RaceB4Race
A cross-institutional scholarly community for premodern critical race studies.
Revising the learned society
RaceB4Race started in 2019 as a small research symposium by and for BIPOC scholars working in premodern critical race studies. Now, RaceB4Race is a wide-reaching community of scholars, students, researchers, theater practitioners, curators, librarians, artists, and activists who are looking to the past to imagine different, more inclusive futures.
RaceB4Race is based at Arizona State University but represents and supports scholars and students all over the world. Bridging many traditional disciplinary divides, RaceB4Race creates innovative scholarly dialogues and fosters social change within premodern studies as a whole.
As a model for what a horizontally organized learned society can do for its community, RaceB4Race looks to Arizona State University's charter, measuring ourselves not by whom we exclude, but by whom we include and how they succeed. RaceB4Race demonstrates what it looks like to center BIPOC knowledge, methods of inquiry, curricula, and creative collaborations.
Premodern critical race studies
Premodern critical race studies (PCRS) is an historically grounded and theoretically expansive field of study that considers nascent formations of race—from the ancient to the early modern, and from diverse histories, geographies, and cultures—and underscores how studying this form of race-making in the past is vital to understanding the present moment. By considering the histories of racial formations, PCRS aims to address the systemic inequalities within our modern world as a means of supporting antiracist structures and inclusive futures.
RaceB4Race supports premodern critical race scholars holistically, not only recognizing the importance of their scholarship, but also addressing the unique needs of the scholars involved. This new model of a scholarly society offers professional development, research opportunities, and a network of horizontal support through mentorship programs, teaching resources, community building events opportunities, scholarly publishing, and public-facing publishing.
Symposia
The annual RaceB4Race symposium invites scholars of premodern critical race studies from around the world to discuss and present research on a shared topic. Unlike traditional academic conferences, RaceB4Race is structured to provide equal time for presentations, group discussion, and community building. Established in 2019, RaceB4Race is the leading incubator of research and community in premodern studies.
Programs
Throughlines
Throughlines offers a variety of freely accessible teaching materials to help you incorporate premodern critical race studies into your teaching. Specifically designed for use in higher education, the materials on Throughlines include lectures, pedagogical approaches, exemplar syllabi, classroom discussion models, an annotated bibliography and more.
RaceB4Race executive board
- Patricia Akhimie (Rutgers University, Newark)
- David Sterling Brown (Trinity College)
- Seeta Chaganti (University of California, Davis)
- Urvashi Chakravarty (University of Toronto)
- Ruben Espinosa (Arizona State University)
- Kim F. Hall (Barnard College)
- Jonathan Hsy (George Washington University)
- Farah Karim-Cooper (Shakespeare's Globe)
- Dorothy Kim (Brandeis University)
- Dan-el Padilla Peralta (Princeton University)
- Shokoofeh Rajabzadeh (University of California, Berkeley)
- Scott Manning Stevens (Syracuse University)
- Carla María Thomas (Florida Atlantic University)
- Ayanna Thompson (Arizona State University)
- Cord J. Whitaker (Wellesley College)
