Performing Blackness and Arabness in the Medieval Islamic World
Performing Blackness and Arabness in the Medieval Islamic World
Arabic popular epics (siyar sha‘biyya) that date to roughly the 12th century contain layers of racialized deception and dissimulation: several protagonists in the tales are figured as Black, often unexpectedly and despite being born into Arab families. Recurrently, these heroes are also complicit in schemes in which “white” Arab men dye their skin dark to escape danger or enter proscribed spaces. In conversation with contemporary theories and historiographies of blackface, this talk explores how concepts of Blackness and Arabness were co-constituted in the medieval Islamic context through practices of performance and economic consumption. These practices were not only enshrined in narrative, but also enacted through media such as shadow plays, slaving manuals, and treatises on street arts and chicanery.