Arthur from the Margins: Race, Equity, and Justice in Arthurian Studies

These past two years have given us an unprecedented number of occurrences, domestic and international, that remind us that conversations centered on race, hate, and bigotry—and their impact on civility and human decency—must never end. As we assemble this special issue of Arthuriana, parts of the world watch another tumultuous crisis in the Middle East, just as we embark on the one-year anniversary of witnessing the type of police savagery that remains unceasing throughout much of the United States. We also write at the mark of the one-hundred-year anniversary of the Tulsa Massacre, where white mobs decimated a wealthy Black community, not only causing human casualties and structural damage, but also inciting an economic depression that continues to disenfranchise vulnerable populations a century later. These incidents are the byproduct of hate and are abounding; they serve as a reminder of the shared (inadvertently or otherwise) experiences that impact and resonate with not only the voices and perspectives represented in this issue, but also with the voices of the readership—past, present, and future.

These instances, some of which move beyond the concept of race but dwell comfortably in the neighborhood of hate and intolerance, illuminate the need to transect race with matters of justice and equity. Undeniably, legitimate conversations about racial disparity instinctively implicate justice and equity. For example: we need not look far into our own institutions, communities—or even personal lives—to find examples or vestiges of inequity and injustice that existed well before, and are likely exacerbated by, the Covid-19 pandemic. While our very own personal contexts and environments determine how we come to define what is just and equitable, we must also take into consideration that these instances, named or otherwise, never occur in silos—the deleterious effects of all forms of hate and oppression these past few years, decades, and centuries, are far-reaching and have been petrified in most, if not all, social and political systems in which we are all a part. And thus, we compile this issue at ‘this moment’ with a clear understanding that ‘this moment’ has always been and will always subsist and that the occasion to speak of the ills of systemic disparity is invariable.

Why arthur and race

The conceptual framework around the idea of race in the Middle Ages continues to be a contentious topic that either inspires or suppresses difficult discourse among audiences. An early documented account of this contention appears in a 2001 issue of the Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies in which historian William Chester Jordan, in response to the issue’s bounded approach to race, posed the question, ‘what body of texts is subjected to racial analysis?’¹ Since that inquiry, scholars have proven quite thoughtfully that large bodies of work in the Middle Ages can lend themselves to critical analysis through the lens of race, particularly by extending the parameters of how race is defined and constructed. As Geraldine Heng points out, ‘For discussions of race, the terms and conditions set by this narrative of bifurcated polarities vested in modernity-as-origin have meant that the tenacity, duration, and malleability of race, racial practices, and racial institutions have failed to be adequately understood or recognized.’² The articles in this issue invite readers to recognize the malleability of race through the ways their content talks past the black/white binary and engages critical interrogation of ‘racial practices’ that range from religious discrimination to environmental terrorism.

We expect conversations about race in the Middle Ages and its contemporary associations, presented in this issue, will continue to challenge readers and practitioners in the field who resist seeing the time period and its contents as capable of producing racialized subjects and trajectories. Thomas Hahn’s assertion that ‘On occasion, the Middle Ages has been presented as a staging area, where some early symptoms or traces of later conflicts and categories of difference—that is, Real History—may be glimpsed,’ is especially pointed as scholars continue to uncover overwhelming evidence of medieval racism.³ A clear example of...