While the study of blackness and indigeneity in the early modern world has been well established within diverse disciplines, the study of whiteness is a comparatively recent phenomenon. Given that, as well as its particularly urgent implications for our current moment, we propose to devote the 2020-2021 CRRS Working Group to addressing the following questions (among others): How was whiteness defined, constructed, and depicted in the early modern world? What did it mean in terms of ideas about labor, class, nation, gender, and beauty? How were its boundaries delineated, and against whom was it held in opposition?

In attending to whiteness as a category of analysis, we seek to complicate our understanding of race in the early modern context by moving beyond those framings that primarily racialize black and indigenous subjects without considering the ways in which whiteness was constructed and necessarily operated as a racial category across time and space. We will also explore the disciplinary and methodological frameworks we apply to our enquiry into the early modern world.

Schedule of Meetings & Readings

We will meet on Fridays at 12pm, via Zoom, until it is possible to hold safe in-person meetings. Links to readings and video meetings will be sent via e-mail by the working group organizers.