Hicks-Bartlett, Alani. “Redefining the 'foreign' in medieval and early modern texts.” Throughlines. www.throughlines.org/suite-content/Redefining-the-foreign-in-medieval-and-early-modern-texts. [date accessed].

Redefining the “foreign” in medieval and early modern texts

Breaking temporal and linguistic boundaries

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Alani Hicks-Bartlett
Brown University

Students often perceive premodern texts, especially those with origins beyond the English language, as inscrutable or “foreign.” To help bridge students’ relationship between their present and the cultures and histories of the premodern, Hicks-Bartlett assigns texts across temporal and linguistic ranges. Putting premodern texts in conversation with contemporary critical theory and scholarship guides students to deeper understandings of the reverberations of race, gender, and class across time.

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