The Program in Medieval Studies is excited to partner with the Program in Jewish Culture & Society and the Unit for Criticism & Interpretive Theory to welcome Professor Geraldine Heng (University of Texas at Austin) to the University of Illinois on January 26. Professor Heng will deliver the Krouse Family Visiting Scholar in Judaism and Western Culture Fund lecture, entitled "Race Before the Modern Era: 'Presentism,' 'Intersectionality,' and the Politics of Keywords" on January 26th, 2023, at 5:15 PM in 300 Levis Faculty Center.
Geraldine Heng holds an endowed chair in English and Comparative Literature, along with appointments in Middle Eastern Studies, Women's Studies, Jewish Studies, and the Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Social Justice. She is a Fellow of the Medieval Academy of America and the author of numerous books, including The Invention of Race in the European Middle Ages (2018), which won four books prizes. An excerpt from that book was adapted for the Cambridge Elements series as England and the Jews: How Religion and Violence Created the First Racial State in the West (2019). Her most recent book is The Global Middle Ages: An Introduction (2021).