The Black Lives Matter movement has issued an urgent call to stand for anti-racism, social justice, equity, and freedom from oppression. As scholars of the deep past, we try to determine the roots and growth of power systems that define our present day. We know the efficacy of language written and spoken; we recognize the power of images and spaces; we seek to understand the force of social structures and rites. As members of this community, we write to express our hope that the coming days, weeks, months, and years will see Princeton medievalists working together to combat systemic racism in our field, in scholarship and the academy more broadly, and in the places we live and work. We are only at the beginning of a longer process. We hope you will communicate to us your own ideas for collaborative work, and your calls for action.
To begin with, the program is preparing a seminar series for the 2020/21 academic year at which we hope to present and discuss new approaches and studies such as recent contributions from Critical Medieval Race Studies and by Medievalists of Color (with the help and guidance of members of MoC). The graduate community of the program is organizing a book club on the issue of race in medieval history and hopes to invite the authors of the selected books. We will keep you updated about these plans and further projects/initiatives/courses on our website.
We express our solidarity with statements and actions against racism initiated by our peer institutions and professional societies, programs, organizations across the world and at Princeton University.
Helmut Reimitz, Director of the Program in Medieval Studies
with former Directors: Sally Poor, D. Vance Smith, William Chester Jordan,
and Members of 2020 Executive Committee for the Program in Medieval Studies:
Charlie Barber, Emmanuel Bourbouhakis, Marina Brownlee, Beatrice Kitzinger, Daniela Mairhofer, Simone Marchesi, Pamela Patton, Jamie Reuland, Alan Stahl, Jack Tannous, Justin Willson
Please see these important statements:
https://medievalistsofcolor.com/statements/medievalists-of-color-statement-regarding-the-violent-murder-of-george-floyd-breonna-taylor-tony-mcdade/
http://www.inthemedievalmiddle.com/2017/08/on-race-and-medieval-studies.html
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1057/s41280-017-0072-0
https://acmrs.asu.edu/RaceB4Race
https://press.princeton.edu/news/support-for-black-lives-and-black-voices
https://history.rutgers.edu/announcements/1196-history-department-statement-on-racial-violence-june-2020
https://librarycompany.tumblr.com/post/620190574528593920/library-company-response-to-the-george-floyd
https://www.medievalart.org/icma-news/2020/6/5/a-statement-of-solidarity-and-action
https://english.uchicago.edu/news-events
Several of these links include resource lists. We direct your attention below to several other growing resources designed to facilitate the study and teaching of a Middle Ages that is diverse, and anti-racist in both its historical subjects and its present community. We will work for this, and we hope you will work with us.
Resources/events/initiatives:
https://medievalistsofcolor.com/resources/pedagogy-bibliographies/
https://www.medievalart.org/teaching-a-global-middle-ages
https://medievalstudies.uconn.edu/resources/resources-on-medieval-difference-and-diversity/
https://www.ias.edu/ideas/whitaker-medieval-roots
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/to-protect-and-to-serve-a-raceb4racetm-roundtable-tickets-109987407296
Courses at Princeton in Medieval Studies:
ENG 511: Graduate seminar Medievalizing Africa, Race, History, Philosophy (Vance Smith)
https://english.princeton.edu/graduate/courses
