Whitaker, Cord2019-11-262019-11-262019-11-08http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11868/870Dr. Cord Whitaker is Associate Professor of English at Wellesley College. He is the author of Black Metaphors: How Modern Racism Emerged from Medieval Race-Thinking (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019), is hard at work on another book The Harlem Middle Ages: Color, Time, and Harlem Renaissance Medievalism, and is the editor of the acclaimed 2019 postmedieval special issue “Making Race Matter in the Middle Ages.”The Middle Ages come up again and again in the discourse of white supremacists in the United States. This talk investigates the value of the Middle Ages to race and racism by exploring modern understandings of feudalism, caste systems, and racial homogeny in medieval Europe. This talk asks: How did the Middle Ages make race? How can we use that knowledge to disempower racism and make the world better?en-USResearch Subject Categories::HUMANITIES and RELIGIONResearch Subject Categories::SOCIAL SCIENCESMiddle AgesWhite SupremacistsRaceRacismMedieval EuropeVideo