates images of Blackness in 16th and 17th century England. The book argues that constructions of Blackness, which are malleable, are key in establishing a sense the proper organization of Western gender relations, nationalism, imperialism, and colonial organization. The opposition of Blackness to whiteness reveals anxieties about race, gender, sexuality, and commerce. Drawing on a broad set of texts, the book discusses issues of travel, cosmetics, Christian rhetoric, class, and slavery.

Using The Merchant of Venice as a vehicle to consider England’s concurrent desire to expand via colonization and anxieties about cross-cultural exchange, this article considers how the fear of miscegenation functions within early modern economic exchange. With pointed attention to Blackness, immigration, and antisemitism, Hall demonstrates how Shakespeare’s play explores the role of racial difference in England’s emerging national and imperial designs.

Firmly focused on the aggrandizement of whiteness within early modern poetry, and Shakespeare’s sonnets in particular, this essay considers how these literary works perpetuate the racialization of fairness. In reading fairness as an emergent ideology of white supremacy, Hall makes a sharp connection between whiteness and the trope of privilege that endures far past the early modern period.

Interrogates the “Indian Boy” in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The article argues that Shakespeare’s comedy continues the racial discourse of travel narratives by representing India as an exotic territory to be conquered and occupied. Yet the text constitutes race as an ideological fissure creating a dichotomy between race as genealogy and race as ethnicity. The article addresses issues of mestizaje and representations of the other suitable to imperial projects.

This study brings together race and the literary tradition of romance. It explores the literary and cultural genealogy of colorism, white passing, and white presenting in the romance genre in 15th-17th century England. Hendricks engages with the racecraft of “passing,” the instability of racial identity and its formation from the premodern to the present.

A collection of essays investigating literary inscriptions of women and race in predominantly European contexts between the 16th and 18th centuries. The essays are grouped into four overarching themes: defining differences, male writing, female authorship, and the interrelations between European and colonial contexts. The work engages discussions in gender theory, postcolonial studies, and the studies of various European literatures.

A study that interprets medieval romance in the context of European encounters with Muslim communities through travel, crusade, and empire formation. The book offers definitions of “race” and “nation” applicable to medieval Europe and focuses on the emergence of England as a nation and the emerging vocabulary of racial classification that arose with it. Chapters focus on Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain, several vernacular English romances, and The Travels of Sir John Mandeville.

A study on the ramifications of the religious violence carried out against the Jewish diaspora in the Latin West. It argues that attacks against Jewish bodies and Jewish lives led to the creation of the first racial state in the history of the West. This book applies postcolonial and race studies in the study of religion to illustrate how medieval England became a racial state.

The essays in this volume address pedagogy highlighting early forms of globalism during the Middle Ages. Contributions address topics across various disciplines including music, theater, religion, ecology, museums, and literature. The volume includes proposed syllabi, digital resources, classroom activities, and discussion questions.

A broad study on race in Europe from the 12th through the 15th centuries. The book examines racialization in various cultural and geographic contexts. It explores the relationship between race and religion, empire and colonization, enslavement, and epidermal race.

A study on modern usages of medievalisms by distinct communities of color. The book argues that through “restorying,” racialized minorities have long appropriated the medieval past to build solidarity and fight for justice. It puts materials from African American and Asian American studies in dialogue with medieval studies.

Investigates the intersection of clothing and racial difference in early modern Iberia. Beginning from the context of bans on Muslims wearing clothes coded as "Moorish," Irigoyen-Garcia shows how sartorial praxes and epistemologies configured the construction of a Christian ruling class in 16th and 17th century Iberia, while simultaneously becoming a key part of a racializing code for forcibly converted Muslims and their descendants (Muslim and Christian alike). The book considers conversations in the history of clothing, cultural history, public ritual, and Iberia.

Explores a counter-anthropocentric reading of premodern literary evidence through a passage in the New Testament. The essay situates the episode in question within the frameworks of premodern industry, with specific reference to tanning and the manufacture of leather, and contexts of colonization to challenge anthropocentric hermeneutics in readings of Biblical materials addressed to Asian American communities. The essay is situated within intellectual currents of new materialism and Biblical hermeneutics.

Investigates the conceptualization of the Biblical figure of Hagar in 19th and 20th century American literature, with specific reference to portrayals of Hagar as Black. Following an overview of premodern portrayals of Hagar in Christian, Jewish, and Muslim contexts, the book uses contemporary treatments of Hagar as a marker for broader cultural conversations about gender, race, slavery, abolition, and other themes. It engages discussions in the study of Christianity, Black history, and literary history.

A collection of essays engaging the intersection between medieval and postcolonial studies. The essays build upon prior approaches to the same entanglement while shifting focus onto approaches in translation, codicology, and material culture across a range of medieval European contexts. The works together participate in a range of conversations, notably on the study of Orientalism, connected histories, and postcolonial studies.

Examines the intersection of Christian theology and racial difference in medieval European Christian cultures. The book presents an argument about how the Christian notion of servitus Judaeorum (Jewish servitude) prefigured Christian dominance over racialized non-Christian others and teases out the linkages between premodern and contemporary forms of Christian racism. It engages arguments in the study of religion, embodiment, and anti-Semitism.

Examines the kinetic exchanges between actors and audiences in Shakespeare’s work, with specific reference to early modern performances of Othello. The essay demonstrates how bodily movements, hand gestures, and facial expressions constitute significant loci for theorizing the relationship between audience and actors. It argues for an understanding of such phenomena through the lens of critical race theory. The work engages conversations in the study of Shakespeare, Blackness, and performance studies.

Special issue on medieval race scholarship that follows Margo Hendricks’ call for a premodern critical race scholarship that acknowledges its genealogies. The contributions examine academic practices in literature and history on the Middle Ages. They address racialization, Eurocentrism, representation, and settler colonialism.

This special issue stems from the inaugural RaceB4Race symposium in 2019. Employing a variety of theoretical, methodological, and pedagogical lenses, the essays in this volume critically examine how premodern critical race scholars function as activists in their fields and communities.

By putting critical race studies into conversation with affect theory, this collection addresses the emotional impacts of racial formation and racist ideologies in early modern literature. The collected essays analyze racial processes as visceral, affective experiences, reading and interpreting literary tradition, religion, gender, class, sexuality, and social identity through investigations of how race feels.