Wan-Chuan Kao

The visual literacy of race in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

In this two-part assignment students practice visual literacy by studying representations of Sir Gawain across time periods and media.

Premodern whiteness and racialization

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What is whiteness—a color, or the absence of one? Wan-Chuan Kao's annotated syllabus builds a full course around that question, with premodern units you can teach on their own or across a whole semester.

The lap of whiteness in The Squire's Tale

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In Chaucer's The Squire's Tale, a woman spreads her skirt to catch a falling falcon, all while setting a quiet lesson about whiteness in motion. Wan-Chuan Kao dives into Chaucer's imagery to show how empathy can be a lens for understanding and a tool of racialization.

Piers Plowman and whiteness in Passion plays

A leather costume worn by an actor playing the crucified Christ offers a new understanding for how medieval drama shaped ideas about race. Wan-Chuan Kao follows the performance tradition of medieval Passion plays into William Langland's Piers Plowman, all while unraveling constructions of whiteness that linger with us today.