Race and Periodization: a #RaceB4Race Symposium

For your calendar, an event sponsored by the Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies and the Folger Shakespeare Library.

Following upon the inaugural Race Before Race [#RaceB4Race] event, a collaboration of medievalists and early modernists held at Arizona State University in January 2019, this conference will foreground the relationship between race and historical periodization. Medievalists and early modernists have long grappled with the meaning and use of their own historical period designations as well as the strictures of periodization itself. This event seeks to explore how critical race theory can enable new insights about, approaches to, and critiques of periodization. Critical race theory situated in both historical and contemporary disciplines necessarily challenges assumptions about historical knowledge, theoretical borders, and scholarly dissemination and impact. This theoretical complex thus holds exciting potential to revolutionize the very terms of academic periodization in medieval and early modern studies. Setting this conference at the Folger Institute and building upon its recent focus on early modern race studies, the conference invites scholars of history, literature, and other disciplines to consider the intersection of critical race studies and historical periodization in terms of the theoretical, methodological, archival, activist, pedagogical, professional, temporal, and spatial implications.

Invited Speakers
Geraldine Heng (University of Texas) and Francesca Royster (DePaul University) will open the conference on Thursday evening at the Folger Shakespeare Library.

On Friday and Saturday at Arizona State University’s Barrett & O’Connor Washington Center, eight speakers will deliver presentations and lead sessions on the topics outlined above:

Dennis Britton (University of New Hampshire)
Ruben Espinosa, (University of Texas at El Paso)
Michael Gomez (New York University)
Wan-Chuan Kao (Washington & Lee University)
Carol Mejia LaPerle (Wright State University)
Su Fang Ng (Virginia Tech)
Mary Rambaran-Olm (Independent Scholar)
Michelle M. Sauer (University of North Dakota)
Haruko Momma (New York University) and Elisa Oh (Howard University) will serve as the conference’s respondents.

Schedule
Thursday evening through Saturday, 5 – 7 September 2019

REGISTER HERE

Information on travel aid HERE