The invention of race in the European Middle Ages

The Resource The invention of race in the European Middle Ages

Label

The invention of race in the European Middle Ages

Statement of responsibility

Geraldine Heng

Language

eng

Summary

In The Invention of Race in the European Middle Ages, Geraldine Heng questions the common assumption that the concepts of race and racisms only began in the modern era. Examining Europe's encounters with Jews, Muslims, Africans, Native Americans, Mongols, and the Romani ('Gypsies'), from the 12th through 15th centuries, she shows how racial thinking, racial law, racial practices, and racial phenomena existed in medieval Europe before a recognizable vocabulary of race emerged in the West. Analysing sources in a variety of media, including stories, maps, statuary, illustrations, architectural features, history, saints' lives, religious commentary, laws, political and social institutions, and literature, she argues that religion - so much in play again today - enabled the positing of fundamental differences among humans that created strategic essentialisms to mark off human groups and populations for racialized treatment. Her ground-breaking study also shows how race figured in the emergence of homo europaeus and the identity of Western Europe in this time.--Publisher description

Cataloging source

PUL

Dewey number

305.80094/0902

Illustrations

illustrations

Index

index present

LC call number

D1056

LC item number

.H46 2018

Literary form

non fiction

Nature of contents

bibliography

Context

Context of The invention of race in the European Middle Ages

Structured data from the Bibframe namespace is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License by University of Missouri Libraries. Additional terms may apply to data associated with third party namespaces.

Context

Work of