Department of English

Topic: Anti-Racist Feminist Renaissances

*Meets with REN R520*

This course explores the theoretical intersections of critical race theory and feminism as they commingle – or do not – in scholarship on the Renaissance.  We will foreground the work of anti-racist and feminist scholars to consider what it means to study the Renaissance (a problematic term we will discuss) in the context of contemporary political movements such as Black Lives Matter and #MeToo.  We will also read a wide sampling of literary texts from the period 1500-1700 exploring the entanglements of race, gender, and sexuality, including Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene (in part), Hester Pulter’s The Unfortunate Florinda, Aphra Behn’s Oroonoko, and John Milton’s Samson Agonistes, among others.