The Stories We Tell: Medievalism and White Supremacy
Description
A famous anthropologist once suggested that culture was simply “the stories we tell ourselves, about ourselves.” These origin stories matter, and the way we tell them matters even more. In Western Europe and the United States, many white supremacists seek out stories from the “Middle Ages” as evidence supporting ethnic nationalism (wherein a particular story about a certain people, is tied to a particular political entity).
Protesters in the Charlottesville “Unite the Right Rally” and in the January 6th insurrection deployed a wide variety of medieval iconography, including Crusader catch phrases and crosses of the Knights Templar. In this way, they attempted to connect their actions to a version of the past they perceived to be more pure and more accurate than the stories being told by others.
In this course, we will build on the work of scholars like Chord Whittaker and Geraldine Heng to dig into these stories, interrogating the ways in which our own context shapes the way we read and tell the stories of the past.
Scholarships are available for this course, please email us at candlerfoundry@emory.edu for more information.
Instructor
Dr. Sarah Bogue joined the faculty as Assistant Professor in the Practice of the History of Christianity and Director of Digital Learning in 2020, however she has worked at Candler and Pitts Theology Library in a number of roles since 2010. While earning her PhD from Emory’s Laney Graduate School, Bogue taught classes at Candler in church history and Latin grammar. Both in the classroom and as a reference and instruction librarian, and later as the head of research and access services at Pitts, Bogue helped students find the connection between academic research and vocational exploration. As the director of digital learning, she played a fundamental role as the school transitioned to online learning in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic (read more).
Recommended Materials/Readings
Recommended Reading:
Whose Middle Ages?: Teachable Moments for an Ill-Used Past (Fordham Series in Medieval Studies) ISBN: 978-0823285563