Belle da Costa Greene and the Undoing of “Medieval” Studies

Abstract

This essay outlines the current challenges facing medieval studies by focusing on the deployment of “medieval” as a category for knowledge production. It argues that as the field confronts white supremacist medievalism and pushes for a global turn, it exposes the unsustainability of the epistemologies, methodologies, and discourses that have buttressed the formation of the “medieval.” Through an analysis of the “global medieval” archive that Belle da Costa Greene curated at the Morgan Library, this essay also demonstrates how Orientalism still lurks within the global Middle Ages. The essay concludes with an introduction of the ten essays included in this special journal issue, all of which show the ways our push for epistemological progress ultimately undoes medieval studies and other disciplinary formations that have held—or been held by—it.