Select annotated bibliography entry
Whitaker, Cord J. Black Metaphors: How Modern Racism Emerged from Medieval Race-Thinking. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019.
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.
