Padilla Peralta, Dan-el. "Premodern critical race studies and classics." Throughlines. www.throughlines.org/suite-content/premodern-critical-race-studies-and-classics. [Date accessed].

Premodern critical race studies and classics

Expanding our definition of classics and our understanding of race in the ancient world.

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Dan-el Padilla Peralta
Princeton University

Premodern critical race studies offers a profound lens with which to approach ancient Mediterranean history and culture. As a multi-disciplinary framework and as a rigorous research methodology, PCRS offers new approaches to the field of classics. Dan-el Padilla Peralta discusses the imperative of studying race and racialization in the ancient world and the influence this lens of inquiry has on the field.

Further learning

Video

[Re]constructing disciplines

What do we mean when we talk about classics or the classical? Dan-el Padilla Peralta deconstructs the history of the field of classics and its investment in hegemony, and how it carries with it an assignment of value.

Dan-el Padilla Peralta

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Reading list

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Suggested readings from Ian Smith for an in-depth understanding of the "cliché of race."

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Where were the Black people in the Middle Ages?

Records and texts from the period offer insight into a rich and cosmopolitan medieval Europe, where there were not only Black people, but they held positions of power and prestige.

Cord J. Whitaker
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Premodern race as a critical canon

Heng offers insight on approaches to teaching the traditional, canonized literature of premodern Europe through the lens of premodern critical race studies.

Geraldine Heng

Selected annotated bibliography