All events take place in Rooms 205/206 of the Moody Center for the Arts at Rice University unless otherwise indicated.
Thursday, October 8, 2026
6:00–8:00 p.m.
Welcome Reception
Room 201
For symposium participants and invited guests
Friday, October 9, 2026
9:00–9:15 a.m.
Welcome and Introductory Remarks
Denva Gallant, Rice University
9:15–10:45 a.m.
Panel 1: Seeing Race Otherwise: Image, Text, and the Making of Difference
Moderator: Farshid Emami, Associate Professor, Rice University
Alexandra Montero Peters, Assistant Professor, Northwestern University
White Indians or Black Indians? Tensions between Text and Image in Medieval Castilian Manuscripts
Jacqueline Lombard, Lecturer, University of New Hampshire
The Role of Whiteness in the Klosterneuburg Portrait of the Black Queen of Sheba
Lamia Balafrej, Associate Professor, UCLA
Race and Ethnicity in Northwest Africa: Toward a Visual History
10:45–11:00 a.m.
Break
11:00 a.m.–12:30 p.m.
Panel 2: Race, Slavery, and Gendered Bodies
Moderator: Judith Brunton, Assistant Professor, Rice University
Angela Zhang, Teaching Assistant, Harvard University
Reading Silences: Slavery, Gender, and Blackness in Late-Medieval Florence
Mathilde Montpetit, PhD Candidate, New York University
Between Song and Silence: The Black Eunuch-Castrato of Cervantes’ Novela del celoso estremeño
Lily Filson, Adjunct Professor, Southeastern Louisiana University
The Queen of Sheba as Sexual Spectacle in Medieval Islamic and Christian Sources
12:30–1:30 p.m.
Lunch
Room 201
For symposium speakers and moderators
1:30–2:45 p.m.
Panel 3: Shimmering, Blushing, and Early Modern Racemaking
Moderator: Andrew Kraebel, Associate Professor, Rice University
Alani Hicks-Bartlett, Assistant Professor, Brown University
Shining (“Shimmering”) Blackness: Empire and Petrarchan Racemaking in Shakespearean Performance
Paul Michael Johnson, Associate Research Professor, Johns Hopkins University
Blackness and Blushing
2:45–3:00 p.m.
Break
3:00–4:30 p.m.
Panel 4: Race, Slavery, and Moral Thought in the Medieval Islamicate World
Moderator: Julia Tomasson, Assistant Professor, Rice University
Craig Perry, Associate Professor, Emory University
Shorthand, Idiom, and Contingency: A History of Blackness in Medieval Egypt
Hannah Barker, Associate Professor, Arizona State University
The Tatars of the Sūdān: Racialization through Comparison in Fourteenth- and Fifteenth-Century Mamluk Texts
Kristina Richardson, Professor, University of Virginia
Abolitionist Writers and Communities in Abbasid Iraq, 950–1100 CE
4:30–4:40 p.m.
Closing Remarks for Day One
Denva Gallant, Rice University
Saturday, October 10, 2026
9:00–9:35 a.m.
Welcome and Screening of Il Moro (The Moor)
Lois Chiles Studio Theater
9:35–10:00 a.m.
Transition to Rooms 205/206
10:00 a.m.–10:30 a.m.
Moderated Exchange: Il Moro (The Moor)
Moderator: Hayley O’Malley, Assistant Professor, Rice University
Daphne Di Cinto, Writer, director, producer of Il Moro
Olivette Otele, Distinguished Research Professor, SOAS University of London; author of Afro-Europeans: A Short History
10:30–10:45 a.m.
Break
10:45 a.m.–12:15 p.m.
Panel 5: African Histories and the Problem of the Medieval
Moderator: Sophie Crawford-Brown, Associate Professor, Rice University
Mariah A-K Bender, PhD Candidate, Rice University
Examining Sovereignty in a Mandinka Epic (1250–1450)
Jeffrey Fleisher, Professor, Rice University
Thoughts on the “Medieval” Swahili in Eastern Africa: What Is Gained by Framing the Swahili Past in a Medieval World?
Stephanie Wynne-Jones, Professor, University of York / University of Cambridge
Invisible Cities: Medieval Concepts of the Global
12:15–1:15 p.m.
Lunch
Room 201
For symposium speakers and moderators
1:15–2:25 p.m.
Panel 6: Blackness, Nature, and Visual Surface
Moderator: Caroline Fache, Associate Professor, Rice University
Dontay M. Givens II, PhD Candidate, New York University
Figura / Natura: Formal Antinomies in the Epiphany
Olivia Dill, Assistant Curator, Baltimore Museum of Art
Black Sheen: Maria Sibylla Merian in Colonial Context
2:25–2:40 p.m.
Break
2:40–3:50 p.m.
Curator Roundtable: Curating Blackness and the Medieval Global
Moderator: Olivia K. Young, Assistant Professor, Rice University
Bryan C. Keene, Associate Professor, Riverside City College
Janet Purdy, Barbara Franke Associate Curator, Textiles, Art Institute of Chicago and Visiting Lecturer, Department of Art History, University of Chicago
3:50–4:05 p.m.
Closing Reflections and Thanks
Denva Gallant, Rice University