Hundreds of Medieval Studies professors have also signed their names to a petition calling on the International Medieval Congress to create “a statement about the value, importance, and necessity of diversity in medieval studies” because it is currently dominated by white males, the Chronicle of Higher Education reported.
“The criticisms of the conference’s diversity stem from problems in medieval studies for decades — that it is still too Eurocentric, male-dominated, and resistant to change. But as the medieval era has become increasingly prevalent in rhetoric used by white supremacists to advocate for a return to racial, ethnic, and religious purity, many nonwhite medievalists are feeling a new urgency to combat the stereotypes that accompany the field,” it reported.
But not all Medieval Studies scholars agree. Andrew Holt, a professor of history at Florida State College at Jacksonville and an editor of three books on medieval and religious history, told The College Fix that the “vast majority” of medieval historians he has talked with about the conference “think the response has been overblown in a number of ways”.
Daniel Franke, a professor of history at Richard Bland College of William and Mary, said the complaints about diversity “misrepresents what many historians actually think about the Crusades and creates a narrative that winds up rewriting the past”.
Franke argues the first crusades were a defensive response to Middle Eastern invasions on Christian lands, and to say otherwise distorts the truth.
In an email to The College Fix, associate professor of history at the University of Chicago Rachel Fulton Brown called the claim that the studies have not been racially inclusive “disingenuous”.
Fulton Brown noted that, “the issue currently is: to wit, colleagues in Anglo-Saxon studies (Old English) in particular are anxious that not enough non-white people want to study Anglo-Saxon.” She called the phenomenon: “The Unbearable Whiteness of Medieval Studies”.
Meanwhile, Stanford University’s course “White Identity Politics,” will encourage students to “survey the field of whiteness studies” and discuss the “possibilities of … abolishing whiteness,” the course literature has revealed, according to The College Fix.
The course will be taught by instructor John Patrick Moran. Reached by e-mail, Moran declined to comment.
Stanford Professor Tomás Jiménez, speaking to The Fix, explained that “whiteness” refers to “the set of behaviors and outlooks associated with the racial category, white”, a “social construct”.
Jiménez, is an associate professor of sociology and comparative studies in race and ethnicity.
The anthropology seminar will draw “from the field of whiteness studies and from contemporary writings that push whiteness studies in new directions,” after “the 2016 Presidential election [which] marks the rise of white identity politics in the United States”.
The course will include matters such as: “Does white identity politics exist?” and “How is a concept like white identity to be understood in relation to white nationalism, white supremacy, white privilege, and whiteness?”
“Students will consider the perils and possibilities of different political practices,” the course literature explains, “including abolishing whiteness or coming to terms with white identity”.
Ernest Miranda, a spokesperson for Stanford, told the College Fix that “abolishing whiteness” is a concept devised to stop whites from identifying as white in order to help “end inequalities”.
When The Fix requested a copy of the syllabus, Miranda declined, saying “we do not share our course materials”.
