Rutgers University—Newark Prof. Mayte Green-Mercado Federated Department of History [email protected] Spring Semester 2021 Virtual Office Hours: by appointment 21:510:435 Topics in Medieval History Class time: M 2:30-3:50 W 1:00-2:20
Miniature from The Cantigas de Santa Maria Alfonso X the Wise, manuscript, Spain 13th Century
Mediterranean Identities: Race, Ethnicity, and Religion in the pre-modern World.
Course Description: This course engages recent historiographical debates in critical race studies in the pre- modern world, and it examines the development of ideas of race and ethnicity in the pre- modern Mediterranean by focusing on the construction and deployment of discourses of racialization and religious difference in processes of imperial formation and political consolidation during the early modern period. This historical perspective invites students to consider their own ideas and attitudes about race and ethnicity, and how the construction and deployment of these categories play out in modern political and social discourses and practices.
The format of this course will be discussion based, and therefore it is essential that you complete the required reading by the date indicated on the syllabus.
COURSE OBJECTIVES:
1) Upon successful completion of this course, students will have gained a general knowledge of the geographies and histories of the Mediterranean region in the early modern period. 2) Students will have a critical understanding of categories such as race, ethnicity, identity, etc. and should be able to question and explore the ways in which these categories were constructed in the early modern world.
3) Students will develop skills in oral and written communication, including sustained argument, and independent thought.
4) Students will have ample practice in reading primary sources, and to employ primary evidence in textual and historical analysis and argumentation.
REQUIRED READINGS:
All readings are available on canvas.
Preliminaries (Rules and Expectations): Because this course is being conducted entirely online, all students must be able to use an internet-connected computer to access the course information system (CANVAS). There will be a combination of synchronous and asynchronous learning in this course. All synchronous sessions will be clearly marked on this syllabus next to the date. Classes that are not marked will be conducted asynchronously. Attendance to synchronous classes will be taken.
** For synchronous classes, students must have access to a camera and microphone, and they must keep their cameras on for the duration of the class, with the mics muted. If you are unable to have your camera on, please consult with the Professor.
*** I understand that these are challenging times, and that there may be people present in the same room while you attend class. Family members and pets are welcome on the screen! ***
****You may address me as Prof. Green. When emailing or during class meetings, please refrain from using any other titles.
Students are responsible for completing all the assigned readings and watch, watch lectures, and view any supplementary materials included in each module.
Plagiarism and Academic Dishonesty: As an academic community dedicated to the creation, dissemination, and application of knowledge, Rutgers University is committed to fostering an intellectual and ethical environment based on the principles of academic integrity. Academic integrity is essential to the success of the University’s educational and research missions, and violations of academic integrity constitute serious offenses against the entire academic community.
The entire Academic Integrity Policy can be found here: http://academicintegrity.rutgers.edu/academic-integrity-policy/
Students are required to view the Plagiarism video on Canvas and take the quiz by no later than February 9. The video is available in the Modules section of the Canvas site.
Assignments: • There will be a series of short videos and quizzes in the module section of Canvas that you will have to complete before submitting paper 1 [Types of Sources; Why Citations Matter; Turabian Citations; Academic Integrity] .
• Students will write ONE paper (500 words, 2 pages) due February 10. The essay prompt will be posted on Canvas one week in advance. No email submissions will be accepted.
•Students will answer questions on the canvas discussion board during asynchronous classes.
• There will be TWO exams (midterm and final).
• The synchronous classes are meant to serve as discussion of the material. Participation in these discussions will count towards your final grade.
**Students may write a research project instead of a final paper. The topic MUST be selected in consultation with the instructor. Students who write a final research project can submit a proposal to present their projects at the American Comparative Literature Association Annual Meeting undergraduate conference titled “Thinking Race in a Comparative Perspective,” to be held virtually on April 8-11, 2021. Students who are selected to participate in the conference will not have to write a midterm exam.**
Grading: Participation 10% Online training quizzes 4% Paper 1 9% Discussion Board 7% Midterm Exam 30% Final Exam 40%
A 100-90 B 84-80 C 74-70 F 59-0 B+ 89-85 C+ 79-75 D 69-60
RESOURCES, SUPPORT, AND ASSISTANCE: Technology Resources for Students https://coronavirus.rutgers.edu/technology-resources-for-students/
Counseling Center: The Rutgers-Newark Counseling Center provides a number of counseling and consultative services to enrolled and eligible undergraduate and graduate students. For students, if you are seeking individual or group therapy, you can expect to find a safe, supportive space to collaboratively identify and begin to change the thoughts, behaviors, and beliefs that prevent you from being your best self. http://counseling.newark.rutgers.edu
Disabilities: Rutgers welcomes students with disabilities into all of the University’s educational programs. In order to receive consideration for reasonable accommodations, a student with a disability must contact the appropriate disability services office at the campus where you are officially enrolled, participate in an intake interview, and provide documentation: https://ods.rutgers.edu/students/documentation-guidelines.
If the documentation supports your request for reasonable accommodations, your campus’s disability services office will provide you with a Letter of Accommodations. Please share this letter with your instructors and discuss the accommodations with them as early in your courses as possible. To begin this process, please complete the Registration form: https://webapps.rutgers.edu/student-ods/forms/registration.
Students with Temporary Conditions/Injuries: Students experiencing a temporary condition or injury that is adversely affecting their ability to fully participate in their courses should submit a request for assistance at: https://temporaryconditions.rutgers.edu.
Students Who are Pregnant: The Office of Title IX and ADA Compliance is available to assist students with any concerns or potential accommodations related to pregnancy: (973) 353-1906 or [email protected].
Gender or Sex-Based Discrimination or Harassment: Students experiencing any form of gender or sex-based discrimination or harassment, including sexual assault, sexual harassment, relationship violence, or stalking, should know that help and support are available. To report an incident, contact the Office of Title IX and ADA Compliance: (973) 353-1906 or [email protected].
To submit an incident report: tinyurl.com/RUNReportingForm. To speak with a staff member who is confidential and does NOT have a reporting responsibility, contact the Office for Violence Prevention and Victim Assistance: (973) 353- 1918 or [email protected].
Food: PantryRUN, the campus food pantry, helps students who have difficulty affording enough healthy food to remain focused on their studies and stay healthy. You can find hours and information here: https://myrun.newark.rutgers.edu/pantryrun.
Writing: The Rutgers University-Newark Writing Center provides tutoring for students who want to strengthen their reading, writing, and research skills and offers individual sessions and writing workshops to all undergraduate students currently enrolled in classes on the Rutgers University-Newark campus. More detains here: https://sasn.rutgers.edu/student-support/tutoring-academic-support/writing-center.
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS STATEMENT: **PLEASE READ THIS STATEMENT CAREFULLY** “Lectures and materials utilized in this course, including but not limited to videocasts, podcasts, visual presentations, assessments, and assignments, are protected by United States copyright laws as well as Rutgers University policy. As the instructor of this course, I possess sole copyright ownership. You are permitted to take notes for personal use or to provide to a classmate also currently enrolled in this course. Under no other circumstances is distribution of recorded or written materials associated with this course permitted to any internet site or similar information-sharing platform without my express written consent. Doing so is a violation of the university’s Academic Integrity Policy. Similarly, these copyright protections extend to original papers you produce for this course. In the event that I seek to share your work further, I will first obtain your written consent to do so. Finally, as the instructor for this course, I have the responsibility to protect students’ right to privacy. Classroom recordings of students will therefore be treated as educational records under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), the U.S. federal law that governs access to educational information and records. Instructors and students must provide notification if any part of online sessions are to be recorded, and such recordings cannot be circulated outside the course.”
Week 1 Introduction and Organization W,1/20 Basics
Week 2 Modern Categories
M, 1/25 (Asynchronous) Secondary source: Ian F. Haney López, “The Social Construction of Race,” in Critical Race Theory: The Cutting Edge, 3rd ed., Jean Stefancic and Richard Delgado (eds.) (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2013): 238-248.
Documentary: Pounder, C. C. H., Larry. Adelman, Christine. Herbes-Sommers, Tracy Heather. Strain, and Llewellyn. Smith. 2003. Race the Power of an Illusion, San Francisco, Calif: California Newsreel.
W, 1/27 (Synchronous) Secondary source: Barbara J. Fields, “Slavery, Race, and Ideology in the United States of America,” New Left Review I/181, May-June 1990, 95-118.
Week 3 Race in Antiquity and the Middle Ages
M, 2/1 Mediterranean Antiquity (Asynchronous) Secondary Sources: Benjamin Isaac, “Racism: a rationalization of prejudice in Greece and Rome,” in The Origins of Racism in the West, ed. Miriam Eliav-Feldon, Benjamin Isaac, Joseph Ziegler (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009): 32-56.
Tim Whitmarsh, “Black Achilles,” Aeon, 9 May 2018
W, 2/3 The European Middle Ages (Synchronous) Secondary Sources: Geraldine Heng, The Invention of Race in the European Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018): 15-54.
Week 4 Blood and Race in Medieval and Early Modern Iberia
M, 2/8 (Asynchronous) Secondary source: Max S. Hering Torres, “Purity of Blood. Problems of Interpretation,” in Race and Blood in the Iberian World, ed. María Elena Martínez, Max. S. Hering Torres, David Nirenberg (Berlin: Lit Verlag, 2012): 11-38.
W, 2/10 (Synchronous) **PAPER 1 DUE** Primary Source: Kenneth B. Wolf, “Sentencia-Estatuto de Toledo, 1449,” Medieval Texts in Translation, 2008.
Week 5 Religion and Race: Jews M, 2/15 (Asynchronous) Secondary Sources: David Nirenberg, Was there race before modernity? The example of ‘Jewish’ blood in late medieval Spain,” in Neighboring Faiths: Christianity, Islam, and Judaism in the Middle Ages and Today (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2014): 169-190.
Thomas, James M. ‘The Racial Formation of Medieval Jews: A Challenge to the Field.’ Ethnic and Racial Studies 30.10 (2010): 1737–55.
W, 2/17 (Synchronous) Primary sources: “El judı́o renegado: Luis de la Ysla,” in Vidas Infames. Herejes y criptojudíos ante la Inquisición, eds. Richard L. Kagan and Abigal Dyer, trans. Ricardo Garcı́a Herrero (San Sebastiá n: Editorial Nerea, 2010): 35-48.
“Damascene Jewry in 1522,” in Jews of Arab Lands, ed. Norman Stillman (Philadelphia, Jewish Publication Society of America, 1979).
Week 6 Stereotyping Muslims
M, 2/22 (Synchronous) Secondary Source: Daniel J. Vitkus, “Early Modern Orientalism: Representations of Islam in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Europe, in Western Views of Islam in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, ed. David R. Blanks and Michael Frassetto (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 1999): 207-230.
Primary Source: Antonio de Sosa, Topography of Algiers (1612) (excerpts)
W, Feb. 24 (Asynchronous)
MIDTERM EXAM
Week 7 Moriscos
M, Mar. 1 Guest lecture by Dr. Borja Franco Llopis (Art History, UNED, Spain)
W, Mar. 3 (Synchronous) Primary Source: Nuñ ez Muley, A Memorandum for the President of the Royal Audiencia and Chancery of the City and Kingdom of Granada, ed. Vincent Barletta (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2007), 55-64; 68-73; 90-99.
Week 8 Romani
M, Mar. 8 (Asynchronous) Secondary Source: Miriam Eliav-Feldon, “Vagrants or vermin? Attitudes towards Gypsies in early modern Europe,” in The Origins of Racism in the West, ed. Miriam Eliav-Feldon, Benjamin Isaac, and Joseph Ziegler (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009): 276-291.
W, Mar. 10 (Synchronous) Primary Source: Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, “The Novel of the Little Gypsy Girl,” in Exemplary Novels, trans. Edith Grossman (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2016): 11-68.
Week 9 SPRING BREAK M, Mar. 15 NO CLASS
W, Mar. 17 NO CLASS
Week 10 Race in the Ottoman Empire
M, Mar. 22 Guest Lecture by Dr. Baki Tezcan (University of California, Davis) Secondary Source: “Dispelling the Darkness: The Politics of ‘Race’ in the Early Seventeen- Century Ottoman Empire in the Light of the Life and Work of Mullah Ali,” International Journal of Turkish Studies 13 1/2 (2007): 73-95.
W, Mar. 24 (Synchronous) Primary Source: Robert Dankoff and Sooyong Kim (eds.), An Ottoman Traveller. Selections from the Book of Travels of Evliya Çelebi (London: Eland, 2011). (selections)
Week 11 Black North Africa
M, Mar. 29 (Asynchronous) Secondary Source: Choukri EL Hamel, Black Morocco. A History of Slavery, Race, and Islam (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013): 60-105.
W, Mar. 31 Guest lecture by Dr. Wendell Marsh (Rutgers-Newark).
Week 12 African Diasporas in Early Modern Spain
M, Apr. 5 Guest lecture by Nicholas Jones (Bucknell University) Secondary Source: Nicholas Jones, Staging Habla de Negros. Radical Performances of the African Diaspora in Early Modern Spain (University Park, Penn.: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2019). (selections)
W, Apr. 7 (Synchronous) Primary Sources: Selections from Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote, book 1 Selections from The Life of Lazarillo de Tormes and of His Fortunes and Adversities
Week 13 Infrastructures of Race in Colonial Latin America
M, Apr. 12 (Asynchronous) Secondary Source: Daniel Nemser, Infrastructures of Race. Concentration and Biopolitics in Colonial Mexico (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2017), chapter 1.
W, Apr. 14 Guest lecture by Dr. Daniel Nemser (University of Michigan) Primary Source: Zelia Nuttal, “Royal Ordinances Concerning the Laying out of New Towns,” The Hispanic American Historical Review 4/4 (Nov. 1921) 743-753.
Week 14 Race and Slavery in Colonial Latin America
M, Apr. 19 Guest lecture by Dr. Larissa Brewer-García (University of Chicago) Secondary Source: Larissa Brewer-García, Beyond Babel Translations of Blackness in Colonial Peru and New Granada (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020) (excerpts).
W, Apr. 21 Primary Source: (Synchronous) Alonso de Sandoval, Treatise on Slavery. Selection from De instaurada Aethiopum salute, ed. and trans. Nicole von Germeten (Indianapolis/Cambridge: Hackett Publishing, 2008) (selections)
Week 15 Race and the Rise of Neo-Fascism in the Contemporary Mediterranean
M, Apr. 26 “Weaponizing the Past: Race, Religion, Migration, and the Rise of Neo- Fascism in the Contemporary Mediterranean.” A Conversation with Dr. Alejandro García Sanjuán and Dr. Joseph Viscomi
W, Apr. 28 Recap and Review
Week 16
M, May 3 Recap and Review
M, May 10 FINAL EXAM DUE AT 6:00 p.m.