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

Comparative epics: Teaching La Chanson de Roland

Contextualizing the political and racializing mission of La Chanson de Roland offers students a perspective on how epics shaped
—and were shaped by—the values of their historical moment.

Adam Miyashiro
Video

Early modern Orientalism

Dadabhoy's course asks students to read  premodern texts to deconstruct enduring fictions about Islam and Muslims across time and place.

Ambereen Dadabhoy
Activity

The epic assignment

Dennis Britton's epic assignment asks students to collaboratively write an epic poem, considering the possibilities and limitations of the epic genre for defining who we are—or want to be—in our present moment. 

Dennis Britton