Embedding West Africa in broader transregional maps, Whiskey reviews the history of anti-Blackness in premodern Muslim societies while charting Ahmad Baba’s interventions in longstanding debates.

La Chanson de Roland as a national epic was a product of both European nationalist and colonial aspirations. It's important for students to understand how the poem and its histories can reiterate Eurocentric white supremacist values if not properly contextualized.

In this class, Mayte Green-Mercado guides students through premodern origins of the construction of race and the consequences it carries today.