Heng, Geraldine. "Premodern race as a critical canon." Throughlines. www.throughlines.org/suite-content/premodern-race-as-a-critical-canon. [Date accessed].

Premodern race as a critical canon

When did you first become aware of race?

Download the transcript
Geraldine Heng
University of Texas, Austin

Geraldine Heng is an influential, field-crossing scholar and one of the founding theorists of premodern critical race studies. Her classes on premodern European literature offer a critical understanding of the histories of race-making, all while supporting students to conduct interdisciplinary research that interrogates the social and cultural mechanisms of race in their everyday lives. Here, Heng offers a glimpse into the texts she teaches and her collaborative approach to student assignments. She identifies a new path forward for premodern European literature—one that is a provocation for our world today.

Further learning

Video

Teaching early global literatures

Teaching global literatures rooted in the premodern world challenges the fantasies about the past many of our students have inherited.

Geraldine Heng
Activity

Collaborative student research

A multidisciplinary and student-centered approach for early modern professors, inspired by Geraldine Heng’s Teaching Early Global Literatures and Cultures.

Geraldine Heng

Recommended

Video

Juxtaposing Chaucer

Seeta Chaganti offers an introduction to her "untimely juxtaposition" method, which places Chaucer's texts next to modern artifacts like film, visual art, and contemporary literature to open new avenues of exploration and discussion with students.

Seeta Chaganti
Syllabus

Race in the European Middle Ages

This course explores the changing patterns, meanings, and uses of racializing discourses in medieval Europe from the 10th through 15th centuries.

Geraldine Heng
Video

How to talk about race in the classroom

Ayanna Thompson discusses how PCRS in the classroom starts with students and teachers being comfortable talking frankly about the reality of race in their lives as well as in the texts they encounter.

Ayanna Thompson