Of Saxons and spectres

Abstract

ABSTRACT This note speculates on the possibility of re-assessing the form of medieval studies by seeing the discipline through the intersection of race and spectrality. I posit that for much of its history, medieval studies has been informed by race in ways that are spectral: visible, but fleeting. This analogy illustrates the uncanny hold medievalisms and medieval imaginaries have over Western psyches. I propose a counter-history as a move towards understanding and subverting the demands of this version of a medieval past. This note offers a brief critical reading of W. E. B. Du Bois’ use of the language of the ghostly and the spectral in terms of national guilt about slavery. More importantly, I highlight the broader possibility of using the hard-won perspectives of Black authors to see past white innocence and white chivalry to construct a different epistemological apparatus around what the past might signify.