Ndiaye, Noémie. "Race and early modern performance culture." Throughlines. www.throughlines.org/suite-content/race-and-early-modern-performance-culture. [Date accessed].

Race and early modern performance culture

Early modern theater shaped and was shaped by racial narratives

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Noémie Ndiaye
The University of Chicago

Understanding that theater was the mass media of early modern Europe offers a window into how racial categories, narratives, and performance both sustained and exposed the construction of white supremacy in its early formation.

Further learning

Video

Race and transnational theater

The invention of white supremacy in early modernity was a transnational phenomenon, which means that it can only be fully understood through a transnational approach.

Noémie Ndiaye
Activity

Mini exhibition

This assignment engages students in digital research and curation by having them create and analyze their own mini exhibition.

Noémie Ndiaye
Syllabus

Race in early modern drama

This course asks students to read plays and masques from early modern England, Spain, and France to understand how race was crafted through perfomrace and culture.

Noémie Ndiaye

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Mediterranean crossings

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Reading list

Teaching racialized genders

Early modern Turk plays, travel narratives, medical writings, and drama are rich sources of this history of racialization. This reading list compiled by Abdulhamit Arvas offers useful excerpts and critical analysis to include in your syllabus.

Abdulhamit Arvas
Essay

Race-making and the myth of Ham

The curse of Ham mythology is a persistent and deeply rooted part of our contemporary consciousness, manifesting itself in literature, film, politics, and popular entertainment. But what is the “curse of Ham,” and how did it take shape?

Chouki El Hamel

Selected annotated bibliography