A brief note: I started writing this a month ago, but then my third-year review took over, and well, yeah. BUT HERE IT IS! Enjoy y'all!
So we're kicking off our blog, and we thought what better way to do so then reflecting on such an amazing, challenging, thought-provoking event as ACMRS's Race Before Race Symposium at Arizona State University. First off, full-disclosure: all three of us graduated from ASU's Ph.D. program focusing in Renaissance studies (ACMRS Director and SAA President Ayanna Thompson was my dissertation chair, served on Michael's committee, and mentored all three of us). That being said, it was truly an honor to be able to make it back to Tempe for this event, and the news that a second Race Before Race Symposium is already being planned at the Folger Library in September 2019 is great news. All three of us strongly believe that we need to see more events like this in the future, and we need to challenge ourselves and others (and not just in Premodern Studies) to address race more insightfully and critically in our scholarly and pedagogical work than we have in the past.
If you were unable to attend, Erik Wade (@erik_kaars on Twitter) compiled many of the tweets from the symposium. The tweets from Day 1 are here, and the tweets from Day 2 are here. You can also search the hashtag #RaceB4Race on Twitter. Additionally, I'd also recommend friend and contributor to the podcast Ambereen Dadabhoy's fabulous reflections on the symposium here (and follow Ambereen on Twitter @DrDadabhoy).
As I look back on the symposium, I'm amazed and excited how much my thinking has returned to it throughout the past month. Jeffrey Cohen noted on Twitter that we may have been witnessing a seismic shift in our fields, and I certainly hope so. Some of the things that have stuck with me the most are the ways in which the presenters challenged us on our thinking and assumptions. On the first day, Dorothy Kim started out by (among many other things) calling out how "rigor" in Medieval Studies is often deployed to delegitimize the study of race in the field, and these delegitimizing moves were returned to time and again by various speaker throughout the two days. Patricia Akhimie discussed work from her recent book Shakespeare and the Cultivation of Difference (and the next book on my reading list), considering how the idea of mutability in Renaissance conduct books did not apply to all, especially those seen as racially other. This was followed by Noémie Ndiaye's work on what she calls "racecraft," thinking through how race in Renaissance Drama was constructed through both the dramatic work and its performance on stage (I'm always for greater attention on audience reception, and Ndiaye's work offers some incredibly useful thinking on this front). This was followed by Seeta Chaganti and Shokoofeh Rajabzadeh in conversation with one another, raising issues around the invisible labor of academics and students, and the assumptions we carry about that labor. One thing that really stuck with me was how Chaganti and Rajabzadeh asked where we fell on the spectrum between "changing the system" and "burning it down." Many days such as today (thanks to two separate awful academics discussed on Twitter), I lean towards burning it all down (as I think all three of us have on the podcast at some point), but the reality is that probably won't fix it. We have to do the hard work of changing the system (and maybe we burn down a few parts along the way). Cord J. Whitaker responded to the first day of talks, posing an interesting and important set of questions in the process: How do we move beyond simply talking back? How do we talk new?
On the second day, Urvashi Chakravarty led the way with fascinating work on the inheritance/influence of early modern England on American slavery, an excellent reminded that we cannot silo periods off historically but must envision them as part of larger histories. Kim Hall then turned us to archives (posing some important questions to the audience you can find here), early modern food studies, and the need to seek out and cite black women and black scholars, both in terms of promoting the work of our black colleagues and finding black voices in the archives and bringing them into our work. Next up, Jonathan Hsy opened by encouraging the audience to think about using the symposium to carve out family time and consider how scholars of color have to navigate spaces not built for them. Using the examples of Medieval writer Teresa de Cartegena, Hsy discussed how we can understand current and evolving issues around modern sign language by understanding de Cartegena's own experiences as a deaf woman through intersectional approaches. In his talk, David Sterling Brown challenged the centrality of whiteness in early modern domestic criticism and brought this to bear on the present and making sure everyone has a seat at the table (Brown also upped the slide game of Race Before Race to new levels, with a slide featuring an actual race card an amazing highlight of his presentation). In the final talk of the symposium, Carla María Thomas provided an autoethnographic presentation on her experiences as both Latinx and white-passing in the academy and opening up the space for the audience to think about how we can embody antiracist whiteness in premodern studies. Farah Karim-Cooper rounded out the symposium with a reminder of how white many other conferences spaces continue to be, and the need for us to talk about race and undertake intersectional work in our research, our teaching, and our daily lives.
At the end of the symposium, and even a month later, I am still amazed at what an important event Race Before Race was. All the presenters were doing necessary work, and there was a challenge to the audience both in the room and beyond to do better and move forward. As someone who is invested in being a good ally, I learned so much from attending Race Before Race, and I realized that I still have a lot of work to do as a straight, white, male, cisgendered scholar and teacher. But I can say I really was honored to be in the presence of so many fantastic scholars doing such critical work. I also really appreciated how the symposium offered different models for approaching the conference/symposium talk. Patricia Akhimie kicked this off by asking the audience her research questions and building a conversation around them as opposed to the traditional Q&A (a model which many of the other presenters followed). Seeta Chaganti and Shojoofeh Rajabzadeh's conversation presented another model, and in both cases, I appreciated how the presenters opened up spaces for the audience to discuss and engage with their work. It seemed to me to be a much more collaborative space, and helped me to work through some of the ideas and issues that came up throughout the conference. There is so much more I'm still thinking about, and I'll continue to do so as I turn my attention towards this year's Shakespeare Association of America meeting, but I want to end on a heartful (if belated) thanks to all those involved in making Race Before Race such a truly amazing experience.
