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Titus Andronicus: A Shift From Pure Religious Bias to More Biological Discrimination?
Note: This is sooooo late in the game, but November was a little ridiculous (as it usually is) and it’s now time for me to play catch-up. I actually started this one a lot earlier, but left it as a draft for the longest time. Luckily, I have many more posts to make on more recent books we read, and those will be easier for people to comment on.
“Earlier, we noted that in medieval times there were two distinct though overlapping ways of understanding blackness… The difference between these two is underlined in new ways in the early modern period…. Sub-Saharan Africans are increasingly associated with a lack of religion and culture, and painted as low born” pg. 81
I read the section on Titus Andronicus in Loomba’s book regarding Shakespeare and race. Even after reading it a couple of times, it was hard to figure out where exactly Loomba wanted to go with this particular example. I would say that has less to do with her writing style or her deduction, but rather it is just the natural complexity of the topic that somehow brings up more questions than answers when one delves in it.Talking about racism or racial attitude is always difficult when talking about the past. It is not entirely possible to determine how people felt and dealt with such topics, because values, social structure, and even meanings of words change throughout time.
When I found this quote, it really struck me as to why it was hard to follow. Between the medieval period and the early modern period, the concept of biasness towards those with a darker complexion became more and more discriminatory. While it is still relevant to say that the racism of the time was highly linked to the fierce religious tensions of the time (between Christians, Jews, and Muslims), this quote obviously shows that religious difference became less of a factor as Sub-Saharan Africans were being inherently associated with unfavorable traits. Although these traits are technically something you can pick up – a religion or a particular culture – I believe that at this time people would believe that if a society was “religion-less”, part of it could be blamed on who the actual people were. Blackness was no longer the effect of immorality and whatnot, but rather a possible cause of their behavior.
I know it’s no longer Halloween, but I just saw this costume and thought it was too good to not share! Hope everyone had a great weekend!
Gout Seems To Be A Problem Again
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3292827/Obesity-fuels-return-gout-Number-cases-disease-associated-excess-eating-drinking-jumps-61-four-years.html
I couldn’t help, but post this. It’s not every day you see a picture of Henry VIII on a DailyMail article!
Types of Rights in Envisioning America
“…for god hath given to the tonnes of men a double right to the earth, there is a naturall right & a Civil right…” -pg. 136
This was a quote that really stuck out to me when I first read the Envisioning America book. I know that by this point there was the idea of natural right and civil right – a concept that continues to thrive in modern society. However, it was just very interesting to see a different interpretation of natural right/civil right from what we are usually taught (and how we understand it in today’s context).
In the text, the difference between natural right and civil right was the excuse for why it was fine for the English settlers to take over the land that once belonged to the Native Americans. Although the Native Americans had a natural right to the land – every group was blessed by God with a land they can utilize for their needs – it was the civil right of the English settlers to take over, because the Native Americans were not making full use of their God-given area.
It not only showed that at that time civil right trumped natural right, but it also showed that the settlers believed that they were more civilized then their American counterparts in even the simplest way – making use of the land. The natives were not civilized enough to understand that they were suppose to make the most out of the land they were naturally given. Therefore, the protestant English settlers felt like it was an affront to God to not take advantage of the land, so they had to do what was necessary – based on the ideas of civil right – to right this “wrong” they were seeing.
This was kind of how I interpreted that little tidbit (and the immediate section after). I would love to hear if anyone else was intrigued by the section on natural and civil right. Sadly, I do not remember much about the history of the concept – globalization classes have really turned them into modern political terms for me – so if anyone has any insight, that would be great.
Guide to Fixing The Comment Sections
After a half hour, I have finally figured this comment thing out… I must said it made me really question my ability to use technology now.
For those who may still be confused, here’s a quick guideline to getting it all set up:
Under Default Article Settings, check mark “allow people to post comments on new articles”
Change other settings as you would like and save changes
If you had older posts and would like to open up the comments for those, go to the posts section, click “quick edit” and check mark “allow comments” which is right under the tags section.
Hope this helps anyone who hasn’t been able to figure it out yet!
(P.S. Sorry Prof. Rabin for all of emails notifying you of “new posts” from me… it took a bit of trial and error to figure this one out)