Medieval twitter meltdown

[Katrina Gulliver]

Those of you on twitter might have seen a swirling fight among medievalists on twitter this week, (check the hashtag #brightagessowhite). It revolved around a highl-critical review of a book on medieval history, which was commissioned and then spiked by the LA Review of Books, allegedly for being too harsh on the book's racial politics.
The reviewer has posted it now on medium.

The authors of the book in question are highly active academics on twitter, and the saga devolved into the phase of cringing non-apology apologies, the actual "I'll reflect and do better" apology that still wasn't good enough, deleted tweets (by tangentially-involved scholars), and public call-outs (rather than sending an email telling a colleague to tone it down, people post a grandstanding public twitter thread condemning the colleague). There was even a side thread that paying the reviewer a "kill fee" - standard practice in journalism when a commissioned article isn't used - was somehow "violent" because of the word kill......

This kind of stuff is really quite corrosive to academia, I don't personally know the scholars involved and I haven't read the book but yikes.

[downer]

Thanks for the pointer. I think I had seen the book but I hadn't paid attention to it, and hadn't heard about the controversy about the review.

I looked the book up on Amazon and was impressed to see it got 362 reviews. I did try to read Seb Faulk's The Light Ages, from 2020, published by WWNorton, but found it hard going. That has 407 reviews. There is a lot of general interest in these books. I think some of the tension in the scholarly disputes comes from what it takes to made the scholarly debates accessible to a general readership.

Since I'm not a scholar in the area but I am interested in the topic, these trade books are just the kind of thing I like to read.

I don't agree that these disputes are bad for the field of study. They help to bring attention to the issues. They may make medieval studies seem more exciting even.

One disparaging Amazon review of The Bright Agess calls it "Taedium Wokei." I gather from browsing M. Rambaran-Olm's review that their main criticism is that the book isn't progressive enough. It's an area where whatever you say, you are going to get a lot of criticism.

[Katrina Gulliver]

I gather from browsing M. Rambaran-Olm's review that their main criticism is that the book isn't progressive enough. It's an area where whatever you say, you are going to get a lot of criticism.

Yes, and I think the authors themselves (being visible for their anti-racist posts on twitter) rather set themselves up if their book doesn't carry through their stated goals.

It seems the New York Times is now covering the fracas.

I don't agree that these disputes are bad for the field of study. They help to bring attention to the issues. They may make medieval studies seem more exciting even.

In the sense of all publicity being good publicity, you may be right. I find this circular firing squad of subfields, and the online posturing and abuse, would make me steer clear from researching/writing anything in those fields.

[downer]

The editor at the Los Angeles Review of Books must have been a bit naive too, or was at least taking a calculated risk. Rambaran-Olm has a marked history of getting into heated disputes.

[mamselle]

This publication may have been timed for the annual Kalamazoo Medievalists Academy conference, online throughout next week, May 9-14.

This Roundtable on Strategies for Inclusive Pedagogy in the Medieval Classroom, as well as many other sessions on collateral topics, will probably include discussion, references, or citations of it:

   https://icms.confex.com/icms/2022am/meetingapp.cgi/Session/2646

M.

[sinenomine]

This may be timed for the annual Kalamazoo Medievalists Academy conference, online throughout next week, May 9-14.

This Roundtable on Strategies for Inclusion in Teaching Medieval topics, as well as many other sessions,, will probably include discussion, references, or citations of it:

   https://icms.confex.com/icms/2022am/meetingapp.cgi/Session/2646

M.

I was thinking that too, Mamselle.

[Wahoo Redux]

I wonder if Rambaran-Olm would be capable of distilling her attack on the book into a single, cogent thesis statement.

We may have entered a phase of our culture in which white scholars cannot write about anything even approaching racial politics----which I acknowledge as the sort of statement which would get me flamed on Twitter (if I owned such an account to begin with).

[mamselle]

I wonder if Rambaran-Olm would be capable of distilling her attack on the book into a single, cogent thesis statement.

We may have entered a phase of our culture in which white scholars cannot write about anything even approaching racial politics----which I acknowledge as the sort of statement which would get me flamed on Twitter (if I owned such an account to begin with).

Sensitive treatment of a difficult topic by an individual not directly membered in a group targeted for racial or other harassment is possible with an empathic understanding of one's own stance, gaze, limitations, and the need for parallax. With those things, the background of the writer is irrelevant: they can be an accepted ally (best examples, those Gentiles remembered and honored for their work during the Holocaust; those who were willing jailmates with blacks in the Civil Rights struggles of the 50s-60s).

Without those viewpoints and experiences, the writer's background only matters because it clarifies why they keep barging into the room and blundering around with half-baked witticisms and generalities.

If one doesn't understand that, one has placed themselves squarely within the second group.

M.

[marshwiggle]

I wonder if Rambaran-Olm would be capable of distilling her attack on the book into a single, cogent thesis statement.

We may have entered a phase of our culture in which white scholars cannot write about anything even approaching racial politics----which I acknowledge as the sort of statement which would get me flamed on Twitter (if I owned such an account to begin with).

Sensitive treatment of a difficult topic by an individual not directly membered in a group targeted for racial or other harassment is possible with an empathic understanding of one's own stance, gaze, limitations, and the need for parallax. With those things, the background of the writer is irrelevant: they can be an accepted ally (best examples, those Gentiles remembered and honored for their work during the Holocaust; those who were willing jailmates with blacks in the Civil Rights struggles of the 50s-60s).

Without those viewpoints and experiences, the writer's background only matters because it clarifies why they keep barging into the room and blundering around with half-baked witticisms and generalities.

If one doesn't understand that, one has placed themselves squarely within the second group.

M.

How is it that the insights (or lack thereof) won't be apparent from the writing itself? If two people made identical comments, how can one be "right" and one be "wrong" based entirely on their pedigree? And if that's the case, the "author bio" on a book jacket effectively becomes more important than the book itself, since the contents cannot be properly understood without it.

[Wahoo Redux]

Sensitive treatment of a difficult topic by an individual not directly membered in a group targeted for racial or other harassment is possible with an empathic understanding of one's own stance, gaze, limitations, and the need for parallax.

<snip>

Without those viewpoints and experiences, the writer's background only matters because it clarifies why they keep barging into the room and blundering around with half-baked witticisms and generalities.

If one doesn't understand that, one has placed themselves squarely within the second group.

M.

Okay...

So you are saying that one must be aware of the effect of one's own Gaze (Berger and Mulvey, I believe you are referring to) when commenting on some aspect of a historically marginalized group?

I wouldn't say that that is controversial.

Do I understand you correctly?

[hungry_ghost]

The editor at the Los Angeles Review of Books must have been a bit naive too, or was at least taking a calculated risk. Rambaran-Olm has a marked history of getting into heated disputes.

Or just hubris.

[ciao_yall]

The point of the review, as I read it was...

1) Thank you for trying to bring more perspective to the Middle/Dark Ages
2) But you still made the same mistake every other White guy makes, which is to stick to the same general assumed narrative but casually mentioning women and people of color, so... Thanks? I guess? For trying?
3) Your book doesn't really add much to the canon. But whatevs. Here's a participation trophy.

[Parasaurolophus]

It seems like a fine review to me. It's critical, sure, but it sounds to me like it's being pretty fair to the book. If the authors hadn't emphasized that they were trying to counteract the 'whiteness' of European history, it probably wouldn't have come in for quite such strong criticism, but you have to evaluate a work based on its goals. It sounds like they mostly missed the mark, and that's too bad, but it's worth pointing out.

It's not that the authors weren't "woke" enough (ugh, I hate that word). It's that they claim to be doing something which they only ever gesture at in a cursory fashion.

[Hegemony]

One aspect I find interesting is Rambaran-Olm's statement that the lack of footnotes is evidence of white privilege. White scholars can get by with not citing their sources because they are presumed to be authoritative in ways that minority scholars would not be, is the reasoning as I understand it.

I don't understand why the Los Angeles Review of Books would commission a review (the replacement review) from someone who had already reviewed the book for another outlet (Slate). I'd guess that someone forgot to check, but heads will roll.

The claim that they are all in cahoots because the authors and the reviewer have the same agent is pretty weak. I guess the implication is that the agent pressured the reviewer to give a good review to his other client's book? I think it's very unlikely that the agent even knew the reviewer was taking on this review; the compensation for writing reviews is too minuscule for agents to pay attention.

Most scholars in the field would not touch the entire fracas with a ten-foot pole.

Probably the most publicity the Los Angeles Review of Books has gotten in many a long year.

[downer]

One aspect I find interesting is Rambaran-Olm's statement that the lack of footnotes is evidence of white privilege. White scholars can get by with not citing their sources because they are presumed to be authoritative in ways that minority scholars would not be, is the reasoning as I understand it.

That seems to indicate a lack of understanding what a trade book is meant to be. If you are aiming for a general readership, then you don't have footnotes. It is not trying to be a scholarly work as such.

I got the audiobook yesterday. It comes with a 25-page PDF of "further reading" organized by chapter.

I don't think it is possible to know if a book review is fair unless you've read the book. I'm inclined to think the reviewer's criticisms are more along the lines of "this is not the book I would have written." Any book that is attempting as large a project of recounting the history of half the world over 1000+ years is going to be very oversimplified and is going to be highly selective about what it includes.

The Guardian gave it a mostly positive review back in January, also noting that it didn't do everything it could have.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/jan/09/the-bright-ages-by-matthew-gabriele-and-david-perry-review-the-colourful-side-of-the-dark-ages