"Medievalism, White Supremacy and the Historian´s Craft" Topic

"…Like all periodizing categories and labels, "the Classical Age" and "the Middle Ages" are constructs of modernity. The informed study of "what happened" during those eras (variously defined) is therefore inextricable from the ongoing interrogation of when, how, and why these categories were invented. In fact, "medieval" Europe was co-created in tandem with white supremacism, the "scientific" racialization of slavery, and modern European imperialism. Moreover, previous generations of medievalists, often working in the service of these modern projects, have not only shaped the terms of our engagement with historical sources, their work has shaped the sources we have. The medieval archive has been (and continues to be) selected, edited, translated, censored, packaged, and destroyed by forces beyond the control of the people who generated the components of that archive. There is no way to do medieval history responsibly without engaging its modern and postmodern entanglements.

Scholars in the various disciplines that make up medieval studies are now struggling to address these entanglements in response to immediate pressures, while seeking to understand the far-reaching effects of racism within these disciplines. Recently, Medievalists of Color published an open letter calling on colleagues to acknowledge systemic racism's role "in our field's constitution and practices; to educate themselves in the critical discourses that address systemic racism both explicit and implicit; and in doing so to move past preoccupations with individual intentions." This has become even more crucial in the wake of Charlottesville, as the Medieval Academy of America and many other academic organizations have underscored. It is imperative that scholars of the premodern past seriously consider the ethical and intellectual stakes of engaging (or neglecting to engage) these issues.

Specifically, historians of the Middle Ages need to take more responsibility for contextualizing recent incidents and critiquing long-standing trends within our discipline. That work has usually been done by scholars in other fields, especially in English and comparative literature departments: scholars more conversant with critical race theory and the study of medievalism and more willing to apply theoretical categories in their research. To date, the only tenured historian of medieval Europe to have found an audience for her views on these issues is Rachel Fulton Brown (Univ. of Chicago), a columnist for Breitbart who has used her privileged position and powerful allies to deride, bully, and persecute a junior, untenured medievalist of color. In a blog post published in mid-September, and in subsequent interviews, she has explicitly justified these attacks by invoking her authority as a historian (PhD, Columbia 1994). "If you teach the history," Fulton Brown told Inside Higher Ed, "everybody basically learns that it's a very complicated story, and there's nothing to support the white supremacist argument in it." According to her, proving that "you are not a white supremacist" simply means showing that you can find some black people in medieval Europe: an essentialist exercise tantamount to noting the existence of medieval women without any critical analysis of pervasive misogyny and the workings of gender and power…"
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Amicalement
Armand

What a load of crap, in just the first three paragraphs, so no need for me to read further.

As I seem to recall from "my history" lessons, before PC-ness really came on strong, slavery was an equal opportunity sport, and many societies from 2,000+ years ago to more "modern" times participated in it.

Its a bit theoretical for me, but i would say that its is logical that history before ones own lifetime, is of course looked upon through the eyes of ones own idiocracies.
As an example the name of the dark middleages is coined by renaissance historians, because they felt that they reinvented the brilliant golden age of rome and greece.
The same with the view of the period around 1900 where historians felt that since their societies conquered africa and asia, that their civilization were better than the others, since they were winning.
So the discussion is not crap, but a sign of the scientific method, where you always criticize the older theories. Whether they find the truth is dubious, as there is no absolute thruth in anything, which regards human behaviour.

Sorry, but "the truth" is not "subjective", despite what many may have you believe.

Sorry, but the truth is not absolute in interpersonal relations.
The truth is absolute in something that can be measured as gravity or evolution, but not as an absolute in most historial tendencies. Yes they can agree, that something happened on a certain day, but what caused it depends often on your political opinions.

Too true, Horny. If anyone has any doubts, go and have a look at the Napoleonics boards. They can't even agree who won the Battle of Waterloo!

Glup!…

Amicalement
Armand

I agree with Thresher01 – article is total crap.

Summary of paragraph 2 above – we must rewrite our history in order to accomodate recent events in Charlottesville.

If non-europeans did not contribute to English/British Medieval history why should we have to rewrite it to appease them?

We all know what appeasing minority groups leads to in the end.

This book (The Myth of Nations: The Medieval Origins of Europe by Patrick J. Geary) looks interesting
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Thanks!.

Amicalement
Armand

She is right in some points, but that does not make her right in others.

What drivel.
Charlottesville???
LOL….

I have two children being ill-served by the University system now. It is employees like this that are serving them badly.

Joe Collins

"Summary of paragraph 2 above – we must rewrite our history in order to accomodate recent events in Charlottesville".

Yep, clearly, one of the best, total "non-sequiturs" I've ever seen.

Yes, because insisting on interpreting history through the lens of a particular philosophical or political view point always works out so well….

And absolutely no doubt that many 19thC historians had less progressive views on the poor, women, children, foreigners, the disabled, but I think we've rather moved on from knight's needing to be winched onto horses and other Victorianisms. Sure the categorisations still exist, the Victorians loved pigeon-holing stuff, but I'm fairly certain most serious historical scholars would tell you straight off they are constructs that are flawed but remain handy commonly understood shorthand.

Now doubt that history has been appropriated for less than savoury reasons, but these days its more folk history than actual history that gets abused. But, heck the whole 'barbarians at the gate' idea got deconstructed on popular TV courtesy of Terry Jones (RIP)!

The charge that there is a systematic bias in the medieval record because of how its been handled in the modern period is serious and I'd like to see scholarly analysis of that.

It is not the history of a multiethnic, culturally diverse, religiously pluralistic, interconnected medieval world.

I've read a few popular history books and I feel that statement is deeply flawed…? Sure things get sketchy in those corners of the world who unhelpfully didn't leave behind things like the Paston letters or Court rolls. But really did she accidently go to University in 1890?

Overall the text leads to a single conclusion: if you want to study history, avoid the University of Illinois.

YaWN BUT AGAIN

"Summary of paragraph 2 above – we must rewrite our history in order to accomodate recent events in Charlottesville".

Many of those in the "news media" (I use that term very loosely – the name propaganda outlets is far more accurate) are certainly doing their best to "rewrite our history" with a false and skewed narrative, leaving out an important and enlightening sentence right after the one they are using on the nightly news, in order to push their false narratives about Charlottesville.