Heng, Geraldine. "Premodern race as a critical canon." Throughlines. www.throughlines.org/suite-content/premodern-race-as-a-critical-canon. [Date accessed].
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
Recommended
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.
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