The Endless Knot
We discuss etymology, history, literature, science, and language, and the connections between them.
This bonus episode contains two talks we gave at our university in November. Mark spoke about “The ‘Anglo-Saxon’ Problem: Language and Racism in Medieval Studies” and Aven spoke about “Defining ‘Race’ in the Ancient Mediterranean and Today”.
Google ngrams for collocations of “Anglo-Saxon”:
“Whitewashing Ancient Statues: Whiteness, Racism And Color In The Ancient World”, by Sarah Bond
This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License
Author Don Hitchcock
In part two of our discussion about racism, we talk about ways to respond to the problems in the field, in teaching, scholarship, and more. Thank you to Katherine Blouin, Damian Fleming, Usama Ali Gad, Rebecca Futo Kennedy, Asa Mittman, Dimitri Nakassis, Helen Young, and Donna Zuckerberg for their generous contributions of time and thoughtful discussion of these difficult subjects. Please join in the conversation with your thoughts and ideas about how to move the fields forward.
@AllEndlessKnot on Twitter
Episode 44: "Us" & "Them" in the Ancient & Anglo-Saxon Worlds
Episode 51: Race & Racism in Ancient & Medieval Studies, Part One: The Problem
Dr. Katherine Blouin
Everyday Orientalism blog
@isisnaucratis
Dr. Damian Fleming
@FW_Medieval
Dr. Usama Ali Gad
Classics in Arabic blog
@Usamaligad78
Dr. Rebecca Futo Kennedy
Classics at the Intersections blog
Sourcebook on Race and Ethnicity in the Classical World
@kataplexis
Dr. Asa Mittman
Inconceivable Beasts: The Wonders of the East in the Beowulf Manuscript
Dr. Dimitri Nakassis
Aegean Prehistory blog
@DimitriNakassis
Dr. Helen Young
Race & Popular Fantasy: Habits of Whiteness
@heyouonline
Dr. Donna Zuckerberg
Eidolon
@donnazuck
The Public Medievalist's series on Race, Racism, & the Middle Ages
In the Middle blog (frequently has useful posts on these subjects)
Hold My Mead: A Bibliography For Historians Hitting Back At White Supremacy by Sarah Bond
Medieval People of Color Tumblr
Pharos -- documenting misuse of the Classics
This podcast episode on YouTube
This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License
What are the problems surrounding race and racism in the fields of Classics and Medieval Studies today? Where did these fields come from, and how does that affect the way we think about the past, and how we construct the present? For this episode (and the next) we interviewed eight scholars and put it together into an exploration of these unfortunately timely topics. Thank you to Katherine Blouin, Damian Fleming, Usama Ali Gad, Rebecca Futo Kennedy, Asa Mittman, Dimitri Nakassis, Helen Young, and Donna Zuckerberg for their generous contributions of time and thoughtful discussion of these difficult subjects. In our next episode, we will hear about possible responses to these problems -- in teaching, scholarship, and more.
Episode 44: "Us" & "Them" in the Ancient & Anglo-Saxon Worlds
Dr. Katherine Blouin
Everyday Orientalism blog
@isisnaucratis
Dr. Damian Fleming
@FW_Medieval
Dr. Usama Ali Gad
Classics in Arabic blog
@Usamaligad78
Dr. Rebecca Futo Kennedy
Classics at the Intersections blog
Sourcebook on Race and Ethnicity in the Classical World
@kataplexis
Dr. Asa Mittman
Inconceivable Beasts: The Wonders of the East in the Beowulf Manuscript
Dr. Dimitri Nakassis
Aegean Prehistory blog
@DimitriNakassis
Dr. Helen Young
Race & Popular Fantasy: Habits of Whiteness
@heyouonline
Dr. Donna Zuckerberg
Eidolon
@donnazuck
The Public Medievalist's series on Race, Racism, & the Middle Ages
In the Middle blog (frequently has useful posts on these subjects)
Hold My Mead: A Bibliography For Historians Hitting Back At White Supremacy by Sarah Bond
Medieval People of Color Tumblr
This podcast episode on YouTube
This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License
What words did the Greeks, Romans, and early medieval English use to talk about different groups of people? What differences did they think were important? How do those compare to modern conceptions of ethnicity, national identity, or race? We try to give some basic background on this complicated question, starting with the etymology of the vocabulary and addressing some of the ways differences were conceptualized.
Full transcript of this episode
Video on the Anglo-Saxon Invasion, collaboration with Jabzy
Ethnicity in Herodotus--The Honest Entry
How is the Ancient Mediterranean Diverse If Everyone There Is "White"?
“Black Odysseus, White Caesar: When Did "White People" Become "White"?” James H. Dee. The Classical Journal. Vol. 99, No. 2 (Dec., 2003 - Jan., 2004), pp. 157-167
“Did ancient identity depend on ethnicity? A preliminary probe” Erich Gruen. Phoenix. Vol. 67, No. 1/2 (2013), pp. 1-22.
“Medieval and Modern Concepts of Race and Ethnicity” Robert Bartlett.
Caitlin Green’s blog, for general evidence of diversity in Britain
Race and Ethnicity in Anglo-Saxon Literature. Stephen Harris, Taylor & Francis, 2003.
Where the the term "White People" come from?
Colorlines in Classical North Africa
