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M. Lindsay Kaplan expands the study of the history of racism through an analysis of the medieval Christian concept of Jewish servitude. Developed through exegetical readings of Biblical figures in canon law, this discourse produces a racial status of hereditary inferiority that justifies the subordination not only of Jews, but of Muslims and Africans as well.
List of contents
- Acknowledgements
- List of Illustrations
- Introduction
- Chapter One: Servitus Judaeorum: Biblical Figures, Canon Law and the
- Construction of Hereditary Inferiority
- Chapter Two: The Mark of Cain and Embodying Inferiority
- Chapter Three: Making Darkness Visible: The Colors of Subjection in Medieval English Psalter Illuminations
- Chapter Four: Jewish Ham: Developing a Discourse of Hereditary Inferiority
- Chapter Five: Cain, Ham and Ishmael: The African Travels of Perpetual Servitude
- Coda
About the author
M. Lindsay Kaplan is Professor of English at Georgetown University where she teaches courses on representations of race and religion in early modern drama. She authored The Culture of Slander in Early Modern England, numerous essays on The Merchant of Venice and produced an edition of the play in the Bedford/St. Martin's Texts and Contexts series.
Summary
M. Lindsay Kaplan expands the study of the history of racism through an analysis of the medieval Christian concept of Jewish servitude. Developed through exegetical readings of Biblical figures in canon law, this discourse produces a racial status of hereditary inferiority that justifies the subordination not only of Jews, but of Muslims and Africans as well.
Additional text
M. Lindsay Kaplan's account is spot on. It details how supersessionist understandings of the relation between Christanity and Judaism are linked to figural readings of the Bible and to the Church doctrine of inherited Jewish inferiority that modeled and flowed into so-called 'modern' racism. It will help us better understand the links between anti-semitism and other forms of racism at a time when such understandings are desperately needed indeed.
