Why this Project
This project is funded by the Mellon Scholars Program at Hope College as part of the Mellon Summer Research program. Originally, I had intended to look at the representations of gender and feminine bodies in the Middle Ages. However, during the summer of 2020, the rampant surge of police brutality and overt racism motivated me to refocus my project to towards looking at concept of race and racism in the Middle Ages
With my previous project interest being in the world of the Middle Ages and my refocus on race and its modern adversaries, I quickly came into contact with Medievalists of Color and their sources.With the guide of my professors and the Medievalists of Color professional organization, I came to understand the immense need to cover the impact and role of the Middle Ages on our modern concepts and (problems) surrounding the social construction and understanding of race. As a person of color at a predominantly white institution, I understand the need to set more places at the table for voices of color.
Through this project, I wish to combat the narratives surrounding the medieval and Middle Ages which have been misunderstood as a 'whites-only' world. People of color have their place in history as knights, merchants, and so much more! People of color have been creators and stewards of the Middle Ages.
For the sake of consistency, we will use the term 'Middle Ages' and refer to the history and art between 500 and 1500 CE and use the term medieval interchangeably. While periodization is a helpful and important way of organizing knowledge of the past, many historians know and understand the limitations of classification in their fields. Encyclopedia.com explains periodization a little deeper here:
Periodization subdivides the continuous flow of artworks through time and space into groupings. Period groupings are defined by the perception that the artworks within them share a single quality or a set of qualities that are significant. Significant qualities can include the formal, stylistic, iconographic, thematic, or other aspects of art.
However, should you like more clarity on the supposed neat compartmentalization of history and for our purposes, art history, click here.
[And! If you want some clarity on art history periodization approved by your favorite frustrated undergrads, click here! ]
We will be looking at the presence of people of color within European areas to further deconstruct the narrative displacing the history of these people.
Thus, we will introduce and circulate a new narrative of inclusion about the Middle Ages.
New Narratives of the Middle Ages by Sylvia Rodriguez is licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0
